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+Project Gutenberg's "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by Floyd Gibbons
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "And they thought we wouldn't fight"
+
+Author: Floyd Gibbons
+
+Release Date: January 26, 2010 [EBook #31086]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Christine Aldridge, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribers Notes
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
+3. Minor printers errors have been corrected. A detailed list can be
+   found at the end of this text.
+4. Text spelling was common at the time of its publication.
+5. All dialect spelling has been retained.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"AND THEY THOUGHT WE WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+                      FLOYD GIBBONS
+
+[Illustration: FLOYD GIBBONS]
+
+
+
+
+                "AND THEY THOUGHT
+                WE WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+                       BY
+
+                  FLOYD GIBBONS
+
+  OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENT OF _THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE_,
+  ACCREDITED TO THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+
+
+                     NEW YORK
+
+                  [Illustration]
+
+              GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+                _Copyright, 1918,_
+           _By George H. Doran Company_
+
+
+
+
+      _Printed in the United States of America_
+
+
+
+
+                        TO
+
+              GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING
+
+                       AND
+
+         THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+
+    I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS INADEQUATE RECORD
+                IN REVERENT MEMORY OF
+                  OUR SACRED DEAD
+                ON FIELDS IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+                   ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+        The author expresses his hearty thanks to
+        _The Chicago Tribune_ for the opportunity
+        he enjoyed as a correspondent of that paper,
+        in the service of which he secured the
+        material for these papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+    Personal.
+              AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+             OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
+
+                                         France, August 17, 1918.
+
+
+    Mr. Floyd Gibbons,
+      Care Chicago Tribune,
+        420 Sue Saint-Honore,
+           P a r i s.
+
+    Dear Mr. Gibbons:
+
+        At this time, when you are returning to America, I wish to
+    express to you my appreciation of the cordial cooperation and
+    assistance you have always given us in your important work as
+    correspondent of the Chicago Tribune in France. I also wish to
+    congratulate you on the honor which the French government has
+    done you in giving you the Croix de Guerre, which is but a just
+    reward for the consistent devotion to your duty and personal
+    bravery that you have exhibited.
+
+        My personal regrets that you are leaving us at this time are
+    lessened by the knowledge of the great opportunity you will have
+    of giving to our people in America a true picture of the work of
+    the American soldier in France and of impressing on them the
+    necessity of carrying on this work to the end, which can be
+    accomplished only by victory for the Allied arms. You have a
+    great opportunity, and I am confident that you will grasp it, as
+    you have grasped your past opportunities, with success. You have
+    always played the game squarely and with courage, and I wish to
+    thank you.
+
+                 Sincerely yours,
+
+                            John J. Pershing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                       G. Q. G. A. le July 28, 1918.
+
+    COMMANDEMENT EN CHEF
+      DES ARMÉES ALLIES
+        LE GÉNÉRAL
+
+
+    MONSIEUR,
+
+      I understand that you are going to the United States
+    to give lectures on what you have seen on the French front.
+
+      No one is more qualified than you to do this, after your
+    brilliant conduct in the Bois de Belleau.
+
+      The American Army has proved itself to be magnificent
+    in spirit, in gallantry and in vigor; it has contributed largely
+    to our successes. If you can thus be the echo of my opinion
+    I am sure you will serve a good purpose.
+
+                          Very sincerely yours,
+
+                                         (_Signed_) F. FOCH.
+
+    MONSIEUR FLOYD GIBBONS,
+      War Correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                      G.Q.G.A. _Le_ 28 Juillet 1918.
+
+    _Commandement en Chef_
+      _des Armies Allies_
+        _Le Général_
+
+
+           Monsieur,
+
+
+          Je sais que vous allez donner des conférences aux
+    Etats-Unis pour raconter ce que vous avez vu sur le front
+    français.
+
+          Personne n'est plus qualifié que vous pour le faire,
+    après votre brillante conduite au Bois BELLEAU.
+
+          L'Armée Américaine se montre magnifique de sentiments,
+    de valeur et d'entrain, elle a contribué pour une large part
+    à nos succès. Si vous pouvez être l'écho de mon opinion, je
+    n'y verrai qu'avantage.
+
+          Croyez, Monsieur, à mes meilleurs sentiments.
+
+
+                                F. Foch
+
+  Monsieur FLOYD GIBBONS
+Correspondant de Guerre du CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+         GRAND QUARTIER GÉNÉRAL
+    DES ARMÉES DU NORD ET DU NORD EST
+               ETAT-MAJOR
+           BUREAU DU PERSONNEL
+             (Decorations)
+
+                                                    ORDER NO. 8809 D
+
+
+      The General Commander-in-Chief Cites for the _Croix
+    de Guerre_
+
+      M. FLOYD GIBBONS, War Correspondent of the Chicago
+    _Tribune_:
+
+      "Has time after time given proof of his courage and bravery by
+    going to the most exposed posts to gather information. On June 5,
+    1918, while accompanying a regiment of marines who were attacking
+    a wood, he was severely wounded by three machine gun bullets in
+    going to the rescue of an American officer wounded near
+    him--demonstrating, by this action, the most noble devotion.
+    When, a few hours later, he was lifted and transported to the
+    dressing station, he begged not to be cared for until the wounded
+    who had arrived before him had been attended to."
+
+                 General Headquarters, August 2, 1918
+                     THE GENERAL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
+                                       (_Signed_) PETAIN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+       GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL
+    DES ARMÉES DU NORD ET DU NORD-EST
+
+             ETAT-MAJOR
+
+         BUREAU DU PERSONNEL
+            (Décorations)
+
+                                        ORDRE No 8809 D
+
+
+    Le Général Commandant en Chef Cite à l'Ordre de l'Armée:
+
+
+        _M. FLOYD GIBBONS_, Correspondant de Guerre du Chicago Tribune:
+
+        "A donné à maintes reprises des preuves de courage et de
+    bravoure, en allant recueillir des informations aux postes les
+    plus exposés. Le 5 Juin 1918, accompagnant un régiment de
+    Fusiliers marins qui attaquait un bois, a été très grièvement
+    atteint de trois balles de mitrailleuses en se portant au secours
+    d'un officier américain blessé à ses côtés, faisant ainsi preuve,
+    en cette circonstance, du plus beau dévouement. Relevé plusieurs
+    heures après et transporté au poste de secours, a demandé à ne
+    pas être soigné avant les blessés arrivés avant lui."
+
+             Au Grand Quartier Général, le 2 Aout 1918.
+                   LE GÉNÉRAL COMMANDANT EN CHEF.
+
+                                    Petain
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayonets, has written that
+no man is more qualified than Gibbons to tell the true story of the
+Western Front. General Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Forces, has said that it was Gibbons' great opportunity to
+give the people in America a life-like picture of the work of the
+American soldier in France.
+
+The key to the book is the man.
+
+Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came from Pancho Villa that
+any "Gringos" found in Mexico would be killed on sight. The American
+people were interested in the Revolution at the border. Gibbons went
+into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff. He did more. He
+fitted out a box car, attached it to the revolutionary bandits' train
+and was in the thick of three of Villa's biggest battles. Gibbons
+brought out of Mexico the first authoritative information on the Mexican
+situation. The following year the War Department accredited him to
+General Pershing's punitive expedition and he rode with the flying
+column led by General Pershing when it crossed the border.
+
+In 1917, the then Imperial German Government announced to the world that
+on and after February 1st its submarines would sink without warning any
+ship that ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of the
+North Atlantic.
+
+Gibbons sensed the meaning of this impudent challenge. He saw ahead the
+overt act that was bound to come and be the cause of the United States
+entering the war. In these days the cry of "Preparedness" was echoing
+the land. England had paid dearly for her lack of preparedness. The
+inefficient volunteer system had cost her priceless blood. The _Chicago
+Tribune_ sought the most available newspaper man to send to London and
+write the story of England's costly mistakes for the profit of the
+American people. Gibbons was picked for the mission and arrangement was
+made for him to travel on the steamer by which the discredited Von
+Bernstorff was to return to Germany. The ship's safe conduct was
+guaranteed. Gibbons did not like this feature of the trip. He wanted to
+ride the seas in a ship without guarantees. His mind was on the overt
+act. He wanted to be on the job when it happened. He cancelled the
+passage provided for him on the Von Bernstorff ship and took passage on
+the largest liner in port, a ship large enough to be readily seen
+through a submarine periscope and important enough to attract the
+special attention of the German Admiralty. He sailed on the _Laconia_,
+an eighteen thousand ton Cunarder.
+
+On the night of February 27, 1917, when the _Laconia_ was two hundred
+miles off the coast of Ireland, the Gibbons' "hunch" was fulfilled. The
+_Laconia_ was torpedoed and suck. After a perilous night in a small boat
+on the open sea, Gibbons was rescued and brought into Queenstown. He
+opened the cables and flashed to America the most powerful call to arms
+to the American people. It shook the country. It was the testimony of an
+eye witness and it convinced the Imperial German Government, beyond all
+reasonable doubt, of the wilful and malicious murder of American
+citizens. The Gibbons story furnished the proof of the overt act and it
+was unofficially admitted at Washington that it was the determining
+factor in sending America into the war one month later.
+
+Gibbons greeted Pershing on the latter's landing in Liverpool. He
+accompanied the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces across
+the Channel and was at his side when he put foot on French soil. He was
+one of the two American correspondents to march with the first American
+troops that entered the trenches on the Western front. He was with the
+first American troops to cross the German frontier. He was with the
+artillery battalion that fired the first American shell into Germany.
+
+On June 6th, 1918, Gibbons went "over the top" with the first waves in
+the great battle of the Bois de Belleau. Gibbons was with Major John
+Berry, who, while leading the charge, fell wounded. Gibbons saw him
+fall. Through the hail of lead from a thousand spitting machine guns, he
+rushed to the assistance of the wounded Major. A German machine gun
+bullet shot away part of his left shoulder, but this did not stop
+Gibbons. Another bullet smashed through his arm, but still Gibbons kept
+on. A third bullet got him. It tore out his left eye and made a compound
+fracture of the skull. For three hours he lay conscious on the open
+field in the Bois de Belleau with a murderous machine gun fire playing a
+few inches over his head until under cover of darkness he was able to
+crawl off the field. For his gallant conduct he received a citation from
+General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies, and the French
+Government awarded him the Croix de Guerre with the Palm.
+
+On July 5th, he was out of the hospital and back at the front, covering
+the first advance of the Americans with the British forces before
+Amiens. On July 18th he was the only correspondent with the American
+troops when they executed the history-making drive against the German
+armies in the Château-Thierry salient--the beginning of the German end.
+He rode with the first detachment of American troops that entered
+Château-Thierry upon the heels of the retreating Germans.
+
+Floyd Gibbons was the first to sound the alarm of the danger of the
+German peace offensive. Six weeks before the drive for a negotiated
+peace was made by the German Government against the home flank in
+America, Gibbons told that it was on the way. He crossed the Atlantic
+with his crippled arm in a sling and his head bandaged, to spend his
+convalescence warning American audiences against what he called the
+"Crooked Kamerad Cry."
+
+Gibbons has lived the war, he has been a part of it. "And They Thought
+We Wouldn't Fight" is the voice of our men in France.
+
+                                                  FRANK COMERFORD.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I THE SINKING OF THE _Laconia_                                  17
+
+    II PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE                                 43
+
+    III THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE      61
+
+    IV THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR                                    78
+
+    V MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS                               96
+
+    VI "FRONTWARD HO!"                                             117
+
+    VII INTO THE LINE--THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR          134
+
+    VIII THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR                                 158
+
+    IX THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE                                182
+
+    X INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH                         199
+
+    XI UNDER FIRE                                                  217
+
+    XII BEFORE CANTIGNY                                            235
+
+    XIII THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS--"ZERO AT 2 A. M."                251
+
+    XIV ON LEAVE IN PARIS                                          266
+
+    XV CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU                     283
+
+    XVI WOUNDED--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT                           305
+
+    XVII "GOOD MORNING, NURSE"                                     323
+
+    XVIII GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL                  338
+
+    XIX "JULY 18TH"--THE TURN OF THE TIDE                          354
+
+    XX THE DAWN OF VICTORY                                         376
+
+    APPENDIX
+
+    PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE       399
+
+
+
+
+                              ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    FLOYD GIBBONS                                        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+    THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING,
+    MR. PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD
+    DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS                                         50
+
+    GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS                   50
+
+    THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL                          66
+
+    THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE                                     66
+
+    CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING
+    AMERICAN OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE POUNDER                122
+
+    IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE
+    VESLE THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND
+    WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO RESPECT AMERICA.
+    THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY,
+    LIKE A STEAM ROLLER                                            122
+
+    GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICANS KILLED IN FRANCE. TRANSLATION:
+    HERE LIE THE FIRST SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT
+    REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FALLEN
+    ON FRENCH SOIL FOR JUSTICE AND FOR LIBERTY, NOVEMBER
+    3RD, 1918                                                      170
+
+    FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
+    AT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY
+    TANKS, KNOWN AS CHARS D'ASSAUTS, ENTERING THE
+    WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS               226
+
+    YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
+    WHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY THE YANKS
+    TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS                     226
+
+    MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON
+    ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS                                 274
+
+    BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
+    DESTROYED BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM
+    TOWN                                                           274
+
+    HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED,
+    SHOWING DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL                              314
+
+    THE NEWS FROM THE STATES                                       346
+
+    SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS                              346
+
+    (_Photographs Copyright by Committee on Public Information._)
+
+
+
+
+"AND THEY THOUGHT WE
+  WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE SINKING OF THE _Laconia_
+
+
+Between America and the firing line, there are three thousand miles of
+submarine infested water. Every American soldier, before encountering
+the dangers of the battle-front, must first overcome the dangers of the
+deep.
+
+Geographically, America is almost four thousand miles from the war zone,
+but in fact every American soldier bound for France entered the war zone
+one hour out of New York harbour. Germany made an Ally out of the dark
+depths of the Atlantic.
+
+That three-thousand-mile passage represented greater possibilities for
+the destruction of the United States overseas forces than any
+strategical operation that Germany's able military leaders could direct
+in the field.
+
+Germany made use of that three thousand miles of water, just as she
+developed the use of barbed wire entanglements along the front. Infantry
+advancing across No Man's Land were held helpless before the enemy's
+fire by barbed wire entanglements. Germany, with her submarine policy of
+ruthlessness, changed the Atlantic Ocean into another No Man's Land
+across which every American soldier had to pass at the mercy of the
+enemy before he could arrive at the actual battle-front.
+
+This was the peril of the troop ship. This was the tremendous advantage
+which the enemy held over our armies even before they reached the field.
+This was the unprecedented condition which the United States and Allied
+navies had to cope with in the great undertaking of transporting our
+forces overseas.
+
+Any one who has crossed the ocean, even in the normal times before
+shark-like Kultur skulked beneath the water, has experienced the feeling
+of human helplessness that comes in mid-ocean when one considers the
+comparative frailty of such man-made devices as even the most modern
+turbine liners, with the enormous power of the wilderness of water over
+which one sails.
+
+In such times one realises that safety rests, first upon the kindliness
+of the elements; secondly, upon the skill and watchfulness of those
+directing the voyage, and thirdly, upon the dependability of such
+human-made things as engines, propellers, steel plates, bolts and
+rivets.
+
+But add to the possibilities of a failure or a misalliance of any or all
+of the above functions, the greater danger of a diabolical human, yet
+inhuman, interference, directed against the seafarer with the purpose
+and intention of his destruction. This last represents the greatest odds
+against those who go to sea during the years of the great war.
+
+A sinking at sea is a nightmare. I have been through one. I have been on
+a ship torpedoed in mid-ocean. I have stood on the slanting decks of a
+doomed liner; I have listened to the lowering of the life-boats, heard
+the hiss of escaping steam and the roar of ascending rockets as they
+tore lurid rents in the black sky and cast their red glare o'er the
+roaring sea.
+
+I have spent a night in an open boat on the tossing swells. I have been
+through, in reality, the mad dream of drifting and darkness and bailing
+and pulling on the oars and straining aching eyes toward an empty,
+meaningless horizon in search of help. I shall try to tell you how it
+feels.
+
+I had been assigned by _The Chicago Tribune_ to go to London as their
+correspondent. Almost the same day I received that assignment, the
+"Imperial" Government of Germany had invoked its ruthless submarine
+policy, had drawn a blockade zone about the waters of the British Isles
+and the coasts of France, and had announced to the world that its
+U-boats would sink without warning any ship, of any kind, under any
+flag, that tried to sail the waters that Germany declared prohibitory.
+
+In consideration of my personal safety and, possibly, of my future
+usefulness, the _Tribune_ was desirous of arranging for me a safe
+passage across the Atlantic. Such an opportunity presented itself in the
+ordered return of the disgraced and discredited German Ambassador to the
+United States, Count von Bernstorff.
+
+Under the rules of International courtesy, a ship had been provided for
+the use of von Bernstorff and his diplomatic staff. That ship was to
+sail under absolute guarantees of safe conduct from all of the nations
+at war with Germany and, of course, it would also have been safe from
+attack by German submarines. That ship was the _Frederick VIII_. At
+considerable expense the _Tribune_ managed to obtain for me a cabin
+passage on that ship.
+
+I can't say that I was over-impressed with the prospect of travel in
+such company. I disliked the thought that I, an American citizen, with
+rights as such to sail the sea, should have to resort to subterfuge and
+scheming to enjoy those rights. There arose in me a feeling of challenge
+against Germany's order which forbade American ships to sail the ocean.
+I cancelled my sailing on the _Frederick VIII_.
+
+In New York, I sought passage on the first American ship sailing for
+England. I made the rounds of the steamship offices and learned that the
+Cunard liner _Laconia_ was the first available boat and was about to
+sail. She carried a large cargo of munitions and other materials of war.
+I booked passage aboard her. It was on Saturday, February 17th, 1917,
+that we steamed away from the dock at New York and moved slowly down the
+East River. We were bound for Liverpool, England. My cabin accommodations
+were good. The _Laconia_ was listed at 18,000 tons and was one of the
+largest Cunarders in the Atlantic service. The next morning we were out
+of sight of land.
+
+Sailors were stationed along the decks of the ship and in the look-outs
+at the mast heads. They maintained a watch over the surface of the sea
+in all directions. On the stern of the ship, there was mounted a
+six-inch cannon and a crew of gunners stood by it night and day.
+
+Submarines had been recently reported in the waters through which we
+were sailing, but we saw none of them and apparently they saw none of
+us. They had sunk many ships, but all of the sinkings had been in the
+day time. Consequently, there was a feeling of greater safety at night.
+The _Laconia_ sailed on a constantly zig-zagging course. All of our
+life-boats were swinging out over the side of the ship, so that if we
+were hit they could be lowered in a hurry. Every other day the
+passengers and the crew would be called up on the decks to stand by the
+life-boats that had been assigned to them.
+
+The officers of the ship instructed us in the life-boat drill. They
+showed us how to strap the life-preservers about our bodies; they showed
+us how to seat ourselves in the life-boats; they showed us a small keg
+of water and some tin cans of biscuits, a lantern and some flares that
+were stored in the boat, and so we sailed along day after day without
+meeting any danger. At night, all of the lights were put out and the
+ship slipped along through the darkness.
+
+On Sunday, after we had been sailing for eight days, we entered the zone
+that had been prohibited by the Kaiser. We sailed into it full steam
+ahead and nothing happened. That day was February the twenty-fifth. In
+the afternoon, I was seated in the lounge with two friends. One was an
+American whose name was Kirby; the other was a Canadian and his name was
+Dugan. The latter was an aviator in the British army. In fights with
+German aeroplanes high over the Western Front he had been wounded and
+brought down twice and the army had sent him to his home in Canada to
+get well. He was returning once more to the battle front "to stop
+another bullet," as he said.
+
+As we talked, I passed around my cigarette case and Dugan held a lighted
+match while the three of us lighted our cigarettes from it. As Dugan
+blew out the match and placed the burnt end in an ash tray, he laughed
+and said,
+
+"They say it is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match,
+but I think it is good luck for me. I used to do it frequently with my
+flying partners in France and four of them have been killed, but I am
+still alive."
+
+"That makes it all right for you," said Kirby, "but it makes it look bad
+for Gibbons and myself. But nothing is going to happen. I don't believe
+in superstitions."
+
+That night after dinner Dugan and I took a brisk walk around the
+darkened promenade deck of the _Laconia_. The night was very dark, a
+stiff wind was blowing and the _Laconia_ was rolling slightly in the
+trough of the waves. Wet from spray, we returned within and in one of
+the corridors met the Captain of the ship. I told him that I would like
+very much to have a look at his chart and learn our exact location on
+the ocean.
+
+He looked at me and laughed because that was a very secret matter. But
+he replied:
+
+"Oh, you would, would you?" and his voice carried that particular
+British intonation that seemed to say, "Well it is jolly well none of
+your business."
+
+Then I asked him when he thought we would land in Liverpool.
+
+"I really don't know," said the ship's commander, and then, with a wink,
+he added, "but my steward told me that we would get in Tuesday evening."
+
+Kirby and I went to the smoke room on the boat deck well to the stern of
+the ship. We joined a circle of Britishers who were seated in front of a
+coal fire in an open hearth. Nearly every one in the lighted smoke room
+was playing cards, so that the conversation was practically confined to
+the mentioning of bids and the orders of drinks from the stewards.
+
+"What do you think are our chances of being torpedoed?" was the question
+I put before the circle in front of the fireplace.
+
+The deliberative Mr. Henry Chetham, a London solicitor, was the first to
+answer.
+
+"Well," he drawled, "I should say about four thousand to one."
+
+Lucien J. Jerome of the British Diplomatic Service, returning with an
+Ecuadorian valet from South America, advanced his opinion.
+
+I was much impressed with his opinion because the speaker himself had
+impressed me deeply. He was the best monocle juggler I had ever met. In
+his right eye he carried a monocle without a rim and without a ribbon
+or thread to save it, should it ever have fallen from his eye.
+
+Repeatedly during the trip, I had seen Mr. Jerome standing on the
+hurrideck of the _Laconia_ facing the wind but holding the glass disk in
+his eye with a muscular grip that must have been vise-like. I had even
+followed him around the deck several times in a desire to be present
+when the monocle blew out, but the British diplomatist never for once
+lost his grip on it. I had come to the opinion that the piece of glass
+was fixed to his eye and that he slept with it. After the fashion of the
+British Diplomatic Service, he expressed his opinion most affirmatively.
+
+"Nonsense," he said with reference to Mr. Chetham's estimate. "Utter
+nonsense. Considering the zone that we are in and the class of the ship,
+I should put the chances down at two hundred and fifty to one that we
+don't meet a 'sub.'"
+
+At that minute the torpedo hit us.
+
+Have you ever stood on the deck of a ferry boat as it arrived in the
+slip? And have you ever experienced the slight sideward shove when the
+boat rubs against the piling and comes to a stop? That was the
+unmistakable lurch we felt, but no one expects to run into pilings in
+mid-ocean, so every one knew what it was.
+
+At the same time, there came a muffled noise--not extremely loud nor yet
+very sharp--just a noise like the slamming of some large oaken door a
+good distance away. Realising that we had been torpedoed, my imagination
+was rather disappointed at the slightness of the shock and the meekness
+of the report. One or two chairs tipped over, a few glasses crashed from
+table to floor and in an instant every man in the room was on his feet.
+
+"We're hit," shouted Mr. Chetham.
+
+"That's what we've been waiting for," said Mr. Jerome.
+
+"What a lousy torpedo!" said Mr. Kirby. "It must have been a fizzer."
+
+I looked at my watch; it was 10:30.
+
+Five sharp blasts sounded on the _Laconia's_ whistle. Since that night,
+I have often marvelled at the quick coordination of mind and hand that
+belonged to the man on the bridge who pulled that whistle rope. Those
+five blasts constituted the signal to abandon the ship. Every one
+recognised them.
+
+We walked hurriedly down the corridor leading from the smoke room in the
+stern to the lounge which was amidships. We moved fast but there was no
+crowding and no panic. Passing the open door of the gymnasium, I became
+aware of the list of the vessel. The floor of the gymnasium slanted down
+on the starboard side and a medicine ball and dozens of dumb bells and
+Indian clubs were rolling in that direction.
+
+We entered the lounge--a large drawing room furnished with green
+upholstered chairs and divans and small tables on which the after-dinner
+liqueur glasses still rested. In one corner was a grand piano with the
+top elevated. In the centre of the slanting floor of the saloon was a
+cabinet Victrola and from its mahogany bowels there poured the last and
+dying strains of "Poor Butterfly."
+
+The women and several men who had been in the lounge were hurriedly
+leaving by the forward door as we entered. We followed them through. The
+twin winding stairs leading below decks by the forward hatch were dark
+and I brought into play a pocket flashlight shaped like a fountain pen.
+I had purchased it before sailing in view of such an emergency and I
+had always carried it fastened with a clip in an upper vest pocket.
+
+My stateroom was B 19 on the promenade deck, one deck below the deck on
+which was located the smoke room, the lounge and the life-boats. The
+corridor was dimly lighted and the floor had a more perceptible slant as
+I darted into my stateroom, which was on the starboard and sinking side
+of the ship. I hurriedly put on a light non-sink garment constructed
+like a vest, which I had come provided with, and then donned an
+overcoat.
+
+Responding to the list of the ship, the wardrobe door swung open and
+crashed against the wall. My typewriter slid off the dressing table and
+a shower of toilet articles pitched from their places on the washstand.
+I grabbed the ship's life-preserver in my left hand and, with the
+flashlight in my right hand, started up the hatchway to the upper deck.
+
+In the darkness of the boat deck hatchway, the rays of my flashlight
+revealed the chief steward opening the door of a switch closet in the
+panel wall. He pushed on a number of switches and instantly the decks of
+the _Laconia_ became bright. From sudden darkness, the exterior of the
+ship burst into a blaze of light and it was that illumination that saved
+many lives.
+
+The _Laconia's_ engines and dynamos had not yet been damaged. The
+torpedo had hit us well astern on the starboard side and the bulkheads
+seemed to be holding back from the engine room the flood of water that
+rushed in through the gaping hole in the ship's side. I proceeded down
+the boat deck to my station opposite boat No. 10. I looked over the side
+and down upon the water sixty feet below.
+
+The sudden flashing of the lights on the upper deck made the dark
+seething waters seem blacker and angrier. They rose and fell in troubled
+swells.
+
+Steam began to hiss from some of the pipes leading up from the engine
+well. It seemed like a dying groan from the very vitals of the stricken
+ship. Clouds of white and black smoke rolled up from the giant grey
+funnels that towered above us.
+
+Suddenly there was a roaring swish as a rocket soared upward from the
+Captain's bridge, leaving a comet's tail of fire. I watched it as it
+described a graceful arc and then with an audible pop it burst in a
+flare of brilliant colour. Its ascent had torn a lurid rent in the black
+sky and had cast a red glare over the roaring sea.
+
+Already boat No. 10 was loading up and men and boys were busy with the
+ropes. I started to help near a davit that seemed to be giving trouble
+but was sternly ordered to get out of the way and to get into the boat.
+
+Other passengers and members of the crew and officers of the ship were
+rushing to and fro along the deck strapping their life-preservers to
+them as they rushed. There was some shouting of orders but little or no
+confusion. One woman, a blonde French actress, became hysterical on the
+deck, but two men lifted her bodily off her feet and placed her in the
+life-boat.
+
+We were on the port side of the ship, the higher side. To reach the
+boats, we had to climb up the slanting deck to the edge of the ship.
+
+On the starboard side, it was different. On that side, the decks slanted
+down toward the water. The ship careened in that direction and the
+life-boats suspended from the davits swung clear of the ship's side.
+
+The list of the ship increased. On the port side, we looked down the
+slanting side of the ship and noticed that her water line on that side
+was a number of feet above the waves. The slant was so pronounced that
+the life-boats, instead of swinging clear from the davits, rested
+against the side of the ship. From my position in the life-boat I could
+see that we were going to have difficulty in the descent to the water.
+
+"Lower away," some one gave the order and we started downward with a
+jerk toward the seemingly hungry, rising and falling swells. Then we
+stopped with another jerk and remained suspended in mid-air while the
+men at the bow and the stern swore and tusseled with the ropes.
+
+The stern of the boat was down; the bow up, leaving us at an angle of
+about forty-five degrees. We clung to the seats to save ourselves from
+falling out.
+
+"Who's got a knife? A knife! A knife!" shouted a fireman in the bow. He
+was bare to the waist and perspiration stood out in drops on his face
+and chest and made streaks through the coal dust with which his skin was
+grimed.
+
+"Great Gawd! Give him a knife," bawled a half-dressed jibbering negro
+stoker who wrung his hands in the stern.
+
+A hatchet was thrust into my hands and I forwarded it to the bow. There
+was a flash of sparks as it was brought down with a clang on the holding
+pulley. One strand of the rope parted.
+
+Down plunged the bow of the boat too quickly for the men in the stern.
+We came to a jerky stop, this time with the stern in the air and the bow
+down, the dangerous angle reversed.
+
+One man in the stern let the rope race through his blistered fingers.
+With hands burnt to the quick, he grabbed the rope and stopped the
+precipitous descent just in time to bring the stern level with the bow.
+
+Then bow and stern tried to lower away together. The slant of the ship's
+side had increased, so that our boat instead of sliding down it like a
+toboggan was held up on one side when the taffrail caught on one of the
+condenser exhaust pipes projecting slightly from the ship's side.
+
+Thus the starboard side of the life-boat stuck fast and high while the
+port side dropped down and once more we found ourselves clinging on at a
+new angle and looking straight down into the water.
+
+A hand slipped into mine and a voice sounded huskily close to my ear. It
+was the little old Jewish travelling man who was disliked in the smoke
+room because he used to speak too certainly of things about which he was
+uncertain. His slightly Teutonic dialect had made him as popular as the
+smallpox with the British passengers.
+
+"My poy, I can't see nutting," he said. "My glasses slipped and I am
+falling. Hold me, please."
+
+I managed to reach out and join hands with another man on the other side
+of the old man and together we held him in. He hung heavily over our
+arms, grotesquely grasping all he had saved from his stateroom--a
+gold-headed cane and an extra hat.
+
+Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side of the ship and we
+renewed our sagging, scraping, sliding, jerking descent. It ended as the
+bottom of the life-boat smacked squarely on the pillowy top of a rising
+swell. It felt more solid than mid-air at least.
+
+But we were far from being off. The pulleys twice stuck in their
+fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe was passed forward and back
+(and with it my flashlight) as the entangling mesh of ropes that held
+us to the sinking _Laconia_ was cut away.
+
+Some shout from that confusion of sound caused me to look up. I believe
+I really did so in the fear that one of the nearby boats was being
+lowered upon us.
+
+Tin funnels enamelled white and containing clusters of electric bulbs
+hung over the side from one of the upper decks. I looked up into the
+cone of one of these lights and a bulky object shot suddenly out of the
+darkness into the scope of the electric rays.
+
+It was a man. His arms were bent up at the elbows; his legs at the
+knees. He was jumping, with the intention, I feared, of landing in our
+boat, and I prepared to avoid the impact. But he had judged his distance
+well.
+
+He plunged beyond us and into the water three feet from the edge of the
+boat. He sank from sight, leaving a white patch of bubbles and foam on
+the black water. He bobbed to the surface almost immediately.
+
+"It's Dugan," shouted a man next to me.
+
+I flashed a light on the ruddy, smiling face and water plastered hair of
+the little Canadian aviator, our fellow saloon passenger. We pulled him
+over the side and into the boat. He spluttered out a mouthful of water.
+
+"I wonder if there is anything to that lighting three matches off the
+same match," he said. "I was trying to loosen the bow rope in this boat.
+I loosened it and then got tangled up in it. When the boat descended, I
+was jerked up back on the deck. Then I jumped for it. Holy Moses, but
+this water is cold."
+
+As we pulled away from the side of the ship, its receding terraces of
+glowing port holes and deck lights towered above us. The ship was slowly
+turning over.
+
+We were directly opposite the engine room section of the _Laconia_.
+There was a tangle of oars, spars and rigging on the seats in our boat,
+and considerable confusion resulted before we could manage to place in
+operation some of the big oars on either side.
+
+The jibbering, bullet-headed negro was pulling a sweep directly behind
+me and I turned to quiet him as his frantic reaches with the oar were
+jabbing me in the back.
+
+In the dull light from the upper decks, I looked into his slanting
+face--his eyes all whites and his lips moving convulsively. He shivered
+with fright, but in addition to that he was freezing in the thin cotton
+shirt that composed his entire upper covering. He worked feverishly at
+the oar to warm himself.
+
+"Get away from her. My Gawd, get away from her," he kept repeating.
+"When the water hits her hot boilers she'll blow up the whole ocean and
+there's just tons and tons of shrapnel in her hold."
+
+His excitement spread to other members of the crew in our boat. The
+ship's baker, designated by his pantry headgear of white linen, became a
+competing alarmist and a white fireman, whose blasphemy was nothing
+short of profound, added to the confusion by cursing every one.
+
+It was the tension of the minute--it was the give way of overwrought
+nerves--it was bedlam and nightmare.
+
+I sought to establish some authority in our boat which was about to
+break out into full mutiny. I made my way to the stern. There, huddled
+up in a great overcoat and almost muffled in a ship's life-preserver, I
+came upon an old white-haired man and I remembered him.
+
+He was a sea-captain of the old sailing days. He had been a second cabin
+passenger with whom I had talked before. Earlier in the year he had
+sailed out of Nova Scotia with a cargo of codfish. His schooner, the
+_Secret_, had broken in two in mid-ocean, but he and his crew had been
+picked up by a tramp and taken back to New York.
+
+From there he had sailed on another ship bound for Europe, but this
+ship, a Holland-American Liner, the _Ryndam_, had never reached the
+other side. In mid-Atlantic her captain had lost courage over the U-boat
+threats. He had turned the ship about and returned to America. Thus, the
+_Laconia_ represented the third unsuccessful attempt of this grey-haired
+mariner to get back to his home in England. His name was Captain Dear.
+
+"Our boat's rudder is gone, but we can stear with an oar," he said, in a
+weak-quavering voice--the thin high-pitched treble of age. "I will take
+charge, if you want me to, but my voice is gone. I can tell you what to
+do, but you will have to shout the orders. They won't listen to me."
+
+There was only one way to get the attention of the crew, and that was by
+an overpowering blast of profanity. I called to my assistance every
+ear-splitting, soul-sizzling oath that I could think of.
+
+I recited the lurid litany of the army mule skinner to his gentle
+charges and embellished it with excerpts from the remarks of a Chicago
+taxi chauffeur while he changed tires on the road with the temperature
+ten below.
+
+It proved to be an effective combination, this brim-stoned oration of
+mine, because it was rewarded by silence.
+
+"Is there a ship's officer in this boat?" I shouted. There was no
+answer.
+
+"Is there a sailor or a seaman on board?" I inquired, and again there
+was silence from our group of passengers, firemen, stokers and deck
+swabs.
+
+They appeared to be listening to me and I wished to keep my hold on
+them. I racked my mind for some other query to make or some order to
+direct. Before the spell was broken I found one.
+
+"We will now find out how many of us there are in this boat," I
+announced in the best tones of authority that I could assume. "The first
+man in the bow will count one and the next man to him will count two. We
+will count from the bow back to the stern, each man taking a number.
+Begin."
+
+"One," came the quick response from a passenger who happened to be the
+first man in the bow. The enumeration continued sharply toward the
+stern. I spoke the last number.
+
+"There are twenty-three of us here," I repeated, "there's not a ship's
+officer or seaman among us, but we are extremely fortunate to have with
+us an old sea-captain who has consented to take charge of the boat and
+save our lives. His voice is weak, but I will repeat the orders for him,
+so that all of you can hear. Are you ready to obey his orders?"
+
+There was an almost unanimous acknowledgment of assent and order was
+restored.
+
+"The first thing to be done," I announced upon Captain Dear's
+instructions, "is to get the same number of oars pulling on each side of
+the boat; to seat ourselves so as to keep on an even keel and then to
+keep the boat's head up into the wind so that we won't be swamped by the
+waves."
+
+With some little difficulty, this rearrangement was accomplished and
+then we rested on our oars with all eyes turned on the still lighted
+_Laconia_. The torpedo had hit at about 10:30 P. M. according to our
+ship's time. Though listing far over on one side, the _Laconia_ was
+still afloat.
+
+It must have been twenty minutes after that first shot that we heard
+another dull thud, which was accompanied by a noticeable drop in the
+hulk. The German submarine had despatched a second torpedo through the
+engine room and the boat's vitals from a distance of two hundred yards.
+
+We watched silently during the next minute as the tiers of lights dimmed
+slowly from white to yellow, then to red and then nothing was left but
+the murky mourning of the night which hung over all like a pall.
+
+A mean, cheese-coloured crescent of a moon revealed one horn above a rag
+bundle of clouds low in the distance. A rim of blackness settled around
+our little world, relieved only by a few leering stars in the zenith,
+and, where the _Laconia's_ lights had shown, there remained only the dim
+outlines of a blacker hulk standing out above the water like a jagged
+headland, silhouetted against the overcast sky.
+
+The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose rose out of
+the water, and stood straight up in the air. Then it slid silently down
+and out of sight like a piece of scenery in a panorama spectacle.
+
+Boat No. 3 stood closest to the place where the ship had gone down. As a
+result of the after suction, the small life-boat rocked about in a
+perilous sea of clashing spars and wreckage.
+
+As the boat's crew steadied its head into the wind, a black hulk,
+glistening wet and standing about eight feet above the surface of the
+water, approached slowly. It came to a stop opposite the boat and not
+ten feet from the side of it. It was the submarine.
+
+"Vot ship vass dot?" were the first words of throaty guttural English
+that came from a figure which projected from the conning tower.
+
+"The _Laconia_," answered the Chief Steward Ballyn, who commanded the
+life-boat.
+
+"Vot?"
+
+"The _Laconia_, Cunard Line," responded the steward.
+
+"Vot did she weigh?" was the next question from the submarine.
+
+"Eighteen thousand tons."
+
+"Any passengers?"
+
+"Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "many of them women and children--some
+of them in this boat. She had over two hundred in the crew."
+
+"Did she carry cargo?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Iss der Captain in dot boat?"
+
+"No," Ballyn answered.
+
+"Well, I guess you'll be all right. A patrol will pick you up some time
+soon." Without further sound save for the almost silent fixing of the
+conning tower lid, the submarine moved off.
+
+"I thought it best to make my answers sharp and satisfactory, sir," said
+Ballyn, when he repeated the conversation to me word for word. "I was
+thinking of the women and children in the boat. I feared every minute
+that somebody in our boat might make a hostile move, fire a revolver, or
+throw something at the submarine. I feared the consequence of such an
+act."
+
+There was no assurance of an early pickup so we made preparations for a
+siege with the elements. The weather was a great factor. That black rim
+of clouds looked ominous. There was a good promise of rain. February has
+a reputation for nasty weather in the north Atlantic. The wind was cold
+and seemed to be rising. Our boat bobbed about like a cork on the
+swells, which fortunately were not choppy.
+
+How much rougher seas could the boat weather? This question and
+conditions were debated pro and con.
+
+Had our rockets been seen? Did the first torpedo put the wireless out of
+commission? If it had been able to operate, had anybody heard our S. O.
+S.? Was there enough food and drinking water in the boat to last?
+
+This brought us to an inventory of our small craft. After considerable
+difficulty, we found the lamp, a can of powder flares, the tin of ship's
+biscuit, matches and spare oil.
+
+The lamp was lighted. Other lights were now visible. As we drifted in
+the darkness, we could see them every time we mounted the crest of the
+swells. The boats carrying these lights remained quite close together at
+first.
+
+One boat came within sound and I recognised the Harry Lauder-like voice
+of the second assistant purser whom I had last heard on Wednesday at the
+ship's concert. Now he was singing--"I Want to Marry 'arry," and "I Love
+to be a Sailor."
+
+There were an American woman and her husband in that boat. She told me
+later that an attempt had been made to sing "Tipperary," and "Rule
+Britannia," but the thought of that slinking dark hull of destruction
+that might have been a part of the immediate darkness resulted in the
+abandonment of the effort.
+
+"Who's the officer in that boat?" came a cheery hail from the nearby
+light.
+
+"What the hell is it to you?" our half frozen negro yelled out for no
+reason apparent to me other than possibly the relief of his feelings.
+
+"Will somebody brain that skunk with a pin?" was the inquiry of our
+profound oathsman, who also expressed regret that he happened to be
+sitting too far away from the negro to reach him. He accompanied the
+announcement with a warmth of language that must have relieved the negro
+of his chill.
+
+The fear of the boats crashing together produced a general inclination
+toward maximum separation on the part of all the little units of
+survivors, with the result that soon the small crafts stretched out for
+several miles, their occupants all endeavoring to hold the heads of the
+boats into the wind.
+
+Hours passed. The swells slopped over the sides of our boat and filled
+the bottom with water. We bailed it continually. Most of us were wet to
+the knees and shivering from the weakening effects of the icy water. Our
+hands were blistered from pulling at the oars. Our boat, bobbing about
+like a cork, produced terrific nausea, and our stomachs ached from vain
+wrenching.
+
+And then we saw the first light--the first sign of help coming--the
+first searching glow of white radiance deep down the sombre sides of the
+black pot of night that hung over us. I don't know what direction it
+came from--none of us knew north from south--there was nothing but water
+and sky. But the light--it just came from over there where we pointed.
+We nudged dumb, sick boat mates and directed their gaze and aroused them
+to an appreciation of the sight that gave us new life.
+
+It was 'way over there--first a trembling quiver of silver against the
+blackness, then drawing closer, it defined itself as a beckoning finger,
+although still too far away to see our feeble efforts to attract it.
+
+Nevertheless, we wasted valuable flares and the ship's baker,
+self-ordained custodian of the biscuit, did the honours handsomely to
+the extent of a biscuit apiece to each of the twenty-three occupants of
+the boat.
+
+"Pull starboard, sonnies," sang out old Captain Dear, his grey chin
+whiskers bristling with joy in the light of the round lantern which he
+held aloft.
+
+We pulled--pulled lustily, forgetting the strain and pain of innards
+torn and racked with violent vomiting, and oblivious of blistered palms
+and wet, half-frozen feet.
+
+Then a nodding of that finger of light,--a happy, snapping,
+crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come on, you men," like a dice
+player wooing the bones--led us to believe that our lights had been
+seen.
+
+This was the fact, for immediately the oncoming vessel flashed on its
+green and red sidelights and we saw it was headed for our position. We
+floated off its stern for a while as it manoeuvred for the best
+position in which it could take us on with a sea that was running higher
+and higher.
+
+The risk of that rescuing ship was great, because there was every reason
+to believe that the submarine that had destroyed the _Laconia_ still
+lurked in the darkness nearby, but those on board took the risk and
+stood by for the work of rescue.
+
+"Come along side port!" was megaphoned to us. As fast as we could, we
+swung under the stern and felt our way broadside toward the ship's side.
+
+Out of the darkness above, a dozen small pocket flashlights blinked down
+on us and orders began to be shouted fast and thick.
+
+When I look back on the night, I don't know which was the more
+hazardous, going down the slanting side of the sinking _Laconia_ or
+going up the side of the rescuing vessel.
+
+One minute the swells would lift us almost level with the rail of the
+low-built patrol boat and mine sweeper, but the next receding wave would
+swirl us down into a darksome gulf over which the ship's side glowered
+like a slimy, dripping cliff.
+
+A score of hands reached out and we were suspended in the husky,
+tattooed arms of those doughty British Jack Tars, looking up into their
+weather-beaten youthful faces, mumbling our thankfulness and reading in
+the gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend, "H. M. S.
+_Laburnum_." We had been six hours in the open boat.
+
+The others began coming alongside one by one. Wet and bedraggled
+survivors were lifted aboard. Women and children first was the rule.
+
+The scenes of reunion were heart-gripping. Men who had remained
+strangers to one another aboard the _Laconia_, now wrung each other by
+the hand or embraced without shame the frail little wife of a Canadian
+chaplain who had found one of her missing children delivered up from
+another boat. She smothered the child with ravenous mother kisses while
+tears of gladness streamed down her face.
+
+Boat after boat came alongside. The water-logged craft containing the
+Captain came last.
+
+A rousing cheer went up as he stepped on the deck, one mangled hand
+hanging limp at his side.
+
+The sailors divested themselves of outer clothing and passed the
+garments over to the shivering members of the _Laconia's_ crew.
+
+The cramped officers' quarters down under the quarter deck were turned
+over to the women and children. Two of the _Laconia's_ stewardesses
+passed boiling basins of navy cocoa and aided in the disentangling of
+wet and matted tresses.
+
+The men grouped themselves near steam-pipes in the petty officers'
+quarters or over the grating of the engine rooms, where new life was to
+be had from the upward blasts of heated air that brought with them the
+smell of bilge water and oil and sulphur from the bowels of the vessel.
+
+The injured--all minor cases, sprained backs, wrenched legs or mashed
+hands--were put away in bunks under the care of the ship's doctor.
+
+Dawn was melting the eastern ocean grey to pink when the task was
+finished. In the officers' quarters, which had now been invaded by the
+men, the roll of the vessel was most perceptible. Each time the floor of
+the room slanted, bottles and cups and plates rolled and slid back and
+forth.
+
+On the tables and chairs and benches the women rested. Sea-sick mothers,
+trembling from the after-effects of the terrifying experience of the
+night, sought to soothe their crying children.
+
+Then somebody happened to touch a key on the small wooden organ that
+stood against one wall. This was enough to send some callous seafaring
+fingers over the ivory keys in a rhythm unquestionably religious and so
+irresistible under the circumstances that, although no one seemed to
+know the words, the air was taken up in a reverent, humming chant by all
+in the room.
+
+At the last note of the Amen, little Father Warring, his black garb
+snaggled in places and badly soiled, stood before the centre table and
+lifted back his head until the morning light, filtering through the
+opened hatch above him, shown down on his kindly, weary face. He recited
+the Lord's prayer and all present joined. The simple, impressive service
+of thanksgiving ended as simply as it had begun.
+
+Two minutes later I saw the old Jewish travelling man limping about on
+one lame leg with a little boy in his arms. He was collecting big, round
+British pennies for the youngster.
+
+A survey and cruise of the nearby waters revealed no more occupied boats
+and our mine sweeper, with its load of survivors numbering two hundred
+and sixty-seven, steamed away to the east. A half an hour steaming and
+the vessel stopped within hailing distance of two sister ships, toward
+one of which an open boat manned by jackies was being pulled.
+
+I saw the hysterical French actress, her blonde hair wet and bedraggled,
+lifted out of the boat and carried up the companionway. Then a little
+boy, his fresh pink face and golden hair shining in the morning sun, was
+passed upward, followed by some other survivors, numbering fourteen in
+all, who had been found half-drowned and almost dead from exposure in a
+partially wrecked boat that was picked up just as it was sinking. It was
+in that boat that one American woman and her daughter died. One of the
+survivors of the boat told me the story. He said:
+
+"Our boat was No. 8. It was smashed in the lowering. I was in the bow.
+Mrs. Hoy and her daughter were sitting toward the stern. The boat filled
+with water rapidly.
+
+"It was no use trying to bail it out. There was a big hole in the side
+and it came in too fast. The boat's edge sank to the level of the water
+and only the air-tanks kept it afloat.
+
+"It was completely awash. Every swell rode clear over our heads and we
+had to hold our breath until we came to the surface again. The cold
+water just takes the life out of you.
+
+"We saw the other boats showing their lights and drifting further and
+further away from us. We had no lights. And then, towards morning, we
+saw the rescuing ship come up into the cluster of other life-boats that
+had drifted so far away from us. One by one we saw their lights
+disappear as they were taken on board.
+
+"We shouted and screamed and shrieked at the tops of our voices, but
+could not attract the attention of any of the other boats or the
+rescuing ship, and soon we saw its lights blink out. We were left there
+in the darkness with the wind howling and the sea rolling higher every
+minute.
+
+"The women got weaker and weaker. Maybe they had been dead for some
+time. I don't know, but a wave came and washed both Mrs. Hoy and her
+daughter out of the boat. There were life-belts around their bodies and
+they drifted away with their arms locked about one another."
+
+With such stories ringing in our ears, with exchanges of experiences
+pathetic and humorous, we steamed into Queenstown harbour shortly after
+ten o'clock that night. We had been attacked at a point two hundred
+miles off the Irish coast and of our passengers and crew, thirteen had
+been lost.
+
+As I stepped ashore, a Britisher, a fellow-passenger aboard the
+_Laconia_, who knew me as an American, stepped up to me. During the
+voyage we had had many conversations concerning the possibility of
+America entering the war. Now he slapped me on the back with this
+question,
+
+"Well, old Casus Belli," he said, "is this your blooming overt act?"
+
+I did not answer him, but thirty minutes afterward I was pounding out on
+a typewriter the introduction to a four thousand word newspaper article
+which I cabled that night and which put the question up to the American
+public for an answer.
+
+Five weeks later the United States entered the war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE
+
+
+Lean, clean, keen--that's the way they looked--that first trim little
+band of American fighting men who made their historic landing on the
+shores of England, June 8th, 1917.
+
+I went down from London to meet them at the port of arrival. In my
+despatches of that date, I, nor none of the other correspondents, was
+permitted to mention the name of the port. This was supposed to be the
+secret that was to be religiously kept and the British censor was on the
+job religiously.
+
+The name of the port was excluded from all American despatches but the
+British censor saw no reason to withhold transmission of the following
+sentence--"Pershing landed to-day at an English port and was given a
+hearty welcome by the Mayor of Liverpool."
+
+So I am presuming at this late date of writing that it would serve no
+further purpose to refrain from announcing flatly that General John J.
+Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces
+overseas, and his staff, landed on the date above mentioned, at
+Liverpool, England.
+
+The sun was shining brightly on the Mersey when the giant ocean liner,
+the _Baltic_, came slowly up the harbour in the tow of numerous puffing
+tugs. The great grey vessel that had safely completed the crossing of
+the submarine zone, was warped to the dock-side.
+
+On the quay there were a full brass band and an honourary escort of
+British soldiers. While the moorings were being fastened, General
+Pershing, with his staff, appeared on the promenade deck on the shore
+side of the vessel.
+
+His appearance was the signal for a crash of cymbals and drums as the
+band blared out the "Star Spangled Banner." The American commander and
+the officers ranged in line on either side of him, stood stiffly at
+attention, with right hands raised in salute to the visors of their
+caps.
+
+On the shore the lines of British soldiery brought their arms to the
+present with a snap. Civilian witnesses of the ceremony bared their
+heads. The first anthem was followed by the playing of "God Save the
+King." All present remained at the salute.
+
+As the gangplank was lashed in place, a delegation of British military
+and civilian officials boarded the ship and were presented to the
+General. Below, on the dock, every newspaper correspondent and
+photographer in the British Isles, I think, stood waiting in a group
+that far outnumbered the other spectators.
+
+There was reason for this seeming lack of proportion. The fact was that
+but very few people in all of England, as well as in all of the United
+States, had known that General Pershing was to land that day.
+
+Few had known that he was on the water. The British Admiralty, then in
+complete control of the ocean lines between America and the British
+Isles, had guarded well the secret. England lost Kitchener on the sea
+and now with the sea peril increased a hundredfold, England took pains
+to guard well the passage of this standard-bearer of the American
+millions that were to come.
+
+Pershing and his staff stepped ashore. Lean, clean, keen--those are the
+words that described their appearance. That was the way they impressed
+their critical brothers in arms, the all-observing military dignities
+that presented Britain's hearty, unreserved welcome at the water's edge.
+That was the way they appeared to the proud American citizens, residents
+of those islands, who gathered to meet them.
+
+The British soldiers admired the height and shoulders of our first
+military samples. The British soldier approves of a greyhound trimness
+in the belt zone. He likes to look on carriage and poise. He appreciates
+a steady eye and stiff jaw. He is attracted by a voice that rings sharp
+and firm. The British soldier calls such a combination, "a real
+soldier."
+
+He saw one, and more than one, that morning shortly after nine o'clock
+when Pershing and his staff committed the date to history by setting
+foot on British soil. Behind the American commander walked a staff of
+American officers whose soldierly bearing and general appearance brought
+forth sincere expressions of commendation from the assemblage on the
+quay.
+
+At attention on the dock, facing the sea-stained flanks of the liner
+_Baltic_, a company of Royal Welsh Fusiliers Stood like a frieze of clay
+models in stainless khaki, polished brass and shining leather.
+
+General Pershing inspected the guard of honour with keen interest.
+Walking beside the American commander was the considerably stouter and
+somewhat shorter Lieutenant General Sir William Pitcairn Campbell,
+K.C.B., Chief of the Western Command of the British Home Forces.
+
+Pershing's inspection of that guard was not the cursory one that these
+honourary affairs usually are. Not a detail of uniform or equipment on
+any of the men in the guard was overlooked. The American commander's
+attention was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though he had been
+a captain preparing the small command for a strenuous inspection at the
+hands of some exacting superior.
+
+As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen blue eyes taking in
+each one of the men from head to foot, he stopped suddenly in front of
+one man in the ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of
+fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his sleeves there was
+displayed two slender gold bars, placed on the forearm.
+
+The decoration was no larger than two matches in a row and on that day
+it had been in use hardly more than a year, yet neither its minuteness
+nor its meaning escaped the eyes of the American commander.
+
+Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three.
+
+"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.
+
+"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, his face pointed
+stiffly ahead. File Three, even now under twenty-one years of age, had
+received his wounds in the early fighting that is called the battle of
+Loos.
+
+"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder of the American
+commander, who accompanied his remark with a straightforward look into
+the eyes of File Three.
+
+Completing the inspection without further incident, General Pershing and
+his staff faced the honour guard and stood at the salute, while once
+more the thunderous military band played the national anthems of America
+and Great Britain.
+
+The ceremony was followed by a reception in the cabin of the _Baltic_,
+where General Pershing received the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady
+Mayoress, and a delegation of civil authorities. The reception ended
+when General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the assembled
+representatives of the British and American Press.
+
+"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest remarks.
+Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side station, where a special
+train of the type labelled Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run
+to London.
+
+The reception at the dock had had none of the features of a
+demonstration by reason of the necessity for the ship's arrival being
+secret, but as soon as the _Baltic_ had landed, the word of the American
+commander's arrival spread through Liverpool like wildfire.
+
+The railroad from the station lay through an industrial section of the
+city. Through the railroad warehouses the news had preceded the train.
+Warehouse-men, porters and draymen crowded the tops of the cotton bales
+and oil barrels on both sides of the track as the train passed through.
+
+Beyond the sheds, the news had spread through the many floors of the
+flour mills and when the Pershing train passed, handkerchiefs and caps
+fluttered from every crowded door and window in the whitened walls. Most
+of the waving was done by a new kind of flour-girl, one who did not wave
+an apron because none of them were dressed that way.
+
+From his car window, General Pershing returned the greetings of the
+trousered girls and women who were making England's bread while their
+husbands, fathers, brothers, sweethearts and sons were making German
+cemeteries.
+
+In London, General Pershing and his staff occupied suites at the Savoy
+Hotel, and during the four or five days of the American commander's
+sojourn in the capital of the British Empire, a seemingly endless line
+of visitors of all the Allied nationalities called to present their
+compliments.
+
+The enlisted men of the General's staff occupied quarters in the old
+stone barracks of the Tower of London, where they were the guests of the
+men of that artillery organisation which prefixes an "Honourable" to its
+name and has been assigned for centuries to garrison duty in the Tower
+of London.
+
+Our soldiers manifested naïve interest in some of England's most revered
+traditions and particularly in connection with historical events related
+to the Tower of London. On the second day of their occupation of this
+old fortress, one of the warders, a "Beef-eater" in full mediæval
+regalia, was escorting a party of the Yanks through the dungeons.
+
+He stopped in one dungeon and lined the party up in front of a stone
+block in the centre of the floor. After a silence of a full minute to
+produce a proper degree of impressiveness for the occasion, the warder
+announced, in a respectful whisper:
+
+"This is where Anne Boleyn was executed."
+
+The lined-up Yanks took a long look at the stone block. A silence
+followed during the inspection. And then one regular, desiring further
+information, but not wishing to be led into any traps of British wit,
+said:
+
+"All right, I'll bite; what did Annie do?"
+
+Current with the arrival of our men and their reception by the honour
+guard of the Welsh Fusiliers there was a widespread revival of an old
+story which the Americans liked to tell in the barrack rooms at night.
+
+When the Welsh Fusiliers received our men at the dock of Liverpool, they
+had with them their historical mascot, a large white goat with horns
+encased in inscribed silver. The animal wore suspended from its neck a
+large silver plate, on which was inscribed a partial history of the
+Welsh Fusiliers.
+
+Some of these Fusiliers told our men the story.
+
+"It was our regiment--the Welsh Fusiliers," one of them said, "that
+fought you Yanks at Bunker Hill. And it was at Bunker Hill that our
+regiment captured the great-great-granddaddy of this same white goat,
+and his descendants are ever destined to be the mascot of our regiment.
+You see, we have still got your goat."
+
+"But you will notice," replied one of the Yanks, "we've got the hill."
+
+During the four days in London, General Pershing was received by King
+George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. The American commander
+engaged in several long conferences at the British War Office, and then
+with an exclusion of entertainment that was painful to the Europeans, he
+made arrangements to leave for his new post in France.
+
+A specially written permission from General Pershing made it possible
+for me to accompany him on that historic crossing between England and
+France. Secret orders for the departure were given on the afternoon and
+evening of June 12th. Before four o'clock of the next morning, June
+13th, I breakfasted in the otherwise deserted dining-room of the Savoy
+with the General and his staff.
+
+Only a few sleepy-eyed attendants were in the halls and lower rooms of
+the Savoy. In closed automobiles we were whisked away to Charing Cross
+Station. We boarded a special train whose destination was unknown. The
+entire party was again in the hands of the Intelligence Section of the
+British Admiralty, and every possible means was taken to suppress all
+definite information concerning the departure.
+
+The special train containing General Pershing and his staff reached
+Folkstone at about seven o'clock in the morning. We left the train at
+the dockside and boarded the swift Channel steamer moored there. A small
+vociferous contingent of English Tommies returning to the front from
+leave in "Blighty" were crowded on all decks in the stern.
+
+With life-boats swinging out over the side and every one wearing
+life-preservers, we steamed out of Folkstone harbour to challenge the
+submarine dangers of the Channel.
+
+The American commander occupied a forward cabin suite on the upper deck.
+His aides and secretaries had already transformed it into a
+business-like apartment. In the General's mind there was no place or
+time for any consideration of the dangers of the Channel crossing.
+Although the very waters through which we dashed were known to be
+infested with submarines which would have looked upon him as capital
+prey, I don't believe the General ever gave them as much as a thought.
+
+Every time I looked through the open door of his cabin, he was busy
+dictating letters to his secretaries or orders or instructions to his
+aides or conferring with his Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Harbord.
+To the American commander, the hours necessary for the dash across the
+Channel simply represented a little more time which he could devote to
+the plans for the great work ahead of him.
+
+Our ship was guarded on all sides and above. Swift torpedo destroyers
+dashed to and fro under our bow and stern and circled us continually. In
+the air above hydro-airplanes and dirigible balloons hovered over the
+waters surrounding us, keeping sharp watch for the first appearance of
+the dark sub-sea hulks of destruction.
+
+[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, MR.
+PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS]
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS]
+
+We did not learn until the next day that while we were making that
+Channel crossing, the German air forces had crossed the Channel in a
+daring daylight raid and were at that very hour dropping bombs on London
+around the very hotel which General Pershing had just vacated. Some day,
+after the war, I hope to ascertain whether the commander of that flight
+of bombing Gothas started on his expedition over London with a special
+purpose in view and whether that purpose concerned the supposed presence
+there of the commander-in-chief of the American millions that were later
+to change the entire complexion of the war against Germany.
+
+It was a beautiful sunlight day. It was not long before the coast line
+of France began to push itself up through the distant Channel mists and
+make itself visible on the horizon. I stood in the bow of the ship
+looking toward the coast line and silent with thoughts concerning the
+momentousness of the approaching historical event.
+
+It happened that I looked back amidships and saw a solitary figure
+standing on the bridge of the vessel. It was General Pershing. He seemed
+rapt in deep thought. He wore his cap straight on his head, the visor
+shading his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his hands behind him, his
+feet planted slightly apart to accommodate the gentle roll of the ship.
+
+He faced due east and his eyes were directed toward the shores of that
+foreign land which we were approaching. It seemed to me as I watched him
+that his mind must have been travelling back more than a century to that
+day in history when another soldier had stood on the bridge of another
+vessel, crossing those same waters, but in an almost opposite direction.
+
+It seemed to me that he must have been thinking of that historical
+character who made just such a journey more than a hundred years
+before,--a great soldier who left his homeland to sail to other foreign
+shores halfway around the world and there to lend his sword in the fight
+for the sacred principles of Democracy. It seemed to me that day that
+Pershing thought of Lafayette.
+
+As we drew close to the shore, I noticed an enormous concrete breakwater
+extending out from the harbour entrance. It was surmounted by a wooden
+railing and on the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a small
+French boy. His legs were bare and his feet were encased in heavy wooden
+shoes. On his head he wore a red stocking cap of the liberty type. As we
+came within hailing distance, he gave to us the first greeting that came
+from the shores of France to these first arriving American soldiers.
+
+"_Vive l'Amérique!_" he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth and
+sending his shrill voice across the water to us. Pershing on the bridge
+heard the salutation. He smiled, touched his hand to his hat and waved
+to the lad on the railing.
+
+We landed that day at Boulogne, June 13th, 1917. Military bands massed
+on the quay, blared out the American National Anthem as the ship was
+warped alongside the dock. Other ships in the busy harbour began blowing
+whistles and ringing bells, loaded troop and hospital ships lying nearby
+burst forth into cheering. The news spread like contagion along the
+harbour front.
+
+As the gangplank was lowered, French military dignitaries in dress
+uniforms resplendent with gold braid, buttons and medals, advanced to
+that part of the deck amidships where the General stood. They saluted
+respectfully and pronounced elaborate addresses in their native tongue.
+They were followed by numerous French Government officials in civilian
+dress attire. The city, the department and the nation were represented
+in the populous delegations who presented their compliments, and
+conveyed to the American commander the of the entire people of France.
+
+Under the train sheds on the dock, long stiff, standing ranks of French
+poilus wearing helmets and their light blue overcoats pinned back at the
+knees, presented arms as the General walked down the lines inspecting
+them. At one end of the line, rank upon rank of French marines, and
+sailors with their flat hats with red tassels, stood at attention
+awaiting inspection.
+
+The docks and train sheds were decorated with French and American flags
+and yards and yards of the mutually-owned red, white and blue. Thousands
+of spectators began to gather in the streets near the station, and their
+continuous cheers sufficed to rapidly augment their own numbers.
+
+Accompanied by a veteran French colonel, one of whose uniform sleeves
+was empty, General Pershing, as a guest of the city of Boulogne, took a
+motor ride through the streets of this busy port city. He was quickly
+returned to the station, where he and his staff boarded a special train
+for Paris. I went with them.
+
+That train to Paris was, of necessity, slow. It proceeded slowly under
+orders and with a purpose. No one in France, with the exception of a
+select official circle, had been aware that General Pershing was
+arriving that day until about thirty minutes before his ship was warped
+into the dock at Boulogne. It has always been a mystery to me how the
+French managed to decorate the station at Boulogne upon such short
+notice.
+
+Thus it was that the train crawled slowly toward Paris for the purpose
+of giving the French capital time to throw off the coat of war
+weariness that it had worn for three and a half years and don gala
+attire for this occasion. Paris made full use of every minute of that
+time, as we found when the train arrived at the French capital late in
+the afternoon. The evening papers in Paris had carried the news of the
+American commander's landing on the shores of France, and Paris was
+ready to receive him as Paris had never before received a world's
+notable.
+
+The sooty girders of the Gare du Nord shook with cheers when the special
+train pulled in. The aisles of the great terminal were carpeted with red
+plush. A battalion of bearded poilus of the Two Hundred and
+Thirty-seventh Colonial Regiment was lined up on the platform like a
+wall of silent grey, bristling with bayonets and shiny trench helmets.
+
+General Pershing stepped from his private car. Flashlights boomed and
+batteries of camera men manoeuvred into positions for the lens
+barrage. The band of the Garde Républicaine blared forth the strains of
+the "Star Spangled Banner," bringing all the military to a halt and a
+long standing salute. It was followed by the "Marseillaise."
+
+At the conclusion of the train-side greetings and introductions, Marshal
+Joffre and General Pershing walked down the platform together. The tops
+of the cars of every train in the station were crowded with workmen. As
+the tall, slender American commander stepped into view, the privileged
+observers on the car-tops began to cheer.
+
+A minute later, there was a terrific roar from beyond the walls of the
+station. The crowds outside had heard the cheering within. They took it
+up with thousands of throats. They made their welcome a ringing one.
+Paris took Pershing by storm.
+
+The General was ushered into the specially decorated reception chamber,
+which was hung and carpeted with brilliant red velvet and draped with
+the Allied flags. After a brief formal exchange of greetings in this
+large chamber, he and his staff were escorted to the line of waiting
+automobiles at the side of the station in the Rue de Roubaix.
+
+Pershing's appearance in the open was the cue for wild, unstinted
+applause and cheering from the crowds which packed the streets and
+jammed the windows of the tall buildings opposite.
+
+General Pershing and M. Painlevé, Minister of War, took seats in a large
+automobile. They were preceded by a motor containing United States
+Ambassador Sharp and former Premier Viviani. The procession started to
+the accompaniment of martial music by massed military bands in the
+courtyard of the station. It passed through the Rue de Compiègne, the
+Rue de Lafayette, the Place de l'Opéra, the Boulevard des Capucines, the
+Place de la Madeleine, the Rue Royale, to the Place de la Concorde.
+
+There were some fifty automobiles in the line, the rear of which was
+brought up by an enormous motor-bus load of the first American soldiers
+from the ranks to pass through the streets of Paris.
+
+The crowds overflowed the sidewalks. They extended from the building
+walls out beyond the curbs and into the streets, leaving but a narrow
+lane through which the motors pressed their way slowly and with the
+exercise of much care. From the crowded balconies and windows
+overlooking the route, women and children tossed down showers of flowers
+and bits of coloured paper.
+
+The crowds were so dense that other street traffic became marooned in
+the dense sea of joyously excited and gesticulating French people.
+Vehicles thus marooned immediately became islands of vantage. They were
+soon covered with men and women and children, who climbed on top of them
+and clung to the sides to get a better look at the khaki-clad occupants
+of the autos.
+
+Old grey-haired fathers of French fighting men bared their heads and
+with tears streaming down their cheeks shouted greetings to the tall,
+thin, grey-moustached American commander who was leading new armies to
+the support of their sons. Women heaped armfuls of roses into the
+General's car and into the cars of other American officers that followed
+him. Paris street gamins climbed the lamp-posts and waved their caps and
+wooden shoes and shouted shrilly.
+
+American flags and red, white and blue bunting waved wherever the eye
+rested. English-speaking Frenchmen proudly explained to the uninformed
+that "Pershing" was pronounced "Peur-chigne" and not "Pair-shang."
+
+Paris was not backward in displaying its knowledge of English. Gay
+Parisiennes were eager to make use of all the English at their command,
+that they might welcome the new arrivals in their native tongue.
+
+Some of these women shouted "Hello," "Heep, heep, hourrah," "Good
+morning," "How are you, keed?" and "Cock-tails for two." Some of the
+expressions were not so inappropriate as they sounded.
+
+Occasionally there came from the crowds a good old genuine American
+whoop-em-up yell. This happened when the procession passed groups of
+American ambulance workers and other sons of Uncle Sam, wearing the
+uniforms of the French, Canadian and English Corps.
+
+They joined with Australians and South African soldiers on leave to
+cheer on the new-coming Americans with such spontaneous expressions as
+"Come on, you Yanks," "Now let's get 'em," and "Eat 'em up, Uncle Sam."
+
+The frequent stopping of the procession by the crowds made it happen
+quite frequently that the automobiles were completely surrounded by
+enthusiasts, who reached up and tried to shake hands with the occupants.
+Pretty girls kissed their hands and blew the invisible confection toward
+the men in khaki.
+
+The bus-load of enlisted men bringing up the rear received dozens of
+bouquets from the girls. The flowers were hurled at them from all
+directions. Every two hundred feet the French would organise a rousing
+shout, "_Vive l'Amérique!_" for them.
+
+Being the passive recipients of this unusual adulation produced only
+embarrassment on the part of the regulars who simply had to sit there,
+smiling and taking it. Just to break the one-sided nature of the
+demonstrations, one of the enlisted men stood up in his seat and,
+addressing himself to his mates, shouted:
+
+"Come on, fellows, let's give 'em a 'veever' ourselves. Now all
+together."
+
+The bus-load rose to its feet like one man and shouted "Veever for
+France." Their "France" rhymed with "pants," so that none of the French
+understood it, but they did understand the sentiment behind the husky
+American lungs.
+
+Through such scenes as these, the procession reached the great Place de
+la Concorde. In this wide, paved, open space an enormous crowd had
+assembled. As the autos appeared the cheering, the flower throwing, the
+tumultuous kiss-blowing began. It increased in intensity as the motors
+stopped in front of the Hôtel Crillon into which General Pershing
+disappeared, followed by his staff.
+
+Immediately the cheering changed to a tremendous clamorous demand for
+the General's appearance on the balcony in front of his apartments.
+
+"_Au balcon, au balcon_," were the cries that filled the Place. The
+crowd would not be denied.
+
+General Pershing stepped forth on the balcony. He stood behind the low
+marble railing, and between two enormous white-stoned columns. A cluster
+of the Allied flags was affixed to each column. The American commander
+surveyed the scene in front of him.
+
+There are no trees or shrubbery in the vast Place de la Concorde. Its
+broad paved surface is interrupted only by artistically placed groups of
+statuary and fountains.
+
+To the General's right, as he faced the Place, were the trees and
+greenery of the broad Champs Elysées. On his left were the fountains and
+the gardens of the Tuilleries. At the further end of the Place, five
+hundred feet straight in front of him, were the banks and the ornamental
+bridges of the Seine, beyond which could be seen the columned façade of
+the Chambre des Deputies, and above and beyond that, against the blue
+sky of a late June afternoon, rose the majestic golden dome of the
+Invalides, over the tomb of Napoleon.
+
+General Pershing looked down upon the sea of faces turned up toward him,
+and then it seemed that nature desired to play a part in the ceremony of
+that great day. A soft breeze from the Champs Elysées touched the
+cluster of flags on the General's right and from all the Allied emblems
+fastened there it selected one flag.
+
+The breeze tenderly caught the folds of this flag and wafted them across
+the balcony on which the General bowed. He saw and recognised that flag.
+He extended his hand, caught the flag in his fingers and pressed it to
+his lips. All France and all America represented in that vast throng
+that day cheered to the mighty echo when Pershing kissed the tri-colour
+of France.
+
+It was a tremendous, unforgettable incident. It was exceeded by no other
+incident during those days of receptions and ceremonies, except one.
+That was an incident which occurred not in the presence of thousands,
+but in a lonely old burial ground on the outskirts of Paris. This
+happened several days after the demonstration in the Place de la
+Concorde.
+
+On that day of bright sunshine, General Pershing and a small party of
+officers, French and American, walked through the gravel paths of Picpus
+Cemetery in the suburbs of Paris, where the bodies of hundreds of those
+who made the history of France are buried.
+
+Several French women in deep mourning courtesied as General Pershing
+passed. His party stopped in front of two marble slabs that lay side by
+side at the foot of a granite monument. From the General's party a
+Frenchman stepped forward and, removing his high silk hat, he addressed
+the small group in quiet, simple tones and well-chosen English words. He
+was the Marquis de Chambrun. He said:
+
+  "On this spot one can say that the historic ties between our nations
+  are not the result of the able schemes of skilful diplomacy. No, the
+  principles of liberty, justice and independence are the glorious
+  links between our nations.
+
+  "These principles have enlisted the hearts of our democracies. They
+  have made the strength of their union and have brought about the
+  triumph of their efforts.
+
+  "To-day, when, after nearly a century and a half, America and France
+  are engaged in a conflict for the same cause upon which their early
+  friendship was based, we are filled with hope and confidence.
+
+  "We know that our great nations are together with our Allies
+  invincible, and we rejoice to think that the United States and
+  France are reunited in the fight for liberty, and will reconsecrate,
+  in a new victory, their everlasting friendship of which your
+  presence to-day at this grave is an exquisite and touching token."
+
+General Pershing advanced to the tomb and placed upon the marble slab an
+enormous wreath of pink and white roses. Then he stepped back. He
+removed his cap and held it in both hands in front of him. The bright
+sunlight shone down on his silvery grey hair. Looking down at the grave,
+he spoke in a quiet, impressive tone four simple, all-meaning words:
+
+  "Lafayette, we are here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE
+
+
+The first executive work of the American Expeditionary Forces overseas
+was performed in a second floor suite of the Crillon Hotel on the Place
+de la Concorde in Paris. This suite was the first temporary headquarters
+of the American commander.
+
+The tall windows of the rooms looked down on the historic Place which
+was the scene of so many momentous events in French history. The windows
+were hardly a hundred yards from the very spot where the guillotine
+dripped red in the days of the Terror. It was here that the heads of
+Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette dropped into the basket.
+
+During General Pershing's comparatively brief occupancy of these
+headquarters, the reception rooms were constantly banked with fresh-cut
+flowers, the daily gifts of the French people,--flowers that were
+replenished every twenty-four hours. The room was called the "Salon des
+Batailles."
+
+In one corner of the room, near a window overlooking the Place, was
+General Pershing's table. It was adorned with a statuette of General
+Joffre and a cluster of miniatures of captured German standards.
+Extending from the floor to the ceiling on one of the walls were two
+enormous oil copies of "La Bataille de Fontenoy" and the "Passage du
+Rhin." A large flag-draped photograph of President Wilson occupied a
+place of honour on an easel at one end of the room.
+
+During the first week that General Pershing stopped at the hotel, the
+sidewalk and street beneath his windows were constantly crowded with
+people. The crowds waited there all day long, just in the hope of
+catching a glimpse of the American commander if he should happen to be
+leaving or returning to his quarters. It seemed as if every Parisienne
+and Parisian had taken upon herself and himself the special duty of
+personally observing General Pershing, of waving him an enthusiastic
+"vive" and possibly being within the scope of his returning salute.
+
+But the American commander would not permit demonstrations and
+celebrations to interfere with the important duties that he faced. Two
+days are all that were devoted to these social ceremonies which the
+enthusiastic and hospitable French would have made almost endless.
+Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased from the working
+day calendar. The American commander sounded the order "To work" with
+the same martial precision as though the command had been a sudden call
+"To arms."
+
+On the morning of the third day after General Pershing's arrival in
+Paris, the typewriters began clicking incessantly and the telephones
+began ringing busily in the large building which was occupied on that
+day as the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
+
+This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constantine. It faced the
+trees and shrubbery bordering the approach to the Seine front of the
+Invalides. The building was two stories high with grey-white walls and a
+mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately identified as the one
+in front of which stood a line of American motor cars, as the one where
+trim United States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors
+through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages.
+
+Ten days before, the building had been the residence of a Marquis and
+had contained furniture and art valued at millions of francs. All of
+those home-like characteristics had been removed so effectively that
+even the name of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure that
+he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could not have recognised
+his converted salons where the elaborate ornamentation had been changed
+to the severe simplicity typical of a United States Army barracks.
+
+General Pershing's office was located on the second floor of the house
+and in one corner. In those early days it was carpetless and contained
+almost a monkish minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair,
+and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal standard for one of
+those one-piece telephone sets with which Americans are familiar only in
+French stage settings. A book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's
+table and chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors,
+comprised the furniture inventory of the room.
+
+One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with a large mirror with
+a gilt frame, and in the other wall was a plain fireplace. There were
+tall windows in the two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de
+Constantine and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de Grenelle
+windows there was a small, deeply shaded park where children rolled
+hoops during the heat of the day and where convalescent French soldiers
+sat and watched the children at play or perhaps discussed the war and
+other things with the nurse-maids.
+
+This was the first workshop in France of the American
+commander-in-chief. Adjoining rooms to the left and right were occupied
+by the General's staff and his aides. And it was in these rooms that
+the overseas plans for the landing of the first American armed
+contingent in France were formulated.
+
+It is safe now to mention that St. Nazaire on the west coast of France
+was the port at which our first armed forces disembarked. I was in Paris
+when the information of their coming was whispered to a few chosen
+correspondents who were to be privileged to witness this historical
+landing.
+
+This was the first time in the history of our nation that a large force
+of armed Americans was to cross the seas to Europe. For five and a half
+months prior to the date of their landing, the ruthless submarine policy
+of the Imperial German Government had been in effect, and our troop
+ships with those initial thousands of American soldiers represented the
+first large Armada to dare the ocean crossing since Germany had
+instituted her sub-sea blockade zone in February of that same year.
+
+Thus it was that any conversation concerning the fact that our men were
+on the seas and at the mercy of the U-boats was conducted with the
+greatest of care behind closed doors. In spite of the efforts of the
+French agents of contra espionage, Paris and all France, for that
+matter, housed numerous spies. There were some anxious moments while
+that first contingent was on the water.
+
+Our little group of correspondents was informed that we should be
+conducted by American officers to the port of landing, but the name of
+that port was withheld from us. By appointment we met at a Paris
+railroad station where we were provided with railroad tickets. We took
+our places in compartments and rode for some ten or twelve hours,
+arriving early the next morning at St. Nazaire.
+
+This little village on the coast of Brittany was tucked away there in
+the golden sands of the seashore. Its houses had walls of white stucco
+and gabled roofs of red tile. In the small rolling hills behind it were
+green orchards and fields of yellow wheat. The villagers, old women in
+their starched white head-dresses and old men wearing faded blue smocks
+and wooden shoes, were unmindful of the great event for which history
+had destined their village.
+
+On the night before the landing the townspeople had retired with no
+knowledge of what was to happen on the following day. In the morning
+they awoke to find strange ships that had come in the night, riding
+safely at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began to pop open
+with bangs as excited heads, encased in peaked flannel nightcaps,
+protruded themselves from bedroom windows and directed anxious queries
+to those who happened to be abroad at that early hour.
+
+St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning than ever before in
+its history. The Mayor of the town was one of the busiest figures on the
+street. In high hat and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to
+assemble the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute
+players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The townspeople
+neglected their _café au lait_ to rush down to the quay to look at the
+new ships.
+
+The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morning sunlight. The
+dawn had been grey and misty, but now nature seemed to smile. The
+strange ships from the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now
+there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of them.
+
+Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States warships, units of
+that remarkable fighting organisation which in the year that was to
+immediately follow that very day were to escort safely across three
+thousand miles of submarine-infested water more than a million and a
+half American soldiers.
+
+The appearance of these first warships of ours was novel to the French
+townspeople. Our ships had peculiar looking masts, masts which the
+townspeople compared to the baskets which the French peasants carry on
+their backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from the shore
+were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed toward the menace of the
+outer deep.
+
+Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship toward the
+quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American sailors and soldiers, who had
+been previously landed by launch to assist in the disembarkation, were
+handling the lines on the dock.
+
+When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the successive decks of the
+first troop ship took on the appearance of mud-coloured layers from the
+khaki uniforms of the stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band
+on the forward deck was playing the national anthems of France and
+America and every hand was being held at the salute.
+
+As the final bars of the "Star Spangled Banner" crashed out and every
+saluting hand came snappily down, one American soldier on an upper deck
+leaned over the rail and shouted to a comrade on the shore his part of
+the first exchange of greetings between our fighting men upon this
+historic occasion. Holding one hand to his lips, he seriously enquired:
+
+"Say, do they let the enlisted men in the saloons here?"
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL]
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE]
+
+Another soldier standing near the stern rail had a different and more
+serious interrogation to make. He appeared rather blasé about it as he
+leaned over the rail and, directing his voice toward a soldier on the
+dock, casually demanded:
+
+"Say, where the Hell is all this trouble, anyhow?"
+
+These two opening sorties produced a flood of others. The most common
+enquiry was: "What's the name of this place?" and "Is this France or
+England?" When answers were made to these questions, the recipients of
+the information, particularly if they happened to be "old-timers in the
+army," would respond by remarking, "Well, it's a damn sight better than
+the Mexican border."
+
+As our men came over the ship's side and down the runways, there was no
+great reception committee awaiting them. Among the most interested
+spectators of the event were a group of stolid German prisoners of war
+and the two French soldiers guarding them. The two Frenchmen talked
+volubly with a wealth of gesticulation, while the Germans maintained
+their characteristic glumness.
+
+The German prisoners appeared to be anything but discouraged at the
+sight. Some of them even wore a smile that approached the supercilious.
+With some of them that smile seemed to say: "You can't fool us. We know
+these troops are not Americans. They are either Canadians or Australians
+coming from England. Our German U-boats won't let Americans cross the
+ocean."
+
+Some of those German prisoners happened to have been in America before
+the war. They spoke English and recognised the uniforms of our men.
+Their silent smiles seemed to say: "Well, they don't look so good at
+that. We have seen better soldiers. And, besides, there is only a
+handful of them. Not enough can come to make any difference. Anyhow, it
+is too late now. The war will be over before any appreciable number can
+get here."
+
+But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the ship's side.
+Company after company of our men, loaded down with packs and full field
+equipment, lined up on the dock and marched past the group of German
+prisoners.
+
+"We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible from our
+ranks shouted, as the marching line passed within touching distance of
+the prisoner group. The Germans responded only with quizzical little
+smiles and silence.
+
+Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments marched through the
+main street of the village. The bands played "Dixie"--a new air to
+France. The regiments as a whole did not present the snappy, marching
+appearance that they might have presented. There was a good reason for
+this. Sixty per cent. of them were recruits. It had been wisely decided
+to replace many of the old regular army men in the ranks with newly
+enlisted men, so that these old veterans could remain in America and
+train the new drafts.
+
+However, that which impressed the French people was the individual
+appearance of these samples of American manhood. Our men were tall and
+broad and brawny. They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen and
+snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from the swarthy sun-tanned
+cheeks of border veterans to the clear pink skins of city youngsters.
+But most noticeable of all to the French people were the even white rows
+of teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good dentistry and
+clean mouths are essentially American.
+
+The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women, girls and school
+children, lined the curbs as our men marched through the town. The line
+of march was over a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the
+bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground back of the town. The
+road here was bordered on either side with ancient stone walls covered
+with vines and over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden
+branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red lusciousness. As they
+marched through the heat and dust of that June day, many succumbed to
+the temptations and paid for their appetites with inordinately violent
+colics that night.
+
+A camp site had been partially prepared for their reception. It was
+located close to a French barracks. The French soldiers and gangs of
+German prisoners, who had been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of
+the fact that they were building the first American cantonment in
+France. They thought they were constructing simply an extension of the
+French encampment.
+
+That first contingent, composed of United States Infantrymen and
+Marines, made its first camp in France with the smallest amount of
+confusion, considering the fact that almost three-quarters of them
+hadn't been in uniform a month. It was but several hours after arriving
+at the camp that the smoke was rising from the busy camp stoves and the
+aroma of American coffee, baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air.
+
+On the afternoon of that first day some of the men were given permission
+to visit the town. They began to take their first lessons in French as
+they went from café to café in futile efforts to connect up with such
+unknown commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches. Upon
+meeting one another in the streets, our men would invariably ask: "Have
+you come across any of these FROGS that talk American?"
+
+There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs or Froggies as
+applied to their French comrades in arms. American officers hastened to
+explain to French officers that the one piece of information concerning
+France most popularly known in America was that it was the place where
+people first learned to eat frog legs and snails.
+
+The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat inclined to believe that
+these first Americans didn't live up to the European expectations of
+Americans. Those European expectations had been founded almost entirely
+upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture thrillers of the
+Wild West and comedy variety.
+
+Although our men wore the high, broad-brimmed felt hats, they didn't
+seem sufficiently cowboyish. Although the French people waited
+expectantly, none of these Americans dashed through the main street of
+the village on bucking bronchos, holding their reins in their teeth and
+at the same time firing revolvers from either hand. Moreover, none of
+our men seemed to conclude their dinners in the expected American
+fashion of slapping one another in the face with custard pies.
+
+There was to be seen on the streets of St. Nazaire that day some
+representative black Americans, who had also landed in that historical
+first contingent. There was a strange thing about these negroes.
+
+It will be remembered that in the early stages of our participation in
+the war it had been found that there was hardly sufficient khaki cloth
+to provide uniforms for all of our soldiers. That had been the case with
+these American negro soldiers.
+
+But somewhere down in Washington, somehow or other, some one resurrected
+an old, large, heavy iron key and this, inserted into an ancient rusty
+lock, had opened some long forgotten doors in one of the Government
+arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles wrapped up in
+newspapers, yellow with age, and when these wrappings of the past were
+removed, there were seen the uniforms of old Union blue that had been
+laid away back in '65--uniforms that had been worn by men who fought and
+bled and died to free the first black American citizens.
+
+And here on this foreign shore, on this day in June more than half a
+century later, the sons and the grandsons of those same freed slaves
+wore those same uniforms of Union blue as they landed in France to fight
+for a newer freedom.
+
+Some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower Mississippi levees.
+They sang as they worked in their white army undershirts, across the
+chest of which they had penciled in blue and red, strange mystic
+devices, religious phrases and hoodoo signs, calculated to contribute
+the charm of safety to the running of the submarine blockade.
+
+Two of these American negroes, walking up the main street of St.
+Nazaire, saw on the other side of the thoroughfare a brother of colour
+wearing the lighter blue uniform of a French soldier. This French negro
+was a Colonial black from the north of Africa and of course had spoken
+nothing but French from the day he was born.
+
+One of the American negroes crossed the street and accosted him.
+
+"Looka here, boy," he enquired good-naturedly, "what can you all tell me
+about this here wah?"
+
+"Comment, monsieur?" responded the non-understanding French black, and
+followed the rejoinder with a torrent of excited French.
+
+The American negro's mouth fell open. For a minute he looked startled,
+and then he bulged one large round white eye suspiciously at the French
+black, while he inwardly debated on the possibility that he had become
+suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, however, that his
+vision was not at fault, he made a sudden decision and started on a new
+tack.
+
+"Now, never mind that high-faluting language," he said. "You all just
+tell me what you know about this here wah and quit you' putting on
+aihs."
+
+The puzzled French negro could only reply with another explosion of
+French interrogations, coupled with vigorous gesticulations. The
+American negro tried to talk at the same time and both of them
+endeavouring to make the other understand, increased the volumes of
+their tones until they were standing there waving their arms and
+shouting into one another's faces. The American negro gave it up.
+
+"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed the street and
+joined his comrades, "this is shore some funny country. They got the
+mos' ignorantest niggers I ever saw."
+
+Still, those American blacks were not alone in their difficulties over
+the difference in languages. I discussed the matter with one of our
+white regulars who professed great experience, having spent almost one
+entire day on mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of baggage.
+
+"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies ever will learn to
+speak English."
+
+Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns found that their
+smattering of Spanish did not help them much. But still every one seemed
+to manage to get along all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers
+in those early days couldn't understand each other's languages, but they
+could understand each other.
+
+This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young American Lieutenant
+who said he had made a twelve-hour study of the remarkable camaraderie
+that had immediately sprung up between the fighting men of France and
+the fighting men of America. In explaining this relationship, he said:
+
+"You see, we think the French are crazy," he said, "and the French know
+damn well we are."
+
+Those of our men who had not brought small French and English
+dictionaries with them, made hurried purchases of such handy articles
+and forthwith began to practice. The French people did likewise.
+
+I saw one young American infantryman seated at a table in front of one
+of the sidewalk cafés on the village square. He was dividing his
+attention between a fervent admiration of the pretty French waitress,
+who stood smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the pages
+of his small hand dictionary.
+
+She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for it, but there
+seemed to be a mutual urge for further conversation. The American would
+look first at her and then he would look through the pages of the book
+again. Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the following
+request:
+
+"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa."
+
+She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost immediately, and
+she replied:
+
+"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?"
+
+"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed the book with a
+snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors ashore before us."
+
+From the very first day of the landing we began to learn things from the
+French and they began to learn things from us. Some of our men learned
+that it was quite possible to sip an occasional glass of beer or light
+wine without feeling a sudden inclination to buy and consume all there
+remained in the café.
+
+The French soldiers were intensely interested in the equipment of our
+land forces and in the uniforms of both our soldiers and sailors. They
+sought by questions to get an understanding of the various insignia by
+which the Americans designated their rank.
+
+One thing that they noticed was a small, round white pasteboard tag
+suspended on a yellow cord from the upper left hand breast pocket of
+either the blue jackets of our sailors or the khaki shirts of our
+soldiers. So prevalent was this tag, which in reality marked the wearer
+as the owner of a package of popular tobacco, that the French almost
+accepted it as uniform equipment.
+
+The attitude of our first arriving American soldiers toward the German
+prisoners who worked in gangs on construction work in the camps and
+rough labour along the docks was a curious one. Not having yet
+encountered in battle the brothers of these same docile appearing
+captives, our men were even inclined to treat the prisoners with
+deference almost approaching admiration.
+
+In a measure, the Germans returned this feeling. The arrival of the
+Americans was really cheering to them. The prisoners disliked the French
+because they had been taught to do so from childhood. They hated the
+English because that was the hate with which they went into battle.
+
+It sounds incongruous now but, nevertheless, it was a fact then that the
+German prisoners confined at that first American sea-base really seemed
+to like the American soldiers. Maybe it was because any change of
+masters or guards was a relief in the uneventful existence which had
+been theirs since the day of their capture. Perhaps the feeling was one
+of distinct kindred, based on a familiarity with Americans and American
+customs--a familiarity which had been produced by thousands of letters
+which Germans in America had written to their friends in Germany before
+the war. On the other hand, it may simply have been by reason of
+America's official disavowal of any animosity toward the German people.
+
+One day I watched some of those prisoners unloading supplies at one of
+the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less under the eyes of an American
+sentry who stood nearby. One group of four Germans were engaged in
+carrying what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Casually, and
+as if by accident, the case was dropped to the ground and cracked.
+
+Instantly one of the prisoners' hands began to furtively investigate the
+packages revealed by the break. The other prisoners busied themselves as
+if preparing to lift the box again. The first German pulled a spoon from
+his bootleg, plunged it into the crevice in the broken box and withdrew
+it heaped with granulated sugar. With a quick movement he conveyed the
+stolen sweet to his mouth and that gapping orifice closed quickly on the
+sugar, while his stoical face immediately assumed its characteristic
+downcast look. He didn't dare move his lips or jaws for fear of
+detection.
+
+Of course these Germans had been receiving but a scant ration of sugar,
+but their lot had been no worse than that of the French soldiers
+guarding them previously, who got no sugar either. American soldiers
+then guarding those prisoners reported only a few of them for
+confinement for these human thefts.
+
+Surreptitiously, the American guards would sometimes leave cigarettes
+where the prisoners could get them, and even though the action did
+violate the rules of discipline, it helped to develop further the human
+side of the giver and the recipient and at the same time had the result
+of making the prisoners do more work for their new guards.
+
+It should be specially stated that lenience could not and was not
+extended to the point of fraternisation. But the relationship that
+seemed to exist between the German prisoners and American soldiers at
+that early date revealed undeniably the absence of any mutual hate.
+
+Around one packing case on the dock I saw, one day, a number of German
+prisoners who were engaged in unpacking bundles from America, and
+passing them down a line of waiting hands that relayed them to a freight
+car. One of the Germans leaning over the case straightened up with a
+rumpled newspaper in his hand. He had removed it from a package. A look
+of indescribable joy came across his face.
+
+"Deutscher, Deutscher," he cried, pointing to the Gothic type. The paper
+was a copy of the New York _Staats-Zeitung_.
+
+The lot of those prisoners was not an unhappy one. To me it seemed very
+doubtful whether even a small percentage of them would have accepted
+liberty if it carried with it the necessity of returning to German
+trenches.
+
+Those men knew what war was. They had crossed No Man's Land. Now they
+were far back from the blazing front in a comparatively peaceful country
+beyond the sound of the guns. If their lot at that time was to be
+characterised as "war," then in the opinion of those Germans, war was
+not what Sherman said it was.
+
+Their attitude more resembled that of the unkissed spinster who was
+taken captive when the invading army captured the town. She flung
+herself into the arms of the surprised commander of the invaders and
+smilingly whispered, "War is war."
+
+The German prison camps at St. Nazaire were inspected by General
+Pershing on the third day of the American landing when he, with his
+staff, arrived from Paris. The General and his party arrived early in
+the morning in a pouring rain. The American commander-in-chief then held
+the rank of a Major General. In the harbour was the flagship of Rear
+Admiral Gleaves.
+
+There was no delay over the niceties of etiquette when the question
+arose as to whether the Rear Admiral should call on the Major General or
+the Major General should call on the Rear Admiral.
+
+The Major General settled the subject with a sentence. He said, "The
+point is that I want to see him," and with no further ado about it
+General Pershing and his staff visited the Admiral on his flagship.
+After his inspection of our first contingent, General Pershing said:
+
+  "This is the happiest day of the busy days which I have spent in
+  France preparing for the arrival of the first contingent. To-day I
+  have seen our troops safe on French soil, landing from transports
+  that were guarded in their passage overseas by the resourceful
+  vigilance of our Navy.
+
+  "Now, our task as soldiers lies before us. We hope, with the aid of
+  the French leaders and experts who have placed all the results of
+  their experience at our disposal, to make our forces worthy in skill
+  and in determination, to fight side by side in arms with the armies
+  of France."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR
+
+
+Clip the skyline from the Blue Ridge, arch it over with arboreal vistas
+from the forests of the Oregon, reflect the two in the placid waters of
+the Wisconsin--and you will have some conception of the perfect Eden of
+beauty in which the first contingent of the American Expeditionary
+Forces trained in France.
+
+Beckoning white roads curl through the rolling hills like ribbons of
+dental cream squeezed out evenly on rich green velour. Châteaux, pearl
+white centres in settings of emerald green, push their turrets and
+bastions above the mossy plush of the mountain side. Lazy little streams
+silver the valleys with their aimless wanderings.
+
+It was a peaceful looking garden of pastoral delight that United States
+soldiers had picked out for their martial training ground. It was a
+section whose physical appearance was untouched by the three years of
+red riot and roar that still rumbled away just a few miles to the north.
+
+The training area was located in the Vosges, in east central France. By
+train, it was a nine-hour day trip from Paris. It was located about an
+hour's motor ride behind the front lines, which at that time were close
+to the north of the cities of Nancy and Toul.
+
+The troops were billeted in a string of small villages that comprised
+one side of the letter V. French troops and instructing officers
+occupied the other converging line of the letter. Between the two lines
+was the area in which our men trained. Where the two lines converged
+was the town of Gondercourt, the headquarters of Major General Seibert,
+the Commander of the first American division in France.
+
+The area had long since been stripped of male civilian population that
+could be utilised for the French ranks. The war had taken the men and
+the boys, but had left the old people and children to till the fields,
+tend the cattle, prune the hedges and trim the roads.
+
+With the advent of our troops, the restful scene began to change.
+Treeless ridges carpeted with just enough green to veil the rocky
+formation of the ground began to break out with a superficial rash of
+the colour of fresh earth. In rows and circles, by angles and zigzags,
+the training trenches began to take form daily under the pick and shovel
+exercises of French and Americans working side by side.
+
+Along the white roads, clay-coloured rectangles that moved evenly, like
+brown caravans, represented the marching units of United States troops.
+The columns of bluish-grey that passed them with shorter, quicker steps,
+were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who after almost three years
+of the front line real thing, now played at a mimic war of make-believe,
+with taller and heavier novitiates.
+
+Those French troops were Alpine Chasseurs--the famous Blue Devils. They
+wore dark blue caps, which resemble tam o'shanters, but are not. They
+were proud of the distinction which their uniform gave them. They were
+proud of their great fighting records. One single battalion of them
+boasted that of the twenty-six officers who led it into the first fight
+at the opening of the war, only four of them existed.
+
+It was a great advantage for our men to train under such instructors.
+Correspondents who had been along the fronts before America's entry
+into the war, had a great respect for the soldierly capacity of these
+same fighting Frenchmen; not only these sturdy young sons of France who
+wore the uniform, but the older French soldiers--ranging in age from
+forty to fifty-five years--who had been away to the fronts since the
+very beginning of the war.
+
+We had seen them many, many times. Miles upon miles of them, in the
+motor trucks along the roads. Twenty of them rode in each truck. They
+sat on two side benches facing the centre of the trucks. They were men
+actually bent forward from the weight of the martial equipment strapped
+to their bodies. They seemed to carry inordinate loads--knapsacks,
+blanket roll, spare shoes, haversacks, gas masks, water bottles,
+ammunition belts, grenade aprons, rifle, bayonet and helmet.
+
+Many of them were very old men. They had thick black eyebrows and wore
+long black beards. They were tired, weary men. We had seen them in the
+camions, each man resting his head on the shoulder of the man seated
+beside him. The dust of the journey turned their black beards grey. On
+the front seat of the camion a sleepless one handled the wheel, while
+beside him the relief driver slept on the seat.
+
+Thus they had been seen, mile upon mile of them, thousand upon thousand
+of them, moving ever up and down those roads that paralleled the six
+hundred and fifty miles of front from Flanders to the Alps--moving
+always. Thus they had been seen night and day, winter and summer, for
+more than three long years, always trying to be at the place where the
+enemy struck. The world knows and the world is thankful that they always
+were there.
+
+It was under such veteran instructors as these that our first Americans
+in France trained, there, in the Vosges, in a garden spot of beauty, in
+the province that boasts the birthplace of Jeanne d'Arc. On the few
+leave days, many of our men, with permission, would absent themselves
+from camp, and make short pilgrimages over the hills to the little town
+of Domremy to visit the house in which the Maid of Orleans was born.
+
+Our men were eager to learn. I observed them daily at their training
+tasks. One day when they had progressed as far as the use of the New
+French automatic rifles, I visited one of the ranges to witness the
+firing.
+
+Just under the crest of the hill was a row of rifle pits, four feet deep
+in the slaty white rock. On the opposite hill, across the marshy hollow,
+at a distance of two hundred yards, was a line of wooden targets,
+painted white with black circles. Poised at intervals on the forward
+edge of the pits were a number of automatic rifles of the type used by
+the French army. An American soldier and a French soldier attended each
+one, the former in the firing position and the latter instructing.
+
+The rear bank of the pits was lined with French and American officers.
+The order, "Commence firing," was given, and white spurts of rock dust
+began dancing on the opposite hill, while splinters began to fly from
+some of the wooden targets.
+
+At one end of the firing trench a raw American recruit, who admitted
+that he had never handled an automatic rifle before, flushed to his
+hat-brim and gritted his teeth viciously as his shots, registering ten
+feet above the targets, brought forth laughter and exclamations from the
+French soldiers nearby. He rested on his gun long enough to ask an
+interpreter what the Frenchmen were talking about.
+
+"They say," the interpreter replied, "that you belong to the
+anti-aircraft service."
+
+The recruit tightened his grip on his rifle and lowered his aim with
+better results. At the end of his first fifty shots he was placing one
+in three on the target and the others were registering close in.
+
+"Bravo!" came from a group of French officers at the other end of the
+trench, where another American, older in the service, had signalised his
+first experiences with the new firearm by landing thirty targets out of
+thirty-four shots, and four of the targets were bull's-eyes. The French
+instructors complimented him on the excellence of his marksmanship,
+considering his acknowledged unfamiliarity with the weapon.
+
+Further along the depression, in another set of opposing trenches and
+targets, a row of French machine guns manned by young Americans, sprayed
+lead with ear-splitting abandon, sometimes reaching the rate of five
+hundred shots a minute. Even with such rapidity, the Americans
+encountered no difficulties with the new pieces.
+
+French veterans, who for three years had been using those same guns
+against German targets, hovered over each piece, explaining in half
+French and half English, and answering in the same mixture questions on
+ways and means of getting the best results from the weapons.
+
+Here a chasseur of the ranks would stop the firing of one American
+squad, with a peremptory, "Regardez." He would proceed with pantomime
+and more or less connected words, carrying the warning that firing in
+such a manner would result in jamming the guns, a condition which would
+be fatal in case the targets in the other trenches were charging upon
+the guns.
+
+Then he showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks, watchfully alert to
+his every move, changed their method and signified their pleasure with
+the expression of "Trays beans," and "Mercy's."
+
+"Do you think it would have resulted in a quicker and possibly more
+understanding training if these Americans were instructed by British
+veterans instead of French?" I asked an American Staff Officer, who was
+observing the demonstration.
+
+"I may have thought so at first," the officer replied, "but not now. The
+explanations which our men in the ranks are receiving from the French
+soldiers in the ranks are more than word instructions. They are object
+lessons in which gesticulation and pantomime are used to act out the
+movement or subject under discussion.
+
+"The French are great actors, and I find that American soldiers
+unacquainted with the French language are able to understand the French
+soldiers who are unacquainted with the English language much better than
+the American officers, similarly handicapped, can understand the French
+officers.
+
+"I should say that some time would be lost if all of our troops were to
+be trained by French soldiers, but I believe that this division under
+French tutelage will be better able to teach the new tactics to the new
+divisions that are to follow than it would be if it had speedily passed
+through training camps like the British system, for instance, where it
+must be taken for granted that verbal, instead of actual, instruction is
+the means of producing a speeding up of training."
+
+Thus it was that our first American contingent in France was in training
+for something more than service on the line. It rapidly qualified into
+an expert corps from which large numbers of capable American instructors
+were later withdrawn and used for the training of our millions of men
+that followed.
+
+This achievement was only accomplished by the exercise of strict
+disciplinarian measures by every American officer in the then small
+expedition. One day, in the early part of August, 1917, a whirlwind
+swept through the string of French villages where the first contingent
+was training.
+
+The whirlwind came down the main road in a cloud of dust. It sped on the
+fleeting tires of a high-powered motor which flew from its dust-grey
+hood a red flag with two white stars. It blew into the villages and out,
+through the billets and cook tents, mess halls, and picket lines. The
+whirlwind was John J. Pershing.
+
+The commander-in-chief "hit" the training area early in the morning and
+his coming was unannounced. Before evening he had completed a stern
+inspection which had left only one impression in the minds of the
+inspected, and that impression was to the effect that more snap and pep,
+more sharpness and keenness were needed.
+
+At the conclusion of the inspection all of the officers of the
+contingent were agreeing that the whirlwind visitation was just what had
+been needed to arouse the mettle and spirit in an organisation comprised
+of over fifty per cent. raw recruits. Many of the officers themselves
+had been included in the pointed criticisms which the commander directed
+against the persons and things that met disfavour in his eyes.
+
+The night following that inspection or "raid," as it was called, it
+would have been safe to say that nowhere in the area was there a recruit
+who did not know, in a manner that he would not forget, the correct
+position of a soldier--the precise, stiff, snappy attitude to be
+presented when called to attention. The enlisted men whose heels did not
+click when they met, whose shoulders slouched, whose chins missed the
+proper angle, whose eyes were not "front" during the inspection,
+underwent embarrassing penalties, calculated to make them remember.
+
+"Have this man fall out," General Pershing directed, as he stood before
+a recruit whose attitude appeared sloppy; "teach him the position of a
+soldier and have him stand at attention for five minutes."
+
+One company which had prided itself upon having some of the best
+embryonic bomb-throwers in the contingent, contributed a number of
+victims to the above penalties, and as the General's train of
+automobiles swirled out of the village, the main street seemed to be
+dotted with silent khaki-clad statues doing their five minute sentences
+of rigidity.
+
+"What about your men's shoes?" General Pershing asked a captain sharply,
+while he directed his eyes along a company line of feet whose casings
+seemed to be approaching the shabby.
+
+"We need hobnails, sir," replied the captain.
+
+"Get them"--the words snapped out from beneath Pershing's close-cropped
+grey moustache. "Requisition hobnails. Your men need them. Get them from
+the quartermaster."
+
+The American commander stepped into the darkness of a large stone-walled
+stable, which represented the billeting accommodations for ten American
+soldiers. A dog curled in the doorway growled and showed its teeth. The
+General stepped past the menacing animal, and without heeding its snarls
+close to his heels, started questioning the sergeants in charge.
+
+"Are any cattle kept in here?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir," replied the sergeant.
+
+"Detail more men with brooms and have it aired thoroughly every day."
+
+Observed from a distance, when he was speaking with battalion and
+regimental commanders, the commander manifested no change of attitude
+from that which marked his whole inspection. He frequently employed his
+characteristic gesture of emphasis--the wadding of his left palm with
+his right fist or the energetic opening and closing of the right hand.
+When the Pershing whirlwind sped out of the training area that night,
+after the first American inspection in France, it left behind it a
+thorough realisation of the sternness of the work which was ahead of our
+army.
+
+The development of a rigid discipline was the American commander's first
+objective in the training schedules which he ordered his staff to
+devise. After this schedule had been in operation not ten days, I
+happened to witness a demonstration of American discipline which might
+be compared to an improved incident of Damocles dining under the
+suspended sword at the feast of Dionysius.
+
+A battalion of American Infantry was at practice on one of the training
+fields. The grenade-throwing exercises had been concluded and the order
+had been given to "fall in" preparatory to the march back to the camp.
+
+Upon the formation of the long company lines, end on end down the side
+of the hill, the order, "attention," was sharply shouted bringing the
+men to the rigid pose which permits the eyes to wander neither to the
+right nor to the left, above nor below, but straightforward.
+
+As the thousand men stood there, rigid and silent, a sudden disturbance
+took place in the sky above them. Shells began exploding up there. At
+the same time the men in the ranks could distinctly hear the whirr and
+the hum of aeroplane motors above them.
+
+Almost every day reports had been received that German planes had evaded
+the Allied aerial patrols along the front and had made long flights
+behind our lines for the dual purposes of observing and bombing.
+
+As the American battalion stood stiff and motionless, I knew that the
+thought was passing through the minds of every man there that here, at
+last, was the expected visitation of the German flyers and that a
+terrific bomb from above would be the next event on the programme. The
+men recognised the reports of the anti-aircraft guns blazing away, and
+the sound of the motors suggested a close range target.
+
+The sound seemed to indicate that the planes were flying low. The
+American ranks knew that something was going on immediately above them.
+They did not know what it was, but it seems needless to state that they
+wanted to know. Still the ranks stood as stiff as rows of clay-coloured
+statues.
+
+An almost irresistible impulse to look upward, a strong instinctive
+urging to see the danger that impended, and the stern regulations of
+"eyes front" that goes with the command "attention," comprised the
+elements of conflict that went on in each of the thousand heads in that
+battalion line.
+
+In front of each platoon, the lieutenants and captains stood with the
+same rigid eyes front facing the men. If one of the company officers had
+relaxed to the extent of taking one fleeting upward glance, it is
+doubtful whether the men could have further resisted the same
+inclination, but not a man shifted his gaze from the direction
+prescribed by the last command.
+
+One plane passed closely overhead and nothing happened. Three more
+followed and still no bombs fell, and then the tense incident was closed
+by the calling out of the order of the march and, in squads of four, the
+battalion wheeled into the road and marched back to billets.
+
+As one company went by singing (talking was permitted upon the freedom
+of routstep), I heard one of the men say that he had thought all along
+that the officers would not have made them stand there at attention if
+the danger had not been over.
+
+"As far as I knew, it was over," a comrade added. "It was right over my
+head." And in this light manner the men forgot the incident as they
+resumed their marching song.
+
+When Mr. W. Hollenzollern of Potsdam put singing lessons in the
+curriculum of his soldiers' training, a tremor of military giggling was
+heard around the world. But in August, 1914, when Mars smiled at the
+sight of those same soldiers, marching across the frontiers east, south
+and west, under their throaty barrage of "Deutschland, Deutschland, Über
+Alles," the derisive giggles completely died out. It immediately became
+a case of he who laughs first, lives to yodel.
+
+The American forces then in training took advantage of this. They not
+only began to sing as they trained, but they actually began to be
+trained to sing. Numerous company commanders who had held strong
+opinions against this vocal soldiering, changed their minds and
+expressed the new found conviction that the day was past when singing
+armies could be compared solely with male coryphées who hold positions
+well down stage and clink empty flagons of brown October ale.
+
+"It's a great idea," a company commander told me. "We learned it from
+the Blue Devils. They are the toughest set of undersized gentry that I
+have run into in France. They have forearms as big as three-inch shells,
+and as hard. Their favourite pastime is juggling hand-grenades that
+can't possibly explode unless they just lightly touch one another.
+
+"Yesterday we watched them, bared to the waist, as they went through
+three hours of grenade and bombing practice that was the last word in
+strenuosity. Keeping up with their exercises was hard work for our men,
+whose arms soon began to ache from the unaccustomed, overhand heaving.
+
+"Then we watched them as their commander assembled them for the march
+back to the village. At the command, 'attention,' their heels clicked,
+their heads went back, their chins up and their right hands were pasted
+rigidly against their right trouser leg.
+
+"At the command 'march' all of them started off, punctuating their first
+step with the first word of their marching song. It was not any sickly
+chorus either. There was plenty of beef and lung power behind every
+note. My men lined up opposite were not missing a bit of it. Most of
+them seemed to know what was expected when I said:
+
+"'On the command of "march," the company will begin to sing, keeping
+step with the song. The first sergeant will announce the song.'
+
+"My first sergeant responded without a change of colour as if the
+command to sing had been an old regulation. I knew that he was puzzled,
+but he did it well. The name of the song chosen was passed down the line
+from man to man.
+
+"When I gave the command to march, the company, almost half of them new
+recruits, wheeled in squads of fours, and started off down the road
+singing, 'Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.' There were some who were
+kind of weak on the effort, but there was a noticeable crescendo when
+the sergeant passed the word down the squad that the company would be
+kept marching until everybody had joined in the singing.
+
+"We swung into camp that night with every voice raising lustily on 'One
+Grasshopper Hopped Right Over Another Grasshopper's Back,' and after
+dinner the billets just sprouted melody, everything from ragtime to
+Christmas carols and baby lullabies."
+
+One noticeable characteristic about our soldiers during that training
+period before they had come in contact with the enemy, was a total
+absence of violent antipathy toward all persons and things Teutonic.
+
+On the march the men then sang "We'll Hang the Damned Old Kaiser to a
+Sour Apple Tree," but at that time I never heard any parodies on the
+"Gott Straffe Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many different
+nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown together for so short
+a time, that as yet no especial hatred of the enemy had developed.
+
+An illustration of this very subject and also the manner in which our
+boys got along with the civilian populations of the towns they occupied
+came to my notice.
+
+A driving rain which filled the valley with mist and made the hills look
+like mountain tops projecting above the clouds, had resulted in the
+abandonment of the usual daily drills. The men had spent the day in
+billets writing letters home, hearing indoor lectures from instructors,
+playing with the French children in the cottage doorways, or taking
+lessons in French from the peasant girls, whose eyes were inspirations
+to the dullest pupils.
+
+I spent several hours in a company commander's quarters while he
+censored letters which the men had submitted for transmission back home.
+The Captain looked long at a letter in his hand, smiled and called for
+his orderly.
+
+"Tell Private Blank I want to see him here right away," were the
+Captain's instructions. Blank's name was not quite so German as
+Sourkraut, but it had a "berger" ending that was reminiscent of beer,
+pretzels and wooden shoes.
+
+"Here's a letter written in German," said the Captain to me, referring
+to the open missive. "It's addressed to somebody by the same name as
+Blank, and I presume it is to some one in his family. Blank is one of
+the best men in my company, and I know that the letter is harmless, but
+it is impossible for me to pass it when written in an enemy language."
+
+The door opened and a tall, blonde enlisted man stepped in, shaking the
+rain from his hat. He stood at respectful attention, saluted and said:
+
+"Did the Captain wish to see me?"
+
+"Yes, Blank, it is about this letter written in German," the Captain
+replied. "Who is it addressed to?"
+
+"My father, in Cincinnati, sir," Blank replied.
+
+"I am unfamiliar with German," the Captain said. "I notice the letter is
+brief. Is there anything in it which the company has been ordered to
+omit mentioning?"
+
+"No, sir," Blank replied.
+
+"Will you translate it for me?" the Captain asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Blank, with just a bare suggestion of a blush. Then he
+read as follows:
+
+  "Dear Father: I am in good health. Food is good and we are learning
+  much. I am becoming an expert grenadier. In this village where we
+  are billeted there is a French girl named Germain. Before the war
+  she lived in northern France, near the German frontier, and she
+  speaks German. So it is possible for us to talk together. She fled
+  before the German troops reached her village. She lives here now
+  with her aunt.
+
+  "I carry water from a well for her and she has given me each day a
+  roll of fresh made butter for our mess. In the evening we sit on the
+  front seat of her uncle's small carriage, which is in the front
+  yard, and we imagine we are taking a drive, but of course there are
+  no horses. Her uncle's horses were taken by the army a long time
+  ago. She is very anxious to know all about America, and I have told
+  her all about you and mother and our home in Cincinnati.
+
+  "She asked me what I am going to do after the war, and I told her
+  that I would return to Cincinnati to help you at the store. She
+  cried because she said she did not know where she was going after
+  the war. Her father and two brothers have been killed and her aunt
+  and uncle are very old.
+
+  "I have some more to write to you about Germain later. But must stop
+  here because the Sergeants are assembling the men for indoor
+  instruction. Love to all. It is raining very hard. Your son, ----"
+
+Blank's face seemed to redden as he hesitated over a postscript line at
+the bottom of the page.
+
+"This is nothing," he said. "I just asked father to ask mother to send
+me one of the photographs I had taken on the day I enlisted."
+
+"For Germain?" the Captain enquired, smilingly.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Blank.
+
+"Why didn't you write this in English?" the Captain asked.
+
+"My father reads only German," Blank replied.
+
+Blank was instructed to rewrite his letter in English and address it to
+some friend who could translate it into German for his father. As the
+door closed on this American soldier of German extraction, I asked the
+Captain, "Do you think Germain could stand for Blank's German name,
+after all she has lost at the hands of the Germans?"
+
+"She'll probably be wearing it proudly around Cincinnati within a year
+after the war is over," the Captain replied.
+
+It might be reassuring at this point to remark that girls in America
+really have no occasion to fear that many of our soldiers will leave
+their hearts in France. The French women are kind to them, help them in
+their French lessons, and frequently feed them with home delicacies
+unknown to the company mess stoves, but every American soldier overseas
+seems to have that perfectly natural hankering to come back to the girls
+he left behind.
+
+The soldier mail addressed daily to mothers and sweethearts back in the
+States ran far into the tons. The men were really homesick for their
+American women folks. I was aware of this even before I witnessed the
+reception given by our men to the first American nurses to reach the
+other side.
+
+The hospital unit to which they belonged had been transported into that
+training area so quickly and so secretly that its presence there was
+unknown for some time. I happened to locate it by chance.
+
+Several of us correspondents seeking a change of diet from the
+monotonous menu provided by the hard-working madam of our modest
+hostelry, motored in a new direction, over roads that opened new vistas
+in this picture book of the world.
+
+Long straight avenues of towering trees whose foliage roofed the
+roadways were sufficient to reanimate recollections of old masters of
+brush realism. Ploughed fields veiled with the low-hanging mist of
+evening time, and distant steeples of homely simplicity faintly glazed
+by the last rays of the setting sun, reproduced the tones of "The
+Angelus" with the over-generous hugeness of nature.
+
+And there in that prettiest of French watering places--Vittel--we came
+upon those first American nurses attached to the American Expeditionary
+Forces. They told us that all they knew was the name of the place they
+were in, that they were without maps and were not even aware of what
+part of France they were located in.
+
+It developed that the unit's motor transportation had not arrived and,
+other automobiles being as scarce as German flags, communication with
+the nearby camps had been almost non-existent. Orders had been received
+from field headquarters and acknowledged, but its relation in distance
+or direction to their whereabouts were shrouded in mystery. But not for
+long.
+
+Soon the word spread through the training area that American nurses had
+a hospital in the same zone and some of the homesick Yanks began to make
+threats of self-mutilation in order that they might be sent to that
+hospital.
+
+The hospital unit was soon followed by the arrival of numerous American
+auxiliary organisations and the kindly activities of the workers as well
+as their numbers became such as to cause the men to wonder what kind of
+a war they were in.
+
+I happened to meet an old top sergeant of the regular army, a man I had
+known in Mexico, with the American Punitive Expedition. He had just
+received a large bundle of newspapers from home and he was bringing
+himself up-to-date on the news. I asked him what was happening back
+home.
+
+"Great things are going on in the States," he said, looking up from his
+papers. "Here's one story in the newspaper that says the Y. M. C. A. is
+sending over five hundred secretaries to tell us jokes and funny
+stories. And here's another account about the Red Cross donating half a
+million dollars to build recreation booths for us along the front. And
+here's a story about a New York actor getting a committee of
+entertainers together to come over and sing and dance for us. And down
+in Philadelphia they're talking about collecting a million dollars to
+build tabernacles along the front so's Billy Sunday can preach to us.
+What I'm wondering about is, when in hell they're going to send the army
+over."
+
+But that was in the early fall of 1917, and as I write these lines now,
+in the last days of 1918, I am aware and so is the world, that in all of
+France nobody will ever ask that question again.
+
+That army got there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS
+
+
+While our infantry perfected their training in the Vosges, the first
+American artillery in France undertook a schedule of studies in an old
+French artillery post located near the Swiss frontier. This place is
+called Valdahon, and for scores of years had been one of the training
+places for French artillery. But during the third and fourth years of
+the war nearly all of the French artillery units being on the front, all
+subsequent drafts of French artillerymen received their training under
+actual war conditions.
+
+So it was that the French war department turned over to the Americans
+this artillery training ground which had been long vacant. Three
+American artillery regiments, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, comprising
+the first U. S. Artillery Brigade, began training at this post.
+
+The barracks had been long unoccupied and much preparatory work was
+necessary before our artillerymen could move in. Much of this work
+devolved upon the shoulders of the Brigade Quartermaster.
+
+The first difficulty that he encountered was the matter of illumination
+for the barracks, mess halls and lecture rooms. All of the buildings
+were wired, but there was no current. The Quartermaster began an
+investigation and this was what he found:
+
+The post had been supplied with electricity from a generating plant
+located on a river about ten miles away. This plant had supplied
+electrical energy for fifteen small French towns located in the
+vicinity. The plant was owned and operated by a Frenchman, who was
+about forty years old. The French Government, realising the necessity
+for illumination, had exempted this man from military service, so that
+he remained at his plant and kept the same in operation for the benefit
+of the camp at Valdahon and the fifteen small towns nearby.
+
+Then the gossips of the countryside got busy. These people began to say
+that Monsieur X, the operator of the plant, was not patriotic, in other
+words, that he was a slacker for not being at the front when all of
+their menfolk had been sent away to the war.
+
+Now it so happened that Monsieur X was not a slacker, and his
+inclination had always been to get into the fight with the Germans, but
+the Government had represented to him that it was his greater duty to
+remain and keep his plant in operation to provide light for the
+countryside.
+
+When the talk of the countryside reached Monsieur X's ears, he being a
+country-loving Frenchman was infuriated. He denounced the gossips as
+being unappreciative of the great sacrifice he had been making for their
+benefit, and, to make them realise it, he decided on penalising them.
+
+Monsieur X simply closed down his plant, locked and barred the doors and
+windows, donned his French uniform and went away to the front to join
+his old regiment. That night those villagers in the fifteen nearby
+towns, who had been using electrical illumination, went to bed in the
+dark.
+
+It required considerable research on the part of the Artillery
+Quartermaster to reveal all these facts. The electric lights had been
+unused for fifteen months when he arrived there, and he started to see
+what he could do to put the plant back to work. It required nothing
+less finally than a special action by the French Minister of War whereby
+orders were received by Monsieur X commanding him to leave his regiment
+at the front and go back to his plant by the riverside and start making
+electricity again.
+
+With the lights on and water piped in for bathing facilities, and
+extensive arrangements made for the instalment of stoves and other
+heating apparatus, the purchase of wood fuel and fodder for the animals,
+the Brigade moved in and occupied the camp.
+
+The American officer in command of that post went there as a Brigadier
+General. As I observed him at his work in those early days, I seemed to
+see in his appearance and disposition some of the characteristics of a
+Grant. He wore a stubby-pointed beard and he clamped his teeth tight on
+the butt end of a cigar. I saw him frequently wearing the $11.50
+regulation issue uniform of the enlisted men. I saw him frequently in
+rubber boots standing hip deep in the mud of the gun pits, talking to
+the men like a father--a kindly, yet stern father who knew how to
+produce discipline and results.
+
+While at the post, he won promotion to a Major General's rank, and in
+less than six months he was elevated to the grade of a full General and
+was given the highest ranking military post in the United States. That
+man who trained our first artillerymen in France was General Peyton C.
+March, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
+
+Finding the right man for the right place was one of General March's
+hobbies. He believed in military mobilisation based on occupational
+qualifications. In other words, he believed that a man who had been a
+telephone operator in civilian life would make a better telephone
+operator in the army than he would make a gunner.
+
+I was not surprised to find that this same worthy idea had permeated in
+a more or less similar form down to the lowest ranks in General March's
+command at that time. I encountered it one cold night in October, when I
+was sitting in one of the barrack rooms talking with a man in the ranks.
+
+That man's name was Budd English. I met him first in Mexico on the
+American Punitive Expedition, where he had driven an automobile for
+Damon Runyon, a fellow correspondent. English, with his quaint
+Southwestern wit, had become in Mexico a welcome occupant of the large
+pyramidal tent which housed the correspondents attached to the
+Expedition. We would sit for hours hearing him tell his stories of the
+plains and the deserts of Chihuahua.
+
+English and I were sitting on his bed at one corner of the barrack room,
+rows of cots ranged each side of the wall and on these were the snoring
+men of the battery. The room was dimly illuminated by a candle on a
+shelf over English's head and another candle located on another shelf in
+the opposite corner of the room. There was a man in bed in a corner
+reading a newspaper by the feeble rays of the candle.
+
+Suddenly we heard him growl and tear the page of the newspaper in half.
+His exclamation attracted my attention and I looked his way. His hair
+was closely cropped and his head, particularly his ears and forehead,
+and jaw, stamped him as a rough and ready fighter.
+
+"That's Kid Ferguson, the pug," English whispered to me, and then in
+louder tones, he enquired, "What's eating on you, kid?"
+
+"Aw, this bunk in the paper," replied Ferguson. Then he glared at me
+and enquired, "Did you write this stuff?"
+
+"What stuff?" I replied. "Read it out."
+
+Ferguson picked up the paper and began to read in mocking tones
+something that went as follows:
+
+"Isn't it beautiful in the cold early dawn in France, to see our dear
+American soldiers get up from their bunks and go whistling down to the
+stables to take care of their beloved animals."
+
+English laughed uproariously.
+
+"The Kid don't like horses no more than I do," he said. "Neither one of
+us have got any use for them at all. And here, that's all they keep us
+doing, is tending horses. I went down there the other morning with a
+lantern and one of them long-eared babies just kicked it clean out of my
+hand. The other morning one of them planted two hoofs right on
+Ferguson's chest and knocked him clear out of the stable. It broke his
+watch and his girl's picture.
+
+"You know, Mr. Gibbons, I never did have any use for horses. When I was
+about eight years old a horse bit me. When I was about fifteen years old
+I got run over by an ice-wagon. Horses is just been the ruination of me.
+
+"If it hadn't been for them I might have gone through college and been
+an officer in this here army. You remember that great big dairy out on
+the edge of the town in El Paso? Well, my dad owned that and he lost all
+of it on the ponies in Juarez. I just hate horses.
+
+"I know everything there is to know about an automobile. I have driven
+cross country automobile races and after we come out of Mexico, after we
+didn't get Villa, I went to work in the army machine shops at Fort Bliss
+and took down all them motor trucks and built them all over again.
+
+"When Uncle Sam got into the war against Germany, this here Artillery
+Battalion was stationed out at Fort Bliss, and I went to see the Major
+about enlisting, but I told him I didn't want to have nothing to do with
+no horses.
+
+"And he says, 'English, don't you bother about that. You join up with
+this here battalion, because when we leave for France we're going to
+kiss good-bye to them horses forever. This here battalion is going to be
+motorised.'
+
+"And now here we are in France, and we still got horses, and they don't
+like me and I don't like them, and yet I got to mill around with 'em
+every day. The Germans ain't never going to kill me. They ain't going to
+get a chance. They just going to find me trampled to death some morning
+down in that stable."
+
+Two or three of the occupants of nearby beds had arisen and taken seats
+on English's bed. They joined the conversation. One red-headed
+youngster, wearing heavy flannel underwear in lieu of pajamas, made the
+first contribution to the discussion.
+
+"That's just what I'm beefing about," he said. "Here I've been in this
+army two months now and I'm still a private. There ain't no chance here
+for a guy that's got experience."
+
+"Experience? Where do you get that experience talk?" demanded English.
+"What do you know about artillery?"
+
+"That's just what I mean, experience," the red-headed one replied with
+fire. "I got experience. Mr. Gibbons knows me. I'm from Chicago, the
+same as he is. I worked in Chicago at Riverview Park. I'm the guy that
+fired the gattling gun in the Monitor and Merrimac show--we had two
+shows a day and two shows in the evening and----"
+
+"Kin you beat that," demanded English. "You know, if this here
+red-headed guy don't get promotion pretty quick, he's just simply going
+to quit this army and leave us flat here in France facing the Germans.
+
+"Let me tell you about this gattling gun expert. When they landed us off
+of them boats down on the coast, the battalion commander turned us all
+loose for a swim in the bay, and this here bird almost drowned. He went
+down three times before we could pull him out.
+
+"Now, if they don't make him a Brigadier General pretty quick, he's
+going to get sore and put in for a transfer to the Navy on the grounds
+of having submarine experience. But he's right in one thing--experience
+don't count for what it should in the army.
+
+"Right here in our battery we got a lot of plough boys from Kansas that
+have been sitting on a plough and looking at a horse's back all their
+lives, and they got them handling the machinery on these here guns. And
+me, who knows everything there is to know about machinery, they won't
+let me even find out which end of the cannon you put the shell in and
+which end it comes out of. All I do all day long is to prod around a
+couple of fat-hipped hayburners. My God, I hate horses."
+
+But regardless of these inconveniences those first American artillerymen
+in our overseas forces applied themselves strenuously to their studies.
+They were there primarily to learn. It became necessary for them at
+first to make themselves forget a lot of things that they had previously
+learned by artillery and adapt themselves to new methods and instruments
+of war.
+
+Did you ever hear of "Swansant, Kansas"? You probably won't find it on
+any train schedule in the Sunflower State; in fact, it isn't a place at
+all. It is the name of the light field cannon that France provided our
+men for use against the German line.
+
+"Swansant, Kansas" is phonetic spelling of the name as pronounced by
+American gunners. The French got the same effect in pronunciation by
+spelling the singular "soixante quinze," but a Yankee cannoneer trying
+to pronounce it from that orthography was forced to call it a "quince,"
+and that was something which it distinctly was not.
+
+One way or the other it meant the "Seventy-fives"--the "Admirable
+Seventy-five"--the seventy-five millimetre field pieces that stopped the
+Germans' Paris drive at the Marne--the same that gave Little Willie a
+headache at Verdun,--the inimitable, rapid firing, target hugging, hell
+raising, shell spitting engine of destruction whose secret of recoil
+remained a secret after almost twenty years and whose dependability was
+a French proverb.
+
+At Valdahon where American artillery became acquainted with the
+Seventy-five, the khaki-clad gun crews called her "some cannon." At
+seven o'clock every morning, the glass windows in my room at the post
+would rattle with her opening barks, and from that minute on until noon
+the Seventy-fives, battery upon battery of them, would snap and bark
+away until their seemingly ceaseless fire becomes a volley of sharp
+cracks which sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark
+recesses of the forests that conceal them.
+
+The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation, deflection, all
+came to the battery over the signal wires that connected the firing
+position with some observation point also unseen but located in a
+position commanding the terrain under fire.
+
+A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of each battery. He
+received the firing directions from the transmitter clamped to his ears
+and conveyed them to the firing executive who stood beside him. They
+were then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections.
+
+The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instruments at the side of
+each gun, "laid the piece" for range and deflection. Number one man of
+the crew opened the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by
+number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter, and cut the fuses.
+Numbers four and five screwed the fuses in the shells and kept the
+fuse-setter loaded.
+
+The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing command to the gun
+crews, and number one of each piece jerked the firing lanyard at ten
+second intervals or whatever interval the command might call for. The
+four guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over the damp
+wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of trenches, theoretical
+cross-roads, or designated sections where the enemy was supposed to be
+massing for attack. Round after round would follow, while telephoned
+corrections perfected the range, and burst. The course of each shell was
+closely observed as well as its bursting effect, but no stupendous
+records were kept of the individual shots. That was "peace time stuff."
+
+These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery and no scarcity of
+shells was permitted to interfere with their education. One officer told
+me that it was his opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling
+post during a course of six weeks, had expended more ammunition than all
+of the field artillery of the United States Army has fired during the
+entire period since the Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost
+approximately ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American
+artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being wasted. They
+said cannon firing could not be learned entirely out of a book.
+
+I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate, who had been two
+years with the guns at the front, and I had asked him what in his
+opinion was the most disconcerting thing that could happen to effect the
+morale of new gunners under actual fire. I wanted some idea of what
+might be expected of American artillerymen when they made their initial
+appearance on the line.
+
+We discussed the effect of counter battery fire, the effect on gun crews
+of asphyxiating gas, either that carried on the wind from the enemy
+trenches or that sent over in gas shells. We considered the demoralising
+influences of aerial attacks on gun positions behind the line.
+
+"They are all bad," my informant concluded. "But they are expected. Men
+can stand without complaint and without qualm any danger that is
+directed at them by the foe they are fighting. The thing that really
+bothers, though, is the danger of death or injury from their own weapons
+or ammunition. You see, many times there is such a thing as a faulty
+shell, although careful inspection in the munitions plants has reduced
+this danger to a percentage of about one in ten thousand.
+
+"At the beginning of the war when every little tin shop all over the
+world was converted into a munitions factory to supply the great need of
+shells, much faulty ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the
+shells would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. They are
+called shorts. The English, who had the same trouble, call them 'muzzle
+bursts.'
+
+"Sometimes the shell would explode in the bore of the cannon, in which
+case the cannoneers were usually killed either by pieces of the shell
+itself or bits of the cannon. The gunners have to sit beside the cannon
+when it is fired, and the rest of the gun crew are all within eight feet
+of it. If there is an explosion in the breech of the gun, it usually
+wipes out most of the crew. A muzzle burst, or a breech explosion, is
+one of the most disconcerting things that could happen in a battery.
+
+"The other men in the battery know of course that a faulty shell caused
+the explosion. They also know that they are firing ammunition from the
+same lot. After that, as they pull the trigger on each shot, they don't
+know whether the shell is going out of the gun all right or whether it
+is going to explode in the breech and kill all of them. That thought in
+a man's mind when he pulls the firing lanyard, that thought in the minds
+of the whole crew as they stand there waiting for the crash, is
+positively demoralising.
+
+"When it happens in our French artillery the cannoneers lose confidence
+in their pieces. They build small individual dugouts a safe ways back
+from the gun and extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all the
+gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally removes them
+from their regular firing positions beside the pieces, reduces the
+accuracy and slows up the entire action of the battery. The men's
+suspicions of the shells combined with the fear of death by their own
+weapons, which is greater than any fear of death at the hands of the
+enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews."
+
+Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunition had reached the post.
+The caissons were filled with it. Early the following morning when the
+guns rumbled out of camp to the practice grounds, Battery X was firing
+in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece number two exploded
+prematurely thirty yards from the muzzle. Pieces three and four fired
+ten and twenty seconds later with every man standing on his toes in his
+prescribed position.
+
+Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun exploded thirty feet
+after leaving the bore. Shell particles buried themselves in the ground
+near the battery. Piece number four, right next to it, was due to fire
+in ten seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot. The gun crews
+knew what they were up against. They were firing faulty ammunition. They
+passed whispered remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition
+and with military precision on the immediate command. Every man stuck to
+his position. As each gun was fired the immediate possibilities were not
+difficult to imagine.
+
+Then it happened.
+
+"Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive. The section chief of
+number one piece dropped his right hand as the signal for the discharge.
+The corporal gunner was sitting on the metal seat in front of his
+instruments and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Cannoneer
+number one of the gun crew occupied his prescribed position in the same
+location to the immediate right of the breech. Gunner number two was
+standing six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready to
+receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number three was kneeling
+over the fuse setter behind the caisson which stood wheel to wheel with
+the gun carriage. Gunners four and five were rigid statues three feet
+back of him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts of
+dangerous ammunition.
+
+Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the section chief. He
+pulled the lanyard.
+
+There was an eruption of orange coloured flame, a deafening roar, a
+crash of rendered steel, a cloud of smoke blue green, and yellow.
+
+A black chunk of the gun cradle hurtled backward through the air with a
+vicious swish. A piece of the bore splintered the wheels and buried
+itself in the ammunition caisson. Thick hunks of gun metal crumbling
+like dry cake filled the air. The ground shook.
+
+The corporal gunner pitched backward from his seat and collapsed on the
+ground. His mate with fists buried in his steel seared eyes staggered
+out of the choking fumes. The rest of the crew picked themselves up in a
+dazed condition. Fifty yards away a horse was struggling to regain his
+feet.
+
+Every man in the three other gun crews knew what had happened. None of
+them moved from their posts. They knew their guns were loaded with
+shells from the same lot and possibly with the same faults. No man knew
+what would happen when the next firing pin went home. The evidence was
+before them. Their eyes were on the exploded gun but not for long.
+
+"Crash," the ten second firing interval had expired. The section chief
+of piece number two had dropped his hand. The second gun in the battery
+had fired.
+
+"Number two on the way," sang out the signalman over the telephone wire
+to the hidden observation station.
+
+Ten seconds more for another gun crew to cogitate on whether disaster
+hung on the dart of a firing pin.
+
+"Crash."
+
+"Number three on the way."
+
+Another ten seconds for the last section to wonder whether death would
+come with the lanyard jerk.
+
+"Crash."
+
+"Number four on the way." Round complete. The signalman finished his
+telephone report.
+
+Four horses drawing an army ambulance galloped up from the ravine that
+sheltered them. The corporal gunner, unconscious and with one leg
+pulverised was lifted in. Two other dazed members of the crew were
+helped into the vehicle. One was bleeding from the shoulder. The lead
+horses swung about; the ambulance rattled away.
+
+"Battery ready to fire. Piece number one out of action." It was the
+signalman reporting over the wire to the observer.
+
+Battery X fired the rest of the morning and they used ammunition from
+the same lot and every man knew what might happen any minute and every
+man was in his exact position for every shot and nobody happened to
+think about hiding in a dugout and putting a long string on the firing
+lanyard.
+
+It had been an unstaged, unconscious demonstration of nerve and grit and
+it proved beyond all question the capacity of American artillerymen to
+stand by the guns.
+
+The gunner corporal told the nurse at his bedside how it all happened,
+but he was still under the effects of the anesthetic. He did not refer
+to the morale of his battery mates because it had not occurred to him
+that there was anything unusual in what they did. But he did think that
+he could wiggle the toes on his right leg. The doctor told me that this
+was a common delusion before the patient had been informed of the
+amputation.
+
+Incidents such as the one related had no effect whatever upon the
+progress of the work. From early dawn to late at night the men followed
+their strenuous duties six days a week and then obtained the necessary
+relief on the seventh day by trips down to the ancient town of Besançon.
+
+In this picturesque country where countless thousands fought and died,
+down through the bloody centuries since and before the Christian era,
+where Julius Cæsar paused in his far flung raids to dictate new inserts
+to his commentaries, where kings and queens and dukes and pretenders
+left undying traces of ambition's stormy urgings, there it was that
+American soldiers, in training for the war of wars, spent week-end
+holidays and mixed the breath of romance with the drag of their
+cigarettes.
+
+The extender of Roman borders divided that region into three parts,
+according to the testimony of the first Latin class, but he neglected to
+mention that of these three parts the one decreed for American
+occupation was the most romantic of them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is late on a Saturday afternoon and I accept the major's offer of a
+seat in his mud-bespattered "Hunka Tin." The field guns have ceased
+their roar for the day and their bores will be allowed to cool over
+Sunday. Five per cent. of the men at the post have received the coveted
+town leave.
+
+They form a khaki fresco on the cab and sides of the giant commissary
+trucks that raise the dust along the winding white road over the hills.
+Snorting motorcycles with two men over the motor and an officer in the
+side car skim over the ground, passing all others. A lukewarm sun
+disappears in a slot in the mountains and a blue grey mist forms in the
+valleys. A chill comes over the air and a cold new moon looks down and
+laughs.
+
+It is a long ride to the ancient town, but speed laws and motor traps
+are unknown and the hood of the Detroit Dilemma shakes like a wet dog as
+her sizzling hot cylinders suck juice from a full throttle. We cross one
+divide through a winding road bordered by bushy trees and as orderly as
+a national park. We coast through a hillside hamlet of barking dogs and
+saluting children who stand at smiling attention and greet our passage
+with a shrill "Veev La Mereek" (Vive l'Amérique).
+
+We scud across a broad, level road built well above the lowland, and
+climb through zig-zagging avenues of stately poplars to the tunnel that
+pierces the backbone of the next ridge.
+
+While the solid rock walls of the black bore reverberate with the echoes
+from our exhaust, we emerge on a road that turns sharply to the left and
+hugs a cliff. Below winds a broad river that looks like mother of pearl
+in the moonlight. The mountain walls on either side rise at angles
+approximating 45 degrees, and in the light their orderly vineyards look
+like the squares on a sloping checkerboard. In front of us and to the
+right the flanking ridges converge to a narrow gorge through which the
+river Doub runs to loop the town.
+
+Commanding this gorge from the crests of the two rocky heights are
+sinister sentinels whose smooth, grey walls and towers rise sheer from
+the brink of the cliffs. The moonlight now catching the ramparts of the
+em-battlements splashes them with strokes of white that seem ever
+brighter in contrast with the darker shadows made by projecting portions
+of the walls. Spaniard and Moor knew well those walls, and all the
+kingly glory that hurried France to the reign of terror has slept within
+their shadows.
+
+Our way down the cliff side is hewn out of the beetling rock. To our
+left, a jagged wall of rock rises to the sky. To our right, a step,
+rock-tumbled declivity drops to the river's edge.
+
+The moonlight brings funny fancies, and our yellow headlights, wavering
+in concentric arcs with each turn of the course, almost seem to glint on
+the helmets and shields of the spear-bearing legionaries that marched
+that very way to force a southern culture on the Gauls. We slow down to
+pass through the rock-hewn gate that once was the Roman aqueduct
+bringing water down from mountain springs to the town.
+
+Through the gate, a turn to the left and we reach the black bottom of
+the gorge untouched by the rising moon. We face a blast of wind that
+slows our speed and brings with it the first big drops of rain. We stop
+at the "Octroi" and assure the customs collector that we are military,
+and that we carry no dutiable wine, or beans or wood into the town.
+
+Yet another gate, built across the narrow road between the cliff and the
+river, and we enter the town. It has been raining and the cobblestones
+are slippery. They shine in the gleams of pale light that come from the
+top-heavy street lamps. Gargoyle water spouts drip drainage from the
+gables of moss-speckled tiles.
+
+We pass a fountain that the Romans left, and rounded arches further on
+show where the hooded Moor wrote his name in masonry. Barred windows and
+stone balconies projecting over the street take one's mind off the
+rattling motor and cause it to wander back to times when serenading
+lovers twanged guitars beneath their ladies' windows and were satisfied
+with the flower that dropped from the balcony.
+
+The streets are wet and dark now and through their narrow windings our
+headlights reveal tall figures in slickers or khaki overcoats topped by
+peaked felt hats with the red cords of American artillerymen. Their
+identification is a surprise to the dreamer, because one rather expects
+these figures to sulk in the deeper shadows and screen their dark,
+bearded faces with the broad brims of black felt hats or muffle
+themselves to the chin in long, flowing black cloaks that hide rapiers
+and stilettos and other properties of mediæval charm.
+
+We dine in a room three hundred years old. The presence of our
+automobile within the inner quadrangle of the ancient building jars on
+the sense of fitness. It is an old convent, now occupied by irreligious
+tenants on the upper three floors, restaurants and estaminets on the
+lower floor. These shops open on a broad gallery, level with the
+courtyard, and separated from it only by the rows of pillars that
+support the arches. It extends around the four sides of the court.
+
+Centuries ago shrouded nuns, clasping beads or books of office, walked
+in uncommunicative pairs and mumbled their daily prayers beneath these
+time-worn arches, and to-night it affords a promenade for officers
+waiting for their meals to be served at madame's well laid tables
+within.
+
+Madame's tables are not too many. There is not the space economy of an
+American café, where elbows interlock and waiters are forced to navigate
+fearsome cargoes above the diners' heads. Neither is there the
+unwholesome, dust-filled carpet of London's roast beef palaces.
+
+Madame's floor is bare, but the wood has stood the scrubbings of years,
+and is as spotless as grass-dried linen. The high ceiling and the walls
+are of white stucco. In bas-relief are clusters of heraldic signs, of
+bishops' crooks and cathedral keys, of mounted chargers and dying
+dragoons, of miter and crown, and trumpet and shield, and cross.
+
+Large mirrors, circled with wreaths of gilded leaves, adorn both end
+walls, and beneath one of them remains an ornate fireplace and
+mantelpiece of bologna coloured marble, surmounted with a gilt cock of
+wondrous design. Beneath the other mirror madame has placed her buffet,
+on which the boy who explores the dusty caves below places the cobwebbed
+bottles of red wine for the last cork pulling. Large gold chandeliers,
+dangling with glass prisms, are suspended from high ceiling and flood
+the room with light, against which the inner shutters of the tall
+windows must be shut because of danger from the sky.
+
+There is colour in that room. The Roman conquerors would have found it
+interesting. If former armed occupants of the old town could have
+paraded in their ancient habiliments through the room like a procession
+from the martial past, they would have found much for their attention in
+this scene of the martial present. American khaki seems to predominate,
+although at several tables are Canadian officers in uniforms of the same
+colour but of different tailoring.
+
+The tables are flecked with all varieties of French uniforms, from
+scarlet pants with solitary black stripes down the leg, to tunics of
+horizon blue. In one corner there are two turbaned Algerians with heads
+bent close over their black coffee, and one horn of the hall rack shows
+a red fez with a gold crescent on the crown.
+
+Consider the company. That freckle-faced youth with the fluffed reddish
+hair of a bandmaster is a French aviator, and among the row of
+decorations on his dark blue coat is one that he received by reason of a
+well known adventure over the German lines, which cannot be mentioned
+here. That American colonel whose short grey hair blends into the white
+wall behind him is a former member of the United States war college and
+one of the most important factors in the legislation that shaped the
+present military status of his country. That other Frenchman with the
+unusual gold shoulder straps is not a member of the French army. He is
+a naval officer, and the daring with which he carried his mapping chart
+along exposed portions of the line at Verdun and evolved the
+mathematical data on which the French fired their guns against the
+German waves has been the pride of both the navy and the army.
+
+Over there is a young captain who this time last year was a "shavetail"
+second in command at a small post along the line of communications in
+Chihuahua. Next to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride his
+first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. He carted human
+wreckage to the hospitals on the French front for two years before Uncle
+Sam decided to end the war. There's another one not long from the
+"Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his uniform. He speaks with a
+twang of old Virginia on every syllable and they say his family--but
+that has nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major general
+and is in these parts on a mission.
+
+There are three American women in the room. One who is interested in Y.
+M. C. A. work and a number of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of
+the uniform and holds court at the head of a table of five officers.
+Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is engaged in the extension of
+the canteen work of a Paris organisation, is sitting at our table and
+she is willing to wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves to
+a big donation check that Germany will be ready for any kind of peace
+before an American offensive in the spring.
+
+The interests of the other American woman are negative. She professes no
+concern in the fact that war correspondents' life insurances are
+cancelled, but she repeats to me that a dead correspondent is of no use
+to his paper, and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her
+courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a fork in his hand
+instead of a pencil.
+
+The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon door brings in a gust
+of dampness that makes the tablecloths flap. Rain coats swish and rustle
+in the entry. Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The moon
+is gone.
+
+A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting the quadrangle.
+Their hobnailed soles and steel plated heels ring on the stone flags.
+The arches echo back their song:
+
+    "In days of old
+    A warrior bold
+    Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.
+    My love is young and fair.
+    My love has golden hair,
+    So what care I
+    Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."
+
+With frequent passages where a dearth of words reduce the selection to
+musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, the voices melt into the blackness
+and the rain.
+
+"Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This place is saturated
+with romance. I don't have to be back to the post until to-morrow night.
+Where will we go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house on
+the square. What do you say?"
+
+"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to the hotel," the wife
+replies.
+
+Romance was slapped with a custard pie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"FRONTWARD HO!"
+
+
+When the artillery training had proceeded to such a point that the
+French instructors were congratulating our officers upon their
+proficiency, the rumours spread through the post that the brigade had
+been ordered to go to the front--that we were to be the first American
+soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.
+
+The news was received with joy. The men were keen to try out their newly
+acquired abilities upon the enemy. Harness was polished until it shone.
+Brass equipment gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The
+men groomed the horses until the animals got pains from it. Enlisted men
+sojourning in the Guard House for petty offences, despatched their
+guards with scrawled pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so
+that they could accompany the outfits to the front.
+
+With one special purpose in view, I made application to General March
+for an assignment to Battery A of the Sixth Field Artillery. I received
+the appointment. The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A
+was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we would march out in
+that order, that Battery A would entrain first, detrain first, go in the
+line first, and I hoped to be present at the firing of the first
+American shot in the war.
+
+We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in the morning, two
+days later. Officers and men had been up and dressed since midnight. Ten
+minutes after their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal
+equipment packed ready for departure with the exception of mess kits.
+
+While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest of us "leaned
+up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and hot coffee. The cook had been
+on the job all night and his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed
+as if it was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow" acted as a
+primer on the sleepy human machines.
+
+In the darkness, the animals were packed into the gun carriages and
+caissons down in the gun park, and it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the
+captain's whistle sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled
+over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men made facetious
+good-byes to the scene of their six weeks' training.
+
+Soldiers like movement--we were on the move. Every one's spirits were up
+and the animals were frisky and high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains
+rattled as some of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought
+back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, muffled in great
+coats, hung on the caisson seats and chided the drivers.
+
+We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make no difference. Rumours
+could never be depended upon, so none of us knew our destination, but
+all of us hoped that we were going into action. Every man in the battery
+felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, if given a
+chance, could prove that it needed no further training.
+
+At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear that we were on our
+way to some other training camp for some post-graduate course in firing
+or maybe for the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries.
+The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing" about our
+prospects wouldn't change them, and that anything was better than
+staying in the same place forever.
+
+Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad tracks. The
+crossing bore a name as everything else did in that land of poetical
+nomenclature. There was only one house there. It was an old grey stone
+cottage, its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of shrubbery.
+It was occupied by three persons, the old crossing-tender, his wife--and
+one other. That other was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.
+
+We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing gates for traffic
+on the road. She was about sixteen years old. Her ankles were encased in
+thick grey woollen hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from
+her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move in her clumsy
+footgear might break them off.
+
+As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode one of the lead pair
+on piece No. 2, began to give vent to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher
+was singing:
+
+    "We were sailing along
+    On Moonlight bay,
+    You could hear the voices ringing,
+    They seemed to say,
+    'You have stolen my heart
+    Now, don't go away,'
+    As we kissed and said good-bye
+    On Moonlight bay."
+
+It would almost have seemed that there was need of some explanation for
+Gallagher's musical demonstration on this cold, dark morning, but none
+was demanded. Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.
+
+His pair of lead horses were walking in much too orderly a fashion for
+the occasion. Apparently the occasion demanded a little greater show of
+dash and spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his mount
+and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy handle of his riding
+crop.
+
+The leads lunged forward against their collars. The sudden plunge was
+accompanied by a jangle of chains as the traces tightened. The gun
+carriage jolted and the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.
+
+"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on the lines as he
+shouted in a calculated pitch the French names of his horses. And then
+the reason for Gallagher's conduct developed.
+
+A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of the gate-tender's
+cottage opened outward. In the window was a lamp. The yellow rays from
+it shone upward and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair, black
+eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then a sweet voice said:
+
+"Gude-bye, Meeky."
+
+"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.
+
+"_Après la guerre_, Meeky," said Jeanne.
+
+"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.
+
+"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out one of the men,
+astride one of the wheel pair of the same gun.
+
+The window had closed, but before the light disappeared, black eyes
+flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead,
+turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing
+at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl when they saw
+one."
+
+We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold out of
+Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away, and smiling frigidly
+across the snow-clad neutral Alps, dispelled the night mist in our part
+of the world.
+
+The battery warmed under its glow. Village after village we passed
+through, returning the polite salutes of early rising grand-sires who
+uncovered their grey heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who
+waved kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and smiled the
+straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age as they wished us good
+fortune in the war.
+
+We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields and hills of France,
+our table decorations, cold beef and dry bread, our fare, with canteens
+full to wash it down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags
+futilely for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch had timed
+the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we mounted and resumed the
+march.
+
+The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs had been shifted to
+positions of maximum comfort. The horses were still fresh enough to need
+tight rein. The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps on
+their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads that never before
+had been topped with armoured covering. In addition to all other
+equipment, each man carried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an
+explanation for me as to this double gas mask equipment.
+
+"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted the
+next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian cigarette from my
+proffered case. I winced as he deliberately tore the paper from that
+precious fine smoke and inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.
+
+"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," he said. "Both of
+them loves us and we love both of them. We don't know nothing about gas
+masks and they knows all there is to know about them. The French say
+their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas mask is the best.
+
+"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now Uncle Sam don't want
+to hurt nobody's feelings, so he says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about
+this here matter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of them a
+try-out.'
+
+"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags. The first time we
+get into a mess of this here gas, somebody will send the order around to
+change masks in the middle of it--just to find out which is the best
+one."
+
+The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that fine cigarette on a
+roadside kilometer stone and closed the international prospects of the
+subject.
+
+Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and emerged on the other
+side just as a storm of rain and hail burst with mountain fury. The
+hailstones rattled on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound
+as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson wheels as we
+took the steep down-grade. The road hugged the valley wall which was a
+rugged, granite cliff.
+
+I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and watched our battery
+as it passed through the historic rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance
+to the mediæval town of Besançon. The portal is located at a sharp turn
+of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain spur. Ancient
+doors of iron-studded oak still guard the entrance, but they have long
+since stood open. Battlements that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown
+down in ancient menace to any invader.
+
+[Illustration: CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN
+OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE
+THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO
+RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, LIKE A
+STEAM ROLLER]
+
+No Roman conqueror at the head of his invading legions ever rode through
+that triumphal arch with greater pride than rode our little captain
+at the head of his battery. Our little captain was in stature the
+smallest man in our battery, but he compensated for that by riding the
+tallest horse in the battery.
+
+He carried his head at a jaunty angle. He wore his helmet at a nifty
+tilt, with the chin strap riding between his underlip and his dimpled,
+upheld chin. He carried his shoulders back, and his chest out. The reins
+hung gracefully in his left hand, and he had assumed a rather
+moving-picture pose of the right fist on his right hip. Behind him flew
+the red guidon, its stirruped staff held stiffly at the right arm's
+length by the battery standard bearer.
+
+Both of them smiled--expansive smiles of pride--into the clicking lens
+of my camera. I forgave our little captain for his smile of pride. I
+knew that six weeks before that very day our little captain had fitted
+into the scheme of civilian life as a machinery salesman from Indiana.
+And there that day, he rode at the head of his two hundred and fifty
+fighting men and horses, at the head of his guns, rolling down that road
+in France on the way to the front.
+
+In back of him and towering upward, was that historic rock that had
+known the tread and passage of countless martial footsteps down through
+the centuries. Behind him, the gun carriages rattled through the
+frowning portal. Oh, if the folks back on the Wabash could have seen him
+then!
+
+We wound through the crooked narrow streets of Besançon, our steel-tired
+wheels bounding and banging over the cobblestones. Townsfolk waved to us
+from windows and doorways. Old women in the market square abandoned
+their baskets of beet roots and beans to flutter green stained aprons in
+our direction. Our column was flanked by clattering phalanxes of
+wooden-shoed street gamins, who must have known more about our movements
+than we did, because they all shouted, "Gude-bye."
+
+Six weeks' familiarity between these same artillerymen on town leave and
+these same urchins had temporised the blind admiration that caused them
+first to greet our men solely with shouts of "_Vive les Américains_."
+Now that they knew us better, they alternated the old greeting with
+shouts of that all-meaning and also meaningless French expression, "Oo
+la la."
+
+Our way led over the stone, spanned bridge that crossed the sluggish
+river through the town, and on to the hilly outskirts where mounted
+French guides met and directed us to the railroad loading platform.
+
+The platform was a busy place. The regimental supply company which was
+preceding us over the road was engaged in forcibly persuading the last
+of its mules to enter the toy freight cars which bore on the side the
+printed legend, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8."
+
+Several arclights and one or two acetylene flares illuminated the scene.
+It was raining fitfully, but not enough to dampen the spirits of the Y.
+M. C. A. workers who wrestled with canvas tarpaulins and foraged
+materials to construct a make-shift shelter for a free coffee and
+sandwich counter.
+
+Their stoves were burning brightly and the hurriedly erected stove
+pipes, leaning wearily against the stone wall enclosing the quay, topped
+the wall like a miniature of the sky line of Pittsburgh. The boiling
+coffee pots gave off a delicious steam. In the language of our battery,
+the "Whime say" delivered the goods.
+
+During it all the mules brayed and the supply company men swore. Most
+humans, cognizant of the principles of safety first, are respectful of
+the rear quarters of a mule. We watched one disrespecter of these
+principles invite what might have been called "mulecide" with utter
+contempt for the consequences. He deliberately stood in the dangerous
+immediate rear of one particularly onery mule, and kicked the mule.
+
+His name was "Missouri Slim," as he took pains to inform the object of
+his caress. He further announced to all present, men and mules, that he
+had been brought up with mules from babyhood and knew mules from the
+tips of their long ears to the ends of their hard tails.
+
+The obdurate animal in question had refused to enter the door of the car
+that had been indicated as his Pullman. "Missouri Slim" called three
+other ex-natives of Champ Clark's state to his assistance. They
+fearlessly put a shoulder under each of the mule's quarters. Then they
+grunted a unanimous "heave," and lifted the struggling animal off its
+feet. As a perfect matter of course, they walked right into the car with
+him with no more trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay.
+
+"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," remarked a quiet,
+mild-mannered man in uniform, beside whom I happened to be standing. He
+spoke with a slow, almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of
+the supply company, and there were a number of things that were new to
+him, as his story revealed. He was the first homesick horse doctor I
+ever met.
+
+"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me. "I went to a
+veterinary college and had a nice little practice,--sorter kept myself
+so busy that I never got much of a chance to think about this here war.
+But one day, about two months ago, I got a letter from the War
+Department down in Washington.
+
+"They said the hoss doctor college had given them my name as one of the
+graduates and the letter said that the War Department was making out a
+list of hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank and send
+it to Washington.
+
+"'Joe,' my wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that the country is
+paying to you. The Government just wants the names of the patriotic
+professional citizens of the country.' So we filled out the blank and
+mailed it and forgot all about it.
+
+"Well, about two weeks later, I got a letter from Washington telling me
+to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. It sorter scared the wife and me at
+first because neither of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her
+that I was sure it wasn't anything serious--I thought that Uncle Sam
+just had some sick hosses down there and wanted me to go down and look
+them over.
+
+"Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and an extra pair of
+socks in my hand satchel along with my instruments and I kissed her and
+the little boy good-bye and told them that I would hurry up and
+prescribe for the Government hosses and be back in about five days.
+
+"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major shoved me into a
+uniform and told me I was commissioned as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That
+afternoon I was put on a train with a battery and we were on our way
+east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We landed somewhere in France
+and moved way out here.
+
+"My wife was expecting me back in five days and here it is I've been
+away two months and I haven't had a letter from her and now we're moving
+up to the front. It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten
+years, and I guess I am a little homesick, but it sure is a comfort to
+travel with an outfit that knows how to handle mules like this one
+does."
+
+The supply company completed loading, and the homesick horse doctor
+boarded the last car as the train moved down the track. Our battery took
+possession of the platform. A train of empties was shunted into position
+and we began loading guns and wagons on the flat cars and putting the
+animals into the box cars.
+
+Considerable confusion accompanied this operation. The horses seemed to
+have decided scruples against entering the cars. It was dark and the
+rain came down miserably. The men swore. There was considerable kicking
+on the part of the men as well as the animals.
+
+I noticed one group that was gathered around a plunging team of horses.
+The group represented an entanglement of rope, harness, horses and men.
+I heard a clang of metal and saw the flash of two steel-shod hoofs. A
+little corporal, holding his head up with both hands, backed out of the
+group,--backed clear across the platform and sat down on a bale of hay.
+
+I went to his assistance. Blood was trickling through his fingers. I
+washed his two scalp wounds with water from a canteen and applied first
+aid bandages.
+
+"Just my luck," I heard my patient mumbling as I swathed his head in
+white strips and imparted to him the appearance of a first-class front
+line casualty.
+
+"You're lucky," I told him truthfully. "Not many men get kicked in the
+head by a horse and escape without a fractured skull."
+
+"That isn't it," he said; "you see for the last week I've been wearing
+that steel helmet--that cast-iron sombrero that weighs so much it almost
+breaks your neck, and two minutes before that long-legged baby kicked
+me, the tin hat fell off my head."
+
+By the time our battery had been loaded, another battery was waiting to
+move on to the platform. Our captain went down the length of the train
+examining the halter straps in the horse cars and assuring himself of
+the correct apportionment of men in each car. Then we moved out on what
+developed to be a wild night ride.
+
+The horse has been described as man's friend and no one questions that a
+horse and a man, if placed out in any large open space, are capable of
+getting along to their mutual comfort. But when army regulations and the
+requirements of military transportation place eight horses and four men
+in the same toy French box car and then pat all twelve of them
+figuratively on the neck and tell them to lie down together and sleep
+through an indefinite night's ride, it is not only probable, but it is
+certain, that the legendary comradeship of the man and the horse ceases.
+The described condition does not encompass the best understood relation
+of the two as travelling companions.
+
+On our military trains in France, the reservations of space for the
+human and dumb occupants of the same car were something as follows: Four
+horses occupied the forward half of the car. Four more horses occupied
+the rear half of the car. Four men occupied the remaining space. The
+eight four-footed animals are packed in lengthwise with their heads
+towards the central space between the two side doors. The central space
+is reserved for the four two-footed animals.
+
+Then the train moves. If the movement is forward and sudden, as it
+usually is, the four horses in the forward end of the car involuntarily
+obey the rules of inertia and slide into the central space. If the
+movement of the train is backward and equally sudden, the four horses in
+the rear end of the car obey the same rule and plunge forward into the
+central space. On the whole, night life for the men in the straw on the
+floor of the central space is a lively existence, while "riding the
+rattlers with a horse outfit."
+
+Our battery found it so. I rode a number of miles that night sitting
+with four artillerymen in the central space between the side doors which
+had been closed upon orders. From the roof of the car, immediately above
+our heads, an oil lantern swung and swayed with every jolt of the wheels
+and cast a feeble light down upon our conference in the straw. We
+occupied a small square area which we had attempted to particularise by
+roping it off.
+
+On either side were the blank surfaces of the closed doors. To either
+end were the heads of four nervous animals, eight ponderous hulks of
+steel-shod horseflesh, high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic
+under the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject at any
+minute to new fits of excitement.
+
+We sat at their feet as we rattled along. I recalled the scene of the
+loose cannon plunging about the crowded deck of a rolling vessel at sea
+and related Hugo's thrilling description to my companions.
+
+"Yeah," observed Shoemaker, driver of the "wheelers" on No. 4 piece,
+"Yeah, but there ain't no mast to climb up on and get out of the way on
+in this here boxcar."
+
+"I'd rather take my chances with a cannon any day," said 'Beady' Watson,
+gunner. "A cannon will stay put when you fix it. There's our piece out
+on the flat car and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck
+to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me ride with the
+old gun out there. It would be a little colder but a lot healthier. Try
+to go to sleep in here and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you."
+
+"Where do you suppose we are going anyway?" asked Slater, fuse cutter in
+the same section. "I'm strong for travel, but I always like to read the
+program before we start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our
+way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or somewhere."
+
+"Why don't you go up and ask the Captain?" suggested Boyle, corporal in
+charge of the car. "Maybe the Colonel gave him a special message to
+deliver to you about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though. They
+ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time yet."
+
+"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," replied Slater, "I hope
+we stop over to feed the horses at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about
+that joint. They say that they run the biggest crap game in the world
+there, and the police lay off the place because the Governor of the
+State or the King or something, banks the game. They tell me he uses
+straight bones and I figure a man could clean up big if he hit the game
+on a payday."
+
+"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoemaker. "If there's
+anything happens to start a riot among these horses, you are going to
+find that you're gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train,
+I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill."
+
+"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army. He spells his
+'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me that my grandfather and this
+cousin's grandfather had a business disagreement over a sauerkraut
+factory some time before the Civil War and my grandfather left Germany.
+Since then, there ain't been no love lost between the branches of the
+family, but we did hear that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut
+business and was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser."
+
+"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake," said Watson. "It's
+kinda tough luck to get cheated out of a big business like that, but
+then you must remember that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled
+the dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never have gone to
+America and most likely you'd still be a German."
+
+"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied Shoemaker; "wouldn't
+that been hell if I'd been on the other side in this war? But anyhow, I
+do hope we run into Cousin Hans somewhere."
+
+The horses had been comparatively quiet for some time, but now they
+seemed to be growing restless. They pricked their ears and we knew
+something was bothering them. The discussion stopped so that we could
+listen better.
+
+Above the rattle of the train, there came to us the sound of firing. It
+seemed to come from the direction in which we were going. With
+surprising quickness, the explosions grew louder. We were not only
+speeding toward the sounds of conflict, but the conflict itself seemed
+to be speeding toward us.
+
+Then came a crash unmistakably near. One of the horses in the forward
+end reared, and his head thumped the roof of the car. Once again on four
+feet, he pranced nervously and tossed his blood-wet forelock.
+Immediately the other horses began stamping.
+
+Another crash!--this time almost directly overhead. In the light of the
+swinging lantern, I could see the terror in the eyes of the frightened
+brutes. We clung to their halters and tried to quiet them but they
+lifted us off our feet.
+
+"Put a twitch on that one's nose and hold him down," Boyle ordered.
+
+"Gosh," said Slater, obeying, "we must be right up on the front line.
+Hope they don't stop this train in No Man's Land. Hold still, you crazy
+b----"
+
+"Cousin Hans must have heard you talking," Watson shouted to Shoemaker.
+"Maybe you're going to see him quicker than you expected."
+
+The train was slowing down. The brakes shrieked and grated as we came to
+a jerky stop. Three of us braced ourselves at the heads of the four
+horses in the rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top of
+us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet the forward four.
+The explosions overhead increased. Now we heard the report of field
+pieces so close that they seemed to be almost alongside the track.
+
+There came a sharp bang at one of the side doors, and I thought I
+recognised the sound of the lead-loaded handle of the captain's riding
+whip. His voice, coming to us a minute later above the trampling and
+kicking of the panic-stricken animals, verified my belief.
+
+"Darken that lantern," he shouted. "Keep all lights out and keep your
+helmets on. Stay in the cars and hang on to the horses. There is an air
+raid on right above us."
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Boyle, and we heard the captain run to the next car.
+I blew out the light and we were in complete darkness, with eight
+tossing, plunging horses that kicked and reared at every crash of the
+guns nearby or burst of the shells overhead.
+
+We hung on while the air battle went on above. One horse went down on
+his knees and in his frantic struggles to regain his feet, almost kicked
+the feet from under the animal beside him.
+
+At times, thunderous detonations told us that aerial bombs were doing
+their work near at hand. We supposed correctly that we were near some
+town not far behind the lines, and that the German was paying it a night
+visit with some of his heaviest visiting cards.
+
+I opened one side door just a crack and looked out. The darkness above
+blossomed with blinding blotches of fire that flashed on and off. It
+seemed as though the sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with
+hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed back and forth,
+flashing momentary gleams of brilliance through the punctures. Again,
+this vision would pass as a luminous dripping mass would poise itself on
+high and cast a steady white glare that revealed clusters of grey smoke
+puffs of exploded shrapnel.
+
+We had to close the door because the flashes added to the terror of the
+horses, but the aerial activity passed almost as suddenly as it had come
+and left our train untouched. As the raiding planes went down the wind,
+followed always by the poppings of the anti-aircraft guns, the sound of
+the conflict grew distant. We got control over the horses although they
+still trembled with fright.
+
+There came another rap at the door and I hurriedly accepted the
+captain's invitation to accompany him forward to a first-class coach
+where I spent the remainder of the night stretched out on the cushions.
+As our train resumed its way into the darkness, I dreamed of racing
+before a stampede of wild horses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+INTO THE LINE--THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR
+
+
+A damp, chill, morning mist made the dawn even greyer as our battery
+train slid into a loading platform almost under the walls of a large
+manufacturing plant engaged in producing war materials.
+
+In spite of the fact that the section chiefs reported that not a man had
+been injured, and not so much as a leg broken in the crowded horse cars,
+every man in the battery now declared the absence of any doubt but the
+air raid had been directly aimed at Battery A.
+
+"There might be a spy in this here very outfit," said 'Texas' Tinsdale,
+the battery alarmist. "Else how could them German aviators have known
+that Battery A was on the road last night? They knew we was on the way
+to the front and they tried to get us."
+
+"Hire a hall," shouted the gruffy top sergeant. "We've got two hours to
+unload. A lot of you fireside veterans get busy. Gun crews get to work
+on the flats and drivers unload horses. No chow until we're ready to
+move out."
+
+The sign on a station lamp-post told us the name of the town. It was
+Jarville. But it jarred nothing in our memories. None of us had ever
+heard of it before. I asked the captain where we were.
+
+"Just about thirty miles behind the front," he replied. "We are moving
+up to our last billets as soon as we unload and feed."
+
+The horses had made the ride wearing their harness, some of which had
+become entangled and broken in transit. A number of saddles had slipped
+from backs and were down behind forelegs.
+
+"We're learning something every minute," the captain exclaimed.
+"American army regulations call for the removal of all harness from the
+horses before they are put into the cars, but the French have learned
+that that is a dangerous practice over here.
+
+"You can't unload unharnessed horses and get them hitched to the guns as
+quick as you can harnessed horses. The idea is this. We're pretty close
+behind the lines. A German air party might make this unloading platform
+a visit at any time and if any of them are in the air and happen to see
+us unloading, they'd sure call on us.
+
+"The French have learned that the only way to make the best of such a
+situation, if it should arise, is to have the horses already harnessed
+so that they can be run out of the cars quickly, hitched to the guns in
+a jiffy and hurried away. If the horses are in the cars unharnessed, and
+all of the harness is being carried in other cars, confusion is
+increased and there is a greater prospect of your losing your train,
+horses, guns and everything from an incendiary bomb, not to mention low
+flying machine work."
+
+His explanation revealed a promising attitude that I found in almost all
+American soldiers of all ranks that I had encountered up to that time in
+France. The foundation of the attitude was a willingness to admit
+ignorance of new conditions and an eagerness to possess themselves of
+all knowledge that the French and British had acquired through bitter
+and costly experience.
+
+Further than that, the American inclination pushed the soldier students
+to look beyond even those then accepted standards. The tendency was to
+improve beyond the French and British, to apply new American principles
+of time or labour-saving to simple operation, to save man-power and
+horseflesh by sane safety appliances, to increase efficiency, speed,
+accuracy--in a word, their aim was to make themselves the best fighting
+men in the Allied cause.
+
+One instance of this is worthy of recounting. I came upon the young
+Russian who was the battery saddler. He was a citizen of the United
+States whose uniform he wore, but he was such a new citizen, that he
+hardly spoke English. I found him handling a small piece of galvanised
+iron and a horse shoe. He appeared to be trying to fit the rumpled piece
+of metal into the shoe.
+
+In his broken English he explained that he was trying to fashion a light
+metal plate that could be easily placed between a horse's shoe and the
+hoof, to protect the frog of the foot from nails picked up on the road.
+With all soldiers wearing hobnailed boots, the roads were full of those
+sharp bits of metal which had caused serious losses of horseflesh
+through lameness and blood poisoning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The unloading had continued under the eyes of smiling French girls in
+bloomers who were just departing from their work on the early morning
+shift in the munition factory beside the station. These were the first
+American soldiers they had seen and they were free to pass comment upon
+our appearance. So were the men of Battery A, who overlooked the oiled,
+grimed faces and hands of the bloomered beauties, and announced the
+general verdict that "they sure were fat little devils."
+
+The unloading completed, a scanty snack consisting of two unbuttered
+slices of white bread with a hunk of cold meat and maybe the bite of an
+onion, had been put away by the time the horses' nose bags were empty.
+With a French guide in the lead, we moved off the platform, rattled
+along under a railroad viaduct, and down the main street of Jarville,
+which was large enough to boast street car tracks and a shell-damaged
+cathedral spire.
+
+The remaining townsfolk had lived with the glare and rumble of the front
+for three years now and the passage back and forth of men and horses and
+guns hardly elicited as much attention as the occasional promenade of a
+policeman in Evanston, Illinois. But these were different men that rode
+through those streets that day.
+
+This was the first battery of American artillery that had passed that
+way. This was an occasion and the townspeople responded to it. Children,
+women and old men chirped "vivas," kissed hands, bared heads and waved
+hats and aprons from curb and shop door and windows overhead.
+
+There was no cheering, but there were smiles and tears and "God bless
+you's." It was not a vociferous greeting, but a heart-felt one. They
+offered all there was left of an emotion that still ran deep and strong
+within but that outwardly had been benumbed by three years of nerve-rack
+and war-weariness.
+
+Onward into the zone of war we rode. On through successive battered
+villages, past houses without roofs, windows with shattered panes, stone
+walls with gaping shell holes through them, churches without steeples,
+our battery moved toward the last billeting place before entering the
+line.
+
+This was the ancient town of Saint-Nicolas-du-Port on the banks of the
+river Meurthe. Into the Place de la Republic of the town the battery
+swung with a clamorous advance guard of schoolchildren and street
+gamins.
+
+The top sergeant who had preceded the battery into the town, galloped up
+to the captain upon our entry and presented him with a sheaf of yellow
+paper slips, which bore the addresses of houses and barns and the
+complements of men and horses to be quartered in each. This was the
+billeting schedule provided by the French major of the town. The guns
+were parked, the horses picketed and the potato peelers started on their
+endless task. The absence of fuel for the mess fires demanded immediate
+correction.
+
+It was a few minutes past noon when the captain and I entered the office
+of the French Town Major. It was vacant. The officers were at
+_déjeuner_, we learned from an old woman who was sweeping the
+commandant's rooms. Where?--Ah, she knew not. We accosted the first
+French officer we met on the street.
+
+"Where does the Town Major eat?" the Captain inquired in his best
+Indianapolis French. After the customary exchange of salutes,
+introductions, handshakes and greetings, the Frenchman informed us that
+Monsieur Le Commandant favoured the _pommard_, that Madame Larue served
+at the Hôtel de la Fountaine.
+
+We hurried to that place, and there in a little back room behind a
+plate-cluttered table with a red and white checkered table cloth, we
+found the Major. The Major said he spoke the English with the fluency.
+He demonstrated his delusion when we asked for wood.
+
+"Wood! Ah, but it is impossible that it is wood you ask of me. Have I
+not this morning early seen with my own eyes the wood ordered?"
+
+"But there is no wood," replied the Captain. "I must have wood for the
+fires. It is past noon and my men have not eaten."
+
+"Ah, but I am telling you there is wood," replied the Major. "I saw your
+supply officer pay for the wood. By now I believe it has been delivered
+for you in the Place de la République."
+
+"But it hasn't," remonstrated the Captain, "and the fires have not yet
+been started, and----"
+
+"But it is on the way, probably," said the Major. "Maybe it will be
+there soon. Maybe it is there now."
+
+The Captain took another tack.
+
+"Where was the wood bought?" he asked.
+
+"From the wood merchant beyond the river," replied the Major. "But it is
+already on the way, and----"
+
+"How do you go to the wood merchant?" insisted the Captain. "We have got
+to have the wood toot sweet."
+
+"Ah! _tout de suite_--_tout de suite_--_tout de suite_," repeated the
+Major in tones of exasperation. "With you Americans it is always _tout
+de suite_. Here----"
+
+He took my notebook and drew a plan of streets indicating the way to the
+place of the wood merchant. In spite of his remark and the undesired
+intrusion of business upon his _déjeuner_, the Major's manner was as
+friendly as could be expected from a Town Major. We left on the run.
+
+The wood merchant was a big man, elderly and fat. His face was red and
+he had bushy grey eyebrows. He wore a smock of blue cloth that came to
+his knees. He remonstrated that it was useless for us to buy wood from
+him because wood had already been bought for us. He spoke only French.
+The Captain dismissed all further argument by a direct frontal attack on
+the subject.
+
+"_Avez-vous de bois?_" asked the Captain.
+
+"_Oui_," the merchant nodded.
+
+"_Avez-vous de chevaux?_" the Captain asked.
+
+"_Oui_," the merchant nodded again.
+
+"_Avez-vous de voiture?_" the Captain asked.
+
+"_Oui_,"--another nod.
+
+"All right then," continued the Captain, and then emphasising each word
+by the sudden production of another stiff finger on his extended hand,
+he said, "_Du bois--des chevaux--une voiture_--de whole damn
+business--and toot sweet."
+
+In some remarkable fashion the kindly wood merchant gathered that the
+Captain wanted wood piled in a wagon, drawn by a horse and wanted it in
+a hurry. _Tout de suite_, pronounced "toot sweet" by our soldiers, was a
+term calling for speed, that was among the first acquired by our men in
+France.
+
+The old man shrugged his shoulders, elevated his hand, palm outward, and
+signified with an expression of his face that it was useless to argue
+further for the benefit of these Americans. He turned and gave the
+necessary loading orders to his working force.
+
+That working force consisted of two French girls, each about eighteen
+years of age. They wore long baggy bloomers of brown corduroy, tight at
+the ankles where they flopped about in folds over clumsy wooden shoes.
+They wore blouses of the same material and tam o'shanter hats to match,
+called _bérets_.
+
+Each one of them had a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.
+One stood on the ground and tossed up the thirty or forty-pound logs to
+her sister who stood above on top of the wagon. The latter caught them
+in her extended arms and placed them in a pile. To the best of my
+recollection, neither one of the girls missed a puff.
+
+While the loading proceeded, the wood merchant, speaking slowly in
+French, made us understand the following:
+
+"Many peculiar things happen in the war, Monsieur," he said. "Your
+country, the America, is the land of wonders. Listen, my name is Helois.
+Ten days ago there came to me one of the washerwomen who clean the
+clothes on the banks of the Meurthe, and she said to me:
+
+"'Ah, Monsieur, the wood merchant. You are the sly fox. I have your
+secret.' And I say to her that I know not of what she speaks.
+
+"'You boast in the town that your two sons are at the front,' she said,
+'but I know that one at least of them is not.' And I was dumbfounded. I
+say to her, 'Woman, it is a lie you tell me. Both of my boys are with
+their regiments, in the trenches even now, if by the grace of the good
+God they still live.'
+
+"'No,' she say to me, 'one of your sons hides in the hotel of Madame
+Larue. How do I know this secret, Monsieur the wood merchant? I know
+because this day have I washed the shirt, with his name on it, at the
+river bank. His name, Helois,--the Lieutenant Helois--was stamped on the
+collar and the shirt came from the hotel, La Fontaine.'
+
+"I tell her that it is a mistake--that it is the great injustice to me
+she speaks, and that night I dressed in my best clothes to penetrate
+this mystery--to meet this man who disgracefully used the name of my
+son--to expose this impostor who would bring shame to the name of
+Helois, the wood merchant, whose two sons have been fighting for France
+these three long years.
+
+"And so, Monsieur, I meet this man at the hotel. She was right. His name
+was Helois. Here is his card. The Lieutenant Louis F. Helois, and he is
+a lieutenant in the United States Army."
+
+"So it was a mistake," replied the Captain, handing the card back to the
+wood merchant, whose lobster red features bore an enigmatical smile.
+
+"No,--not the mistake, the truth," replied the wood merchant. "Not my
+son--but my grandson--the son of my son--the son of my third son who
+went to America years ago. And now he comes back in the uniform of
+liberty to fight again for France. Ah, _Messieurs les Officiers_--the
+sons of France return from the ends of the world to fight her cause."
+
+While the wood merchant was telling us that the American grandson had
+only stopped three days in the town and then had moved up to service at
+the front, the air was shattered by a loud report. It was the snap of
+the whip in the hands of the young French amazon, standing high on the
+load of wood. We escorted the fuel proudly to the Place de la
+République. Soon the fires were burning briskly and the smell of onions
+and coffee and hot chow was on the air.
+
+The stoves were pitched at the bottom of a stone monument in the centre
+of the square. Bags of potatoes and onions and burlap covered quarters
+of beef and other pieces of mess sergeants paraphernalia were piled on
+the steps of the monument, which was covered with the green and black
+scars from dampness and age.
+
+The plinth supported a stone shaft fifteen feet in height, which touched
+the lower branches of the trees. The monument was topped with a huge
+cross of stone on which was the sculptured figure of the Christ.
+
+Little Sykoff, the battery mess sergeant, stood over the stove at the
+bottom of the monument. He held in his hand a frying pan, which he shook
+back and forth over the fire to prevent the sizzling chips in the pan
+from burning. His eyes lowered from an inspection of the monument and
+met mine. He smiled.
+
+"Mr. Gibbons," he said, "if that brother of mine, who runs the
+photograph gallery out on Paulina and Madison Streets in Chicago, could
+only see me now, he sure would tell the Rabbi. Can you beat it--a Jew
+here frying ham in the shadow of the Cross."
+
+It was rather hard to beat--and so was the ham. We made this concession
+as we sat on the plinth of the monument and polished our mess kits with
+bread. And such bread--it was the regulation United States army issue
+bread--white, firm and chuck full of nourishment--bread that seemed like
+cake to the French youngsters who tasted it and who returned with open
+mouths and outstretched hands for more of the "good white bread."
+
+After the meal, those members of Battery A not detailed for immediate
+duty denied themselves none of the joys that a new town, in a strange
+land, holds for a soldier.
+
+Saint-Nicolas-du-Port boasts a remarkable cathedral of mediæval
+architecture, of enormous dimensions. It was crumbling with age, but
+still housed the holy. Time and the elements had left the traces of
+their rough usage upon the edifice.
+
+Half of the statues on the broad façade of the cathedral had been
+broken, and now the niches afforded domiciles for families of pigeons.
+On the ground, in a careless pile, to one side of the frontal arch, was
+an ignominious pile of miscellaneous arms and legs and heads of
+sculptured figures, resting there in anything but saintly dignity. Two
+of our young artillerymen were standing in front of the cathedral
+surveying it.
+
+"Certainly is in need of repairs," said one of them. "I'll bet they
+haven't done no bricklaying or plumbing on this place since before the
+Civil War."
+
+"That ain't hardly the right way to treat old Saints," replied his
+companion, referring to the pile of broken statuary. "Seems like they
+ought to cement the arms and legs and heads back on those old boys and
+old girls and put them back on their pedestals. I guess, though, there
+ain't nobody living to identify the pieces, so they could get the right
+arms and heads on the right bodies."
+
+Our battery had among its drivers an old timer who might have been
+called a historian. His opinion held weight in the organisation. He
+professed to be able to read American ball scores and war news out of
+French newspapers, a number of which he always carried. Later that day,
+I heard him lecturing the cathedral critics on their lack of
+appreciation of art and history.
+
+"New things ain't art," he told them; "things has got to be old before
+they are artistic. Nobody'd look at the Venus dee Milo if she had all
+her arms on. You never hear nobody admiring a modern up-to-date castle
+with electric lighting and bath tubs in it. It simply ain't art.
+
+"Now, this cathedral is art. This country around here is just full of
+history. Here's where whole book stores of it was written. Why, say,
+there was batteries of artillery rolling through this country a million
+years ago. It was right around here that Napoleon joined forces with
+Julius Cæsar to fight the Crusaders. This here is sacred ground."
+
+In the evening, a number of the battery, located the _buvette_ that
+carried across its curtained front the gold lettered sign _bar
+Parisian_. It was a find. Some thirty American artillerymen crowded
+around the tables.
+
+Cigarette smoke filled the low-ceilinged room with blue layers, through
+which the lamp light shone. In one corner stood a mechanical piano which
+swallowed big copper sous and gave out discord's metallic melody. It was
+of an American make and the best number on its printed programme was
+"Aren't you Coming Back to Old Virginia, Molly?" Sous followed sous into
+this howitzer of harmony and it knew no rest that night. Everybody
+joined in and helped it out on the choruses.
+
+Things were going fine when the door opened at about nine thirty, and
+there stood two members of the American Provost Guard. They carried with
+them two orders. One instructed Madame, the proprietress, to dispense no
+more red ink or beer to American soldiers that night, and the other was
+a direction to all Americans around the table to get back to their
+billets for the night.
+
+The bunch left with reluctance but without a grumble. It was warm and
+comfortable within the _bar Parisian_ and Madame's smiles and red wine
+and beer and Camembert cheese composed the Broadway of many recent
+dreams. But they left without complaint.
+
+They made their rollicking departure, returning Madame's parting smiles,
+gallantly lifting their steel helmets and showering her with vociferous
+"bong swore's." And--well it simply must be told. She kissed the last
+one out out the door and, turning, wiped away a tear with the corner of
+her apron. Madame had seen youth on the way to the front before.
+
+The billets were comfortable. Some were better than others. Picket line
+details slept in their blankets in the hay over the stables. Gun crews
+drew beds and pallets on the floor in occupied houses. In these homes
+there was always that hour before retirement for the night when the old
+men and remaining women of the French household and their several
+military guests billeted in the place, would gather about the fireplace
+in the kitchen and regale one another with stories, recounted by the
+murder of French and English languages and a wealth of pantomime.
+
+Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the town-crier--he who daily
+beat the drum in front of the Hôtel de Ville and read lengthy
+bulletins, was interested in the workings of Gunner Black's colt
+automatic. Gunner Black, most anxious to show her, demonstrated the
+action of the pistol but, forgetting that inevitable shell in the
+chamber, shot himself in the arm.
+
+It was only an incident. The noise scared Louise, but not the wound. She
+had seen too many Americans get shot in the moving pictures.
+
+The captain and I were quartered in the house of the Curé of the
+cathedral. The old housekeeper of the place made the captain blush when
+she remarked her surprise that there were such young captains in the
+American army. Her name was Madame Dupont, and she was more than pleased
+to learn from the captain that that had been the maiden name of his
+mother.
+
+The captain's room had the interior dimensions and heavy decorations of
+the mystic inner sanctum of some secret grand lodge. Religious paintings
+and symbols hung from the walls, which were papered in dark red to match
+the heavy plush hangings over the ever closed windows.
+
+Two doors in the blank wall swung open revealing a hermetically sealed
+recess in which a bed just fitted. This arrangement, quite common in
+France, indicated that the device now popular in two-room sleeping
+apartments in America, must have been suggested by the sleeping customs
+of mediæval times.
+
+Early the next morning, our battery pulled out for the front. We were
+bound for the line. We took the roads out of Saint Nicolas to the east,
+making our way toward that part of the front that was known as the
+Luneville sector. Our way lay through the towns of Dombasle,
+Sommerviller, Maixe, Einville, Valhey, Serres, to the remains of the
+ruined village of Hoeville.
+
+The sector runs almost along the border between France and old Lorraine,
+occupied by the Germans since 1870. Even the names of the old French
+towns beyond the border had been changed to German in the effort of the
+Prussians to Germanise the stolen province.
+
+It was in this section during the few days just prior to the outbreak of
+the war that France made unwise demonstration of her disinclination
+toward hostilities with Germany. Every soldier in France was under arms,
+as was every soldier in Europe. France had military patrols along her
+borders. In the French chamber of deputies, the socialists had rushed
+through a measure which was calculated to convince the German people
+that France had no intentions or desire of menacing German territory. By
+that measure every French soldier was withdrawn from the Franco-German
+border to a line ten miles inside of France. The German appreciation of
+this evidence of peacefulness was manifested when the enemy, at the
+outbreak of the war, moved across the border and occupied that ten-mile
+strip of France.
+
+France had succeeded in driving the enemy back again in that part of
+Lorraine, but only at the cost of many lives and the destruction of many
+French towns and villages. Since the close of the fighting season of
+1914, there had been little or no progress on either side at this point.
+The opposing lines here had been stationary for almost three years and
+it was known on both sides as a quiet sector.
+
+The country side was of a rolling character, but very damp. At that
+season of the year when our first American fighting men reached the
+Western front, that part of the line that they occupied was particularly
+muddy and miserable.
+
+Before nine o'clock that morning as we rode on to the front, the
+horse-drawn traffic, including our battery, was forced to take the side
+of the road numerous times to permit the passage of long trains of motor
+trucks loaded down with American infantrymen, bound in the same
+direction.
+
+Most of the motor vehicles were of the omnibus type. A number of them
+were worthy old double-deckers that had seen long years of peaceful
+service on the boulevards of Paris before the war. Slats of wood ran
+lengthwise across the windows of the lower seating compartment and
+through these apertures young, sun-burned, American faces topped with
+steel helmets, peered forth.
+
+Some of our men reposed languidly on the rear steps of the busses or on
+the tops. Most of the bus-loads were singing rollicking choruses. The
+men were in good spirits. They had been cheered in every village they
+had passed through on the way from their training area.
+
+"Howdy, bowleg," was the greeting shouted by one of these motoring
+mockers, who looked down on our saddled steeds, "better get a hustle on
+them hayburners. We're going to be in Berlin by the time you get where
+the front used to be."
+
+"Yes, you will," replied one of the mounted artillerymen, with a
+negative inflection. "You'll get a hell of a long ways without us. If
+you doughboys start anything without the artillery, you'll see Berlin
+through the bars of a prisoner's cage."
+
+"Lucky pups--the artillery--nothing to do but ride," was the passing
+shout of another taunter, perched high on a bus. This was an
+unanswerable revision of an old taunt that the artillery used to shout
+to passing infantry in the days when a foot soldier was really a foot
+soldier. Then the easy-riding mounted troops, when passing an infantry
+column on the road, would say, "Pretty soft for the doughboys--nothing
+to do but walk."
+
+"Times certainly have changed," one of our battery drivers felt it
+necessary to remark to me in defence of his branch of the service. "But
+there ain't no spark plugs or carburetors to get out of order on our
+mounts.
+
+"However, we do have our troubles. That runaway wheeler in No. 2 section
+broke away from the picket line last night and Kemball and I were
+detailed to hunt all over town for him.
+
+"You know that dark, winding, narrow street, that winds down the hill
+back of the cathedral. Well, it was about midnight and blacker than the
+ace of spades, when Kemball and I pushed along there in the dark,
+looking for that onery animal.
+
+"Suddenly, we heard a sharp clatter on the cobblestones half a block up
+the hill. It was coming our way full speed. 'Here he comes now,' said
+Kemball, 'and he's galloping like hell. Jump into a doorway or he'll
+climb all over us.'
+
+"We waited there pressed against the wall in the dark as the galloping
+came up to us and passed. What dy'e s'pose it was? It wasn't that
+runaway horse at all. Just a couple of them French kids chasing one
+another in wooden shoes."
+
+The road to the front was a populous one. We passed numerous groups of
+supply wagons carrying food and fodder up to the front lines. Other
+wagons were returning empty and here and there came an ambulance with
+bulgy blankets outlining the figures of stretcher cases, piled two high
+and two wide. Occasionally a Y. M. C. A. runabout loaded down with
+coffee pots and candy tins and driven by helmeted wearers of the Red
+Triangle, would pass us carrying its store of extras to the boys up
+front.
+
+We passed through villages where manufacturing plants were still in
+operation and, nearer the front, the roads lay through smaller hamlets,
+shell torn and deserted, save for sentries who stood guard in wooden
+coops at intersections. Civilians became fewer and fewer, although there
+was not a village that did not have one or two women or children or old
+men unfit for uniform.
+
+Finally the road mounted a rolling hill and here it was bordered by
+roadside screens consisting of stretched chicken wire to which whisps of
+straw and grass and bits of green dyed cloth had been attached. Our men
+riding behind the screen peered through apertures in it and saw the
+distant hills forward, from which German glasses could have observed all
+passage along that road had it not been for the screen.
+
+So we moved into position. It was late in the night of October 22nd,
+1917, that our batteries of artillery and companies of infantry moved
+through the darkness on the last lap of their trip to the front. The
+roads were sticky and gummy. A light rain was falling. The guns boomed
+in front of us, but not with any continued intensity. Through streets
+paved with slippery cobbles and bordered with the bare skeletons of
+shell-wrecked houses, our American squads marched four abreast. Their
+passing in the darkness was accompanied by the sound of the unhastened
+tread of many hobnailed boots.
+
+At times, the rays of a cautiously flashed electric light would reveal
+our infantrymen with packs on back and rifles slung over their
+shoulders. A stiff wind whipped the rain into their faces and tugged the
+bottoms of their flapping, wet overcoats.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that they had made it on foot a number of miles
+from the place where they had disembarked from the motor trucks, the men
+marched along to the soft singing of songs, which were ordered
+discontinued as the marching columns got closer to the communicating
+trenches which led into the front line.
+
+In the march were machine gun carts hauled by American mules and rolling
+kitchens, which at times dropped on the darkened road swirls of glowing
+red embers that had to be hurriedly stamped out. Anxious American staff
+officers consulted their wrist watches frequently in evidence of the
+concern they felt as to whether the various moving units were reaching
+designated points upon the scheduled minute.
+
+It was after midnight that our men reached the front line. It was the
+morning of October 23rd, 1917, that American infantrymen and Bavarian
+regiments of _Landwehr_ and _Landsturm_ faced one another for the first
+time in front line positions on the European front.
+
+Less than eight hundred yards of slate and drab-coloured soft ground,
+blotched with rust-red expanses of wire entanglements, separated the
+hostile lines.
+
+There was no moon. A few cloud-veiled stars only seemed to accentuate
+the blackness of the night. There, in the darkness and the mud, on the
+slippery firing step of trench walls and in damp, foul-smelling dugouts,
+young red-blooded Americans tingled for the first time with the thrill
+that they had trained so long and travelled so far to experience.
+
+Through unfortunate management of the Press arrangements in connection
+with this great historical event, American correspondents accredited by
+the War Department to our forces, were prevented from accompanying our
+men into the front that night. Good fortune, however, favoured me as
+one of the two sole exceptions to this circumstance. Raymond G. Carroll,
+correspondent of the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, and myself,
+representing the Chicago _Tribune_ and its associated papers, were the
+only two newspaper men who went into the line with the men that night.
+For enjoying this unusual opportunity, we were both arrested several
+days later, not, however, until after we had obtained the first-hand
+story of the great event.
+
+A mean drizzle of rain was falling that night, but it felt cool on the
+pink American cheeks that were hot with excitement. The very wetness of
+the air impregnated all it touched with the momentousness of the hour.
+Spirits were high and the mud was deep, but we who were there had the
+feeling that history was chiselling that night's date into her book of
+ages.
+
+Occasionally a shell wheezed over through the soggy atmosphere, seeming
+to leave an unseen arc in the darkness above. It would terminate with a
+sullen thump in some spongy, water-soaked mound behind us. Then an
+answering missive of steel would whine away into the populated
+invisibility in front of us.
+
+French comrades, in half English and half French, gushed their
+congratulations, and shook us by the hand. Some of us were even hugged
+and kissed on both cheeks. Our men took the places of French platoons
+that were sent back to rest billets. But other French platoons remained
+shoulder to shoulder with our men in the front line. The presence of our
+troops there was in continuation of their training for the purpose of
+providing a nucleus for the construction of later contingents. Both our
+infantry and our artillery acted in conjunction with the French infantry
+and artillery and the sector remained under French command.
+
+Our men were eager to ask questions and the French were ever ready to
+respond. They first told us about the difference in the sound of shells.
+Now that one that started with a bark in back of us and whined over our
+heads is a _départ_. It is an Allied shell on its way to the Germans.
+Now, this one, that whines over first and ends with a distant grunt,
+like a strong wallop on a wet carpet, is an _arrivée_. It has arrived
+from Germany. In the dugouts, our men smoked dozens of cigarettes,
+lighting fresh ones from the half-consumed butts. It is the appetite
+that comes with the progressive realisation of a long deferred hope. It
+is the tension that comes from at last arriving at an object and then
+finding nothing to do, now that you are there. It is the nervousness
+that nerveless youth suffers in inactivity.
+
+The men sloshed back and forth through the mud along the narrow confines
+of the trench. The order is against much movement, but immobility is
+unbearable. Wet slickers rustle against one another in the narrow
+traverses, and equipment, principally the French and English gas masks,
+hanging at either hip become entangled in the darkness.
+
+At times a steel helmet falls from some unaccustomed head and, hitting
+perhaps a projecting rock in the trench wall, gives forth a clang which
+is followed by curses from its clumsy owner and an admonition of quiet
+from some young lieutenant.
+
+"Olson, keep your damn fool head down below the top of that trench or
+you'll get it blown off." The sergeant is talking, and Olson, who
+brought from Minnesota a keen desire to see No Man's Land even at the
+risk of his life, is forced to repress the yearning.
+
+"Two men over in B Company just got holes drilled through their beans
+for doing the same thing," continued the sergeant. "There's nothing you
+can see out there anyhow. It's all darkness."
+
+Either consciously or unconsciously, the sergeant was lying, for the
+purpose of saving Olson and others from a fool's fate. There was not a
+single casualty in any American unit on the line that first night.
+
+"Where is the telephone dugout?" a young lieutenant asked his French
+colleague. "I want to speak to the battalion commander."
+
+"But you must not speak English over the telephone," replied the
+Frenchman, "the Germans will hear you with the instruments they use to
+tap the underground circuit."
+
+"But I was going to use our American code," said the front line novice;
+"if the Germans tap in they won't be able to figure out what it means."
+
+"Ah, no, my friend," replied the Frenchman, smiling. "They won't know
+what the message means, but your voice and language will mean to them
+that Americans are occupying the sector in front of them, and we want to
+give them that information in another way, _n'est ce pas?_"
+
+Undoubtedly there was some concern in the German trenches just over the
+way with regard to what was taking place in our lines. Relief periods
+are ticklish intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible
+that some intimation of our presence may have been given.
+
+There was considerable conversation and movement among our men that
+night. Jimmy found it frequently necessary to call the attention of
+Johnny to some new thing he had discovered. And of a consequence, much
+natural, but needless, chattering resulted.
+
+I believe the Germans did become nervous because they made repeated
+attacks on the enveloping darkness with numbers of star shells. These
+aerial beauties of night warfare released from their exploding
+encasements high in the air, hung from white silk parachutes above the
+American amateurs.
+
+The numerous company and battery jesters did not refrain from imitative
+expressions of "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Ain't it bootiful?" as their
+laughing upturned faces were illuminated in the white light.
+
+That night one rocket went up shortly before morning. It had a different
+effect from its predecessors. It reared itself from the darkness
+somewhere on the left. Its flight was noiseless as it mounted higher and
+higher on its fiery staff. Then it burst in a shower of green balls of
+fire.
+
+That meant business. One green rocket was the signal that the Germans
+were sending over gas shells. It was an alarm that meant the donning of
+gas masks. On they went quickly. It was the first time this equipment
+had been adjusted under emergency conditions, yet the men appeared to
+have mastered the contrivances.
+
+Then the word was passed along the trenches and through the dugouts for
+the removal of the masks. It had not been a French signal. The green
+rocket had been sent up by the Germans. The enemy was using green
+rockets that night as a signal of their own. There had been no gas
+shells. It was a false alarm.
+
+"The best kind of practice in the world," said one of our battalion
+commanders; "it's just the stuff we're here for. I hope the Germans
+happen to do that every night a new bunch of our men get in these
+trenches."
+
+While the infantry were experiencing these initial thrills in the front
+line, our gunners were struggling in the mud of the black gun pits to
+get their pieces into position in the quickest possible time, and
+achieve the honour of firing that first American shot in the war.
+
+Each battery worked feverishly in intense competition with every other
+battery. Battery A of the 6th Field, to which I had attached myself,
+lost in the race for the honour. Another battery in the same regiment
+accomplished the achievement.
+
+That was Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery. I am reproducing,
+herewith, for what I believe is the first time, the exact firing data on
+that shot and the officers and men who took part in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By almost superhuman work through the entire previous day and night,
+details of men from Battery C had pulled one cannon by ropes across a
+muddy, almost impassable, meadow. So anxious were they to get off the
+first shot that they did not stop for meals.
+
+They managed to drag the piece into an old abandoned French gun pit. The
+historical position of that gun was one kilometre due east of the town
+of Bathelemont and three hundred metres northeast of the
+Bauzemont-Bathelemont road. The position was located two miles from the
+old international boundary line between France and German-Lorraine. The
+position was one and one-half kilometres back of the French first line,
+then occupied by Americans.
+
+The first shot was fired at 6:5:10 A. M., October 23rd, 1917. Those who
+participated in the firing of the shot were as follows:
+
+  Lieutenant F. M. Mitchell, U.S.R., acted as platoon chief.
+  Corporal Robert Braley laid the piece.
+  Sergeant Elward Warthen loaded the piece.
+  Sergeant Frank Grabowski prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Private Louis Varady prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Private John J. Wodarczak prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Corporal Osborne W. De Varila prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Sergeant Lonnie Domonick cut the fuse.
+  Captain Idus R. McLendon gave the command to fire.
+  Sergeant Alex L. Arch fired first shot.
+
+The missile fired was a 75 millimetre or 3-inch high-explosive shell.
+The target was a German battery of 150 millimetre or 6-inch guns located
+two kilometres back of the German first line trenches, and one kilometre
+in back of the boundary line between France and German-Lorraine. The
+position of that enemy battery on the map was in a field 100 metres west
+of the town which the French still call Xanrey, but which the Germans
+have called Schenris since they took it from France in 1870. Near that
+spot--and damn near--fell the first American shell fired in the great
+war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE: It is peculiar to note that I am writing this chapter at Atlantic
+City, October 23rd, 1918, just one year to the day after the event. That
+shot surely started something.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR
+
+
+It was in the Luneville sector, described in the preceding chapter, that
+the first American fighting men faced the Germans on the western front.
+It was there that the enemy captured its first American prisoners in a
+small midnight raid; it was there that we captured some prisoners of
+theirs, and inflicted our first German casualties; it was there that the
+first American fighting man laid down his life on the western front.
+
+In spite of these facts, however, the occupation of those front line
+posts in that sector constituted nothing more than a post-graduate
+course in training under the capable direction of French instructors who
+advised our officers and men in everything they did.
+
+At the conclusion of the course, which extended over a number of weeks,
+the American forces engaged in it were withdrawn from the line and
+retired for a well-earned rest period and for reorganisation purposes in
+areas back of the line. There they renewed equipment and prepared for
+the occupation of the first all-American sector on the western front.
+
+That sector was located in Lorraine some distance to the east of the
+Luneville front. It was north and slightly west of the city of Toul. It
+was on the east side of the St. Mihiel salient, then occupied by the
+Germans.
+
+The sector occupied a position in what the French called the
+Pont-à-Mousson front. Our men were to occupy an eight-mile section of
+the front line trenches extending from a point west of the town of
+Flirey, to a point west of the ruins of the town of Seicheprey. The
+position was not far from the French stronghold of Verdun to the
+northwest or the German stronghold of Metz to the northeast, and was
+equidistant from both.
+
+That line changed from French blue to American khaki on the night of
+January 21st. The sector became American at midnight. I watched the men
+as they marched into the line. In small squads they proceeded silently
+up the road toward the north, from which direction a raw wind brought
+occasional sounds resembling the falling of steel plates on the wooden
+floor of a long corridor.
+
+A half moon doubly ringed by mist, made the hazy night look grey. At
+intervals, phantom flashes flushed the sky. The mud of the roadway
+formed a colourless paste that made marching not unlike skating on a
+platter of glue.
+
+This was their departure for the front--this particular battalion--the
+first battalion of the 16th United States Infantry. I knew, and every
+man in it knew, what was before them.
+
+Each man was in for a long tour of duty in trenches knee-deep with
+melted snow and mud. Each platoon commander knew the particular portion
+of that battle-battered bog into which he must lead his men. Each
+company commander knew the section of shell-punctured, swamp land that
+was his to hold, and the battalion commander, a veteran American
+soldier, was well aware of the particular perils of the position which
+his one thousand or more men were going to occupy in the very jaw-joint
+of a narrowing salient.
+
+All branches of the United States military forces may take special pride
+in that first battalion that went into the new American line that night.
+The commander represented the U. S. Officers Reserve Corps, and the
+other officers and men were from the reserves, the regulars, West Point,
+the National Guard and the National Army. Moreover, the organisation
+comprised men from all parts of the United States as well as men whose
+parents had come from almost every race and nationality in the world.
+One company alone possessed such a babble of dialects among its new
+Americans, that it proudly called itself, the Foreign Legion.
+
+For two days the battalion had rested in the mud of the semi-destroyed
+village of Ansauville, several miles back of the front. A broad, shallow
+stream, then at the flood, wound through and over most of the village
+site. Walking anywhere near the border of the water, one pulled about
+with him pounds of tenacious, black gumbo. Dogs and hogs, ducks and
+horses, and men,--all were painted with nature's handiest camouflage.
+
+Where the stream left the gaping ruins of a stone house on the edge of
+the village, there was a well-kept French graveyard, clinging to the
+slope of a small hill. Above the ruins of the hamlet, stood the steeple
+of the old stone church, from which it was customary to ring the alarm
+when the Germans sent over their shells of poison gas.
+
+Our officers busied themselves with, unfinished supply problems. Such
+matters as rubber boots for the men, duck boards for the trenches, food
+for the mules, and ration containers necessary for the conveyance of hot
+food to the front lines, were not permitted to interfere with the
+battalion's movements. In war, there is always the alternative of doing
+without or doing with makeshifts, and that particular battalion
+commander, after three years of war, was the kind of a soldier who made
+the best of circumstances no matter how adverse they may have been.
+
+That commander was Major Griffiths. He was an American fighting man. His
+military record began in the Philippine Insurrection, when, as a
+sergeant in a Tennessee regiment of National Guard, he was mentioned in
+orders for conspicuous gallantry. At the suppression of the
+insurrection, he became a major in the United States Constabulary in the
+Philippines. He resigned his majority in 1914, entered the Australian
+forces, and was wounded with them in the bloody landing at Gallipoli. He
+was invalided to England, where, upon his partial recovery, he was
+promoted to major in the British forces and was sent to France in
+command of a battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. With them, he received
+two more wounds, one at the Battle of Ypres, and another during the
+fighting around Loos.
+
+He was in an English hospital when America entered the war, but he
+hurried his convalescence and obtained a transfer back to the army of
+his own country. He hadn't regained as yet the full use of his right
+hand, his face still retained a hospital pallor, and an X-ray photograph
+of his body revealed the presence of numerous pieces of shell still
+lodged there. But on that night of January 21st, he could not conceal
+the pride that he felt in the honour in having been the one chosen to
+command the battalion of Americans that was to take over the first
+American sector in France. Major Griffiths survived those strenuous days
+on the Pont-à-Mousson front, but he received a fatal wound three months
+later at the head of his battalion in front of Catigny, in Picardy. He
+died fighting under his own flag.
+
+Just before daylight failed that wintry day, three poilus walked down
+the road from the front and into Ansauville. Two of them were helping a
+third, whose bandaged arm and shoulder explained the mission of the
+party. As they passed the rolling kitchens where the Americans were
+receiving their last meal before entering the trenches, there was
+silence and not even an exchange of greetings or smiles.
+
+This lack of expression only indicated the depth of feeling stirred by
+the appearance of this wounded French soldier. The incident, although
+comparatively trivial, seemed to arouse within our men a solemn grimness
+and a more fervent determination to pay back the enemy in kind. In
+silence, our men finished that last meal, which consisted of cold corned
+beef, two slices of dry bread per man, and coffee.
+
+The sight of that one wounded man did not make our boys realise more
+than they already did, what was in front of them. They had already made
+a forty mile march over frozen roads up to this place and had incurred
+discomforts seemingly greater than a shell-shattered arm or a
+bullet-fractured shoulder. After that gruelling hiking experience, it
+was a pleasant prospect to look forward to a chance of venting one's
+feelings on the enemy.
+
+At the same time, no chip-on-the-shoulder cockiness marked the
+disposition of these men about to take first grips with the Germans,--no
+challenging bravado was revealed in the actions or statements of these
+grim, serious trail-blazers of the American front, whose attitude
+appeared to be one of soldierly resignation to the first martial
+principle, "Orders is orders."
+
+As the companies lined up in the village street in full marching order,
+awaiting the command to move, several half-hearted attempts at
+jocularity died cold. One irrepressible made a futile attempt at
+frivolity by announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and was
+so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted jocularity drew as
+much mirth as an undertaker's final invitation to the mourners to take
+the last, long look at the departed.
+
+One bright-faced youngster tingling with the thrill of anticipation,
+leaped on a gun carriage and absently whistled a shrill medley,
+beginning with "Yaka-hula," and ending with "Just a Song at Twilight."
+There was food for thought in the progress of his efforts from the
+frivolous to the pensive, but there was little time for such thoughts.
+No one even told him to shut up.
+
+While there was still light, an aerial battle took place overhead. For
+fifteen minutes, the French anti-aircraft guns banged away at three
+German planes, which were audaciously sailing over our lines. The
+Americans rooted like bleacherites for the guns but the home team failed
+to score, and the Germans sailed serenely home. They apparently had had
+time to make adequate observations.
+
+During the entire afternoon, German sausage balloons had hung high in
+the air back of the hostile line, offering additional advantages for
+enemy observation. On the highroad leading from Ansauville, a
+conspicuous sign _L'enemie vous voit_ informed newcomers that German
+eyes were watching their movements and could interfere at any time with
+a long range shell. The fact was that the Germans held high ground and
+their glasses could command almost all of the terrain back of our lines.
+
+Under this seemingly eternal espionage punctuated at intervals by heavy
+shelling, several old women of the village had remained in their homes,
+living above the ground on quiet days and moving their knitting to the
+front yard dugout at times when gas and shell and bomb interfered. Some
+of these women operated small shops in the front rooms of their damaged
+homes and the Americans lined up in front of the window counters and
+exchanged dirty French paper money for canned _pâté de foi gras_ or jars
+of mustard.
+
+A machine gun company with mule-drawn carts led the movement from
+Ansauville into the front. It was followed at fifty yard intervals by
+other sections. Progress down that road was executed in small groups--it
+was better to lose one whole section than an entire company.
+
+That highroad to the front, with its border of shell-withered trees, was
+revealed that night against a bluish grey horizon occasionally rimmed
+with red. Against the sky, the moving groups were defined as impersonal
+black blocks. Young lieutenants marched ahead of each platoon. In the
+hazy light, it was difficult to distinguish them. The only difference
+was that their hips seemed bulkier from the heavy sacks, field glasses,
+map cases, canteens, pistol holsters and cartridge clips.
+
+Each section, as it marched out of the village, passed under the eye of
+Major Griffiths, who sat on his horse in the black shadow of a wall. A
+sergeant commanding one section was coming toward him.
+
+"Halt!" ordered the Major. "Sergeant, where is your helmet?"
+
+"One of the men in my section is wearing it, sir," replied the Sergeant.
+
+"Why?" snapped the Major.
+
+"Somebody took his and he hadn't any," said the Sergeant, "so I made him
+wear mine, sir."
+
+"Get it back and wear it yourself," the Major ordered. "Nothing could
+hurt the head of a man who couldn't hang on to his own helmet."
+
+The order was obeyed, the section marched on and a bareheaded Irishman
+out of hearing of the Major said, "I told the Sergeant not to make me
+wear it; I don't need the damn thing."
+
+Another section passed forward, the moonlight gleaming on the helmets
+jauntily cocked over one ear and casting black shadows over the faces of
+the wearers. From these shadows glowed red dots of fire.
+
+"Drop those cigarettes," came the command from the all watchful, unseen
+presence mounted on the horse in the shadow of the wall. Automatically,
+the section spouted red arcs that fell to the road on either side in a
+shower of sparks.
+
+"It's a damn shame to do that." Major Griffith spoke to me standing
+beside his horse. "You can't see a cigarette light fifty yards away, but
+if there were no orders against smoking, the men would be lighting
+matches or dumping pipes, and such flashes can be seen."
+
+There was need for caution. The enemy was always watchful for an
+interval when one organisation was relieving another on the line. That
+period represented the time when an attack could cause the greatest
+confusion in the ranks of the defenders. But that night our men
+accomplished the relief of the French Moroccan division then in the line
+without incident.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two nights later, in company with a party of correspondents, I paid a
+midnight visit to our men in the front line trenches of that first
+American sector. With all lights out, cigarettes tabooed and the siren
+silenced, our overloaded motor slushed slowly along the shell-pitted
+roads, carefully skirting groups of marching men and lumbering supply
+wagons that took shape suddenly out of the mist-laden road in front of
+us.
+
+Although it was not raining, moisture seemed to drip from everything,
+and vapours from the ground, mixing with the fog overhead, almost
+obscured the hard-working moon.
+
+In the greyness of the night sight and smell lost their keenness, and
+familiar objects assumed unnatural forms, grotesque and indistinct.
+
+From somewhere ahead dull, muffled thumps in the mist brought memories
+of spring house cleaning and the dusting out of old cushions, but it was
+really the three-year-old song of the guns. Nature had censored
+observation by covering the spectacle with the mantle of indefiniteness.
+Still this was the big thing we had come to see--night work in and
+behind the front lines of the American sector.
+
+We approached an engineers' dump, where the phantoms of fog gradually
+materialised into helmeted khaki figures that moved in mud knee-deep and
+carried boxes and planks and bundles of tools. Total silence covered all
+the activity and not a ray of light revealed what mysteries had been
+worked here in surroundings that seemed no part of this world.
+
+An irregular pile of rock loomed grey and sinister before us, and,
+looking upward, we judged, from its gaping walls, that it was the
+remains of a church steeple. It was the dominating ruin in the town of
+Beaumont.
+
+"Turn here to the left," the officer conducting our party whispered into
+the ear of the driver.
+
+The sudden execution of the command caused the officer's helmet to rasp
+against that of the driver with a sound that set the cautious whispering
+to naught.
+
+"Park here in the shadow," he continued. "Make no noise; show no light.
+They dropped shells here ten minutes ago. Gentlemen, this is regimental
+headquarters. Follow me."
+
+In a well buttressed cellar, surmounted by a pile of ruins, we found the
+colonel sitting at a wooden table in front of a grandfather's clock of
+scratched mahogany. He called the roll--five special correspondents,
+Captain Chandler, American press officer, with a goatee and fur coat to
+match; Captain Vielcastel, a French press officer, who is a marquis and
+speaks English, and a lieutenant from brigade headquarters, who already
+had been named "Whispering Willie."
+
+The colonel offered sticks to those with the cane habit. With two
+runners in the lead, we started down what had been the main street of
+the ruined village.
+
+"I can't understand the dropping of that shell over here to-night," the
+colonel said. "When we relieved the French, there had been a
+long-standing agreement against such discourtesy. It's hard to believe
+the Boche would make a scrap of paper out of that agreement. They must
+have had a new gunner on the piece. We sent back two shells into their
+regimental headquarters. They have been quiet since."
+
+Ten minutes' walk through the mud, and the colonel stopped to announce:
+"Within a hundred yards of you, a number of men are working. Can you
+hear 'em?"
+
+No one could, so he showed us a long line of sweating Americans
+stretching off somewhere into the fog. Their job was more of the endless
+trench digging and improving behind the lines. While one party swung
+pick and spade in the trenches, relief parties slept on the ground
+nearby. The colonel explained that these parties arrived after dark,
+worked all night, and then carefully camouflaged all evidences of new
+earth and departed before daylight, leaving no trace of their night's
+work to be discovered by prying airman. Often the work was carried on
+under an intermittent shelling, but that night only two shells had
+landed near them.
+
+An American-manned field gun shattered the silence, so close to us that
+we could feel its breath and had a greater respect for its bite. The
+proximity of the gun had not even been guessed by any of our party. A
+yellow stab of flame seemed to burn the mist through which the shell
+screeched on its way toward Germany.
+
+Correspondent Junius Woods, who was wearing an oversized pair of hip
+rubber boots, immediately strapped the tops to his belt.
+
+"I am taking no chance," he said; "I almost jumped out of them that
+time. They ought to send men out with a red flag before they pull off a
+blast like that."
+
+The colonel then left us and with the whispering lieutenant and runners
+in advance, we continued toward the front.
+
+"Walk in parties of two," was the order of the soft-toned subaltern.
+"Each party keep ten yards apart. Don't smoke. Don't talk. This road is
+reached by their field pieces. They also cover it with indirect machine
+gun fire. They sniped the brigade commander right along here this
+morning. He had to get down into the mud. I can afford to lose some of
+you, but not the entire party. If anything comes over, you are to jump
+into the communicating trenches on the right side of the road."
+
+His instructions were obeyed and it was almost with relief that, ten
+minutes later, we followed him down the slippery side of the muddy bank
+and landed in front of a dugout.
+
+In the long, narrow, low-ceilinged shelter which completely tunnelled
+the road at a depth of twenty feet, two twenty-year-old Americans were
+hugging a brazier filled with charcoal. In this dugout was housed a
+group from a machine gun battalion, some of whose members were snoring
+in a double tier of bunks on the side.
+
+Deep trenches at the other end of the dugout led to the gun pits, where
+this new arm of the service operated at ranges of two miles. These
+special squads fired over the heads of those in front of them or over
+the contours of the ground and put down a leaden barrage on the front
+line of the Germans. The firing not only was indirect but was without
+correction from the rectifying observation, of which the artillery had
+the benefit by watching the burst of their missiles.
+
+Regaining the road, we walked on through the ruins on the edge of the
+village of Seicheprey, where our way led through a drunken colony of
+leaning walls and brick piles.
+
+Here was the battalion headquarters, located underneath the old stones
+of a barn which was topped by the barest skeleton of a roof. What had
+been the first floor of the structure had been weighted down heavily
+with railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the commander's
+dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure bulged outward and were
+prevented from bursting by timber props radiating on all sides like the
+legs of a centipede. A mule team stood in front of the dugout.
+
+"What's that?" the whispering lieutenant inquired in hushed tones from a
+soldier in the road, as he pointed over the mules to the battalion
+headquarters.
+
+"What's what?" the soldier replied without respect.
+
+The obscurity of night is a great reducer of ranks. In the mist officer
+and man look alike.
+
+"Why, that?" repeated "Whispering Willie" in lower, but angrier tones.
+"What's that there?" he reiterated, pointing at the mules.
+
+"Can't you see it's mules?" replied the man in an immoderate tone of
+voice, betraying annoyance.
+
+We were spared what followed. The lieutenant undoubtedly confirmed his
+rank, and the man undoubtedly proffered unto him the respect withheld by
+mistake. When "Whispering Willie" joined us several minutes later in the
+dugout, his helmet rode on the back of his head, but his dignity was on
+straight.
+
+The Battalion Commander, Major Griffith, was so glad to see us that he
+sent for another bottle of the murky grey water that came from a well on
+one side of a well populated graveyard not fifty yards from his post.
+
+"A good night," he said; "haven't seen it so quiet in three years. We
+have inter-battalion relief on. Some new companies are taking over the
+lines. Some of them are new to the front trenches and I'm going out with
+you and put them up on their toes. Wait till I report in."
+
+He rang the field telephone on the wall and waited for an answer. An oil
+lamp hung from a low ceiling over the map table. In the hot, smoky air
+we quietly held our places while the connection was made.
+
+"Hello," the Major said, "operator, connect me with Milwaukee." Another
+wait----
+
+"Hello, Milwaukee, this is Larson. I'm talking from Hamburg. I'm leaving
+this post with a deck of cards and a runner. If you want me you can get
+me at Coney Island or Hinky Dink's. Wurtzburger will sit in here."
+
+"Some code, Major," Lincoln Eyre, correspondent, said. "What does a pack
+of cards indicate?"
+
+[Illustration: GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE
+
+Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic of the
+United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for Justice and for
+Liberty, November 3rd, 1917]
+
+"Why, anybody who comes out here when he doesn't have to is a funny
+card," the Major replied, "and it looks as if I have a pack of them
+to-night. Fritz gets quite a few things that go over our wires and we
+get lots of his. All are tapped by induction.
+
+"Sometimes the stuff we get is important and sometimes it isn't. Our
+wire tapping report last night carried a passage something like
+this:--The German operator at one post speaking to the operator at
+another said:
+
+"'Hello, Herman, where did that last shell drop?'
+
+"Second operator replied, 'It killed two men in a ration party in a
+communicating trench and spilt all the soup. No hot food for you
+to-night, Rudolph.'
+
+"Herman replying: 'That's all right. We have got some beer here.'
+
+"Then there was a confusion of sounds and a German was heard talking to
+some one in his dugout. He said:
+
+"'Hurry, here comes the lieutenant! Hide the can!'
+
+"That's the way it goes," added the Major, "but if we heard that the
+society editor of the _Fliegende Blaetter_ and half a dozen pencil
+strafers were touring the German front line, we'd send 'em over
+something that would start 'em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I
+was joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin's to-night,
+they might give you something to write about and cost me a platoon or
+two. You're not worth it. Come on."
+
+Our party now numbered nine and we pushed off, stumbling through uneven
+lanes in the centre of dimly lit ruins. According to orders, we carried
+gas masks in a handy position.
+
+This sector had a nasty reputation when it comes to that sample of
+Teutonic culture. Fritz's poison shells dropped almost noiselessly and,
+without a report, broke open, liberating to enormous expansion the
+inclosed gases. These spread in all directions, and, owing to the
+lowness and dampness of the terrain, the poison clouds were
+imperceptible both to sight or smell. They clung close to the ground to
+claim unsuspecting victims.
+
+"How are we to know if we are breathing gas or not?" asked the
+Philadelphia correspondent, Mr. Henri Bazin.
+
+"That's just what you DON'T know," replied the Major.
+
+"Then when will we know it is time to adjust our masks?" Bazin
+persisted.
+
+"When you see some one fall who has breathed it," the Major said.
+
+"But suppose we breathe it first?"
+
+"Then you won't need a mask," the Major replied, "You see, it's quite
+simple."
+
+"Halt!" The sharp command, coming sternly but not too loud from
+somewhere in the adjacent mist, brought the party to a standstill in the
+open on the edge of the village. We remained notionless while the Major
+advanced upon command from the unseen. He rejoined us in several minutes
+with the remark that the challenge had come from one of his old men, and
+he only hoped the new companies taking over the line that night were as
+much on their jobs.
+
+"Relief night always is trying," the Major explained. "Fritz always
+likes to jump the newcomers before they get the lay of the land. He
+tried it on the last relief, but we burnt him."
+
+While talking the Major was leading the way through the first trench I
+had ever seen above the surface of the ground. The bottom of the trench
+was not only on a level with the surrounding terrain, but in some places
+it was even higher. Its walls, which rose almost to the height of a
+man's head, were made of large wicker woven cylinders filled with earth
+and stones.
+
+Our guide informed us that the land which we were traversing was so low
+that any trench dug in the ground would simply be a ditch brimful of
+undrainable water, so that, inasmuch as this position was in the first
+line system, walls had been built on either side of the path to protect
+passers-by from shell fragments and indirect machine gun fire. We
+observed one large break where a shell had entered during the evening.
+
+Farther on, this communicating passage, which was more corridor than
+trench, reached higher ground and descended into the earth. We reeled
+through its zig-zag course, staggering from one slanting corner to
+another.
+
+The sides were fairly well retained by French wicker work, but every
+eighth or tenth duck board was missing, making it necessary for trench
+travellers to step knee-deep in cold water or to jump the gap.
+Correspondent Eyre, who was wearing shoes and puttees, abhorred these
+breaks.
+
+We passed the Major's post of command, which he used during intense
+action, and some distance on, entered the front line. With the Major
+leading, we walked up to a place where two Americans were standing on a
+firing step with their rifles extended across the parapet. They were
+silently peering into the grey mist over No Man's Land. One of them
+looked around as we approached. Apparently he recognised the Major's
+cane as a symbol of rank. He came to attention.
+
+"Well," the Major said, "is this the way you let us walk up on you? Why
+don't you challenge me?"
+
+"I saw you was an officer, sir," the man replied.
+
+"Now, you are absolutely sure I am YOUR officer?" the Major said slowly
+and coldly, with emphasis on the word "your." "Suppose I tell you I am a
+German officer and these men behind me are Germans. How do you know?"
+
+With a quick movement the American brought his rifle forward to the
+challenge, his right hand slapping the wooden butt with an audible
+whack.
+
+"Advance one, and give the countersign," he said with a changed voice
+and manner and the Major, moving to within whispering distance, breathed
+the word over the man's extended bayonet. Upon hearing it, the soldier
+lowered his gun and stood at attention.
+
+It was difficult to figure whether his relief over the scare was greater
+than his fears of the censure he knew was coming.
+
+"Next time anybody gets that close to you without being challenged," the
+Major said, "don't be surprised if it is a German. That's the way they
+do it. They don't march in singing 'Deutschland Über Alles.'
+
+"If you see them first, you might live through the war. If they see you
+first, we will have wasted a lot of Liberty bonds and effort trying to
+make a soldier out of you. Now, remember, watch yourself."
+
+We pushed on encountering longer patches of trench where duck boards
+were entirely missing and where the wading sometimes was knee-deep. In
+some places, either the pounding of shells or the thawing out of the
+ground had pushed in the revetments, appreciably narrowing the way and
+making progress more difficult. Arriving at an unmanned firing step
+large enough to accommodate the party, we mounted and took a first look
+over the top.
+
+Moonlight now was stronger through the mist which hung fold over fold
+over the forbidden land between the opposing battle lines. At intervals
+nervous machine guns chattered their ghoulish gibberish or tut-tut-ted
+away chidingly like finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sputtering to
+the right and left of us was unenlightening. We couldn't tell whether
+they were speaking German or English. Occasional bullets whining
+somewhere through that wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping
+of linen sheets.
+
+Artillery fire was the exception during the entire night but when a
+shell did trace its unseen arc through the mist mantle, its echoes gave
+it the sound of a street car grinding through an under-river tunnel or
+the tube reverberations of a departing subway train.
+
+We were two hundred yards from the German front lines. Between their
+trenches and ours, at this point, was low land, so boggy as to be almost
+impassable. The opposing lines hugged the tops of two small ridges.
+
+Fifty yards in front was our wire barely discernible in the fog. The
+Major interrupted five wordless reveries by expressing, with what almost
+seemed regretfulness, the fact that in all his fighting experience he
+had never seen it "so damn quiet." His observation passed without a
+remark from us.
+
+The Major appeared to be itching for action and he got into official
+swing a hundred yards farther on, where a turn in the trench revealed to
+us the muffled figures of two young Americans, comfortably seated on
+grenade boxes on the firing step.
+
+From their easy positions they could look over the top and watch all
+approaches without rising. Each one had a blanket wrapped about his legs
+and feet. They looked the picture of ease. Without moving, one, with his
+rifle across his lap, challenged the Major, advanced him, and received
+the countersign. We followed the Major in time to hear his first
+remark:
+
+"Didn't they get the rocking chairs out here yet?" he said with the
+provoked air that customarily accompanies any condemnation of the
+quartermaster department.
+
+"No, sir," replied the seated sentry. "They didn't get here. The men we
+relieved said that they never got anything out here."
+
+"Nor the footstools?" the Major continued, this time with an
+unmistakable tone.
+
+The man didn't answer.
+
+"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the Riviera?" the Major
+asked sternly. "You are less than two hundred yards from the Germans.
+You are all wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could lean over
+the top and snake off your head with a trench knife before you could get
+your feet loose. Take those blankets off your feet and stand up."
+
+The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and removing the
+grenade box chairs. The Major continued:
+
+"You know you are not sitting in a club window in Fifth Avenue and
+watching the girls go by. You're not looking for chickens out there.
+There's a hawk over there and sometimes he carries off precious little
+lambs. Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of that
+trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and gun ready to mix
+things."
+
+The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train of followers who,
+by this time, were beginning to feel that these trenches held other
+lambs, only they carried notebooks instead of cartridge belts.
+
+Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us about to hear the
+conversation that was going on within. Through the cracks of the door,
+we looked down a flight of steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield
+graveyard. There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of
+voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly.
+
+    "Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their ears,
+    The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers,
+    The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers,
+    They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years."
+
+"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice, "but I am ready
+to disown him. They talk a lot about this counter battery work, but it's
+all bunk. A battery in position has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all
+the time. They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves up all
+nice for the day.
+
+"'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, 'I guess we will drop a few shells
+on that German battery on the other side of the hill.' So they pops off
+forty or fifty rounds in that general direction and don't hit anything
+'cause the German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep
+dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back into its holes,
+the German battery comes out and pops back forty or fifty at 'em and, of
+course, don't hurt them neither.
+
+"Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here batteries is
+eating, they get so sore about not having hit each other during the
+morning, that they just call off counter battery work for the day and
+turn their guns on the front lines and blow hell out of the infantry. I
+haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning to think all of
+them Germans and Allies are alike and has an agreement against the
+doughboys."
+
+The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the door.
+
+"Come in," was the polite and innocent invitation guilelessly spoken
+from below. The Major had his helmet on, so he couldn't tear his hair.
+
+"Come up here, you idiots, every one of you."
+
+The Major directed his voice down into the hole in an unmistakable and
+official tone. There was a scurrying of feet and four men emerged
+carrying their guns. They were lined up against the trench wall.
+
+"At midnight," the Major began, "in your dugout in the front line forty
+yards from the Germans, with no sentry at the door, you hear a knock on
+the door and you shout, 'Come in.' I commend your politeness, and I know
+that's what your mothers taught you to say when visitors come, but this
+isn't any tea fight out here. One German could have wiggled over the top
+here and stood in this doorway and captured all four of you
+single-handed, or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down that hole
+and blown all of you to smithereens. What's your aim in life--hard
+labour in a German prison camp or a nice little wooden cross out here
+four thousand miles from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any sentry at
+that door?"
+
+The question remained unanswered but the incident had its effect on the
+quartet. Without orders, all four decided to spend the remainder of the
+night on the firing step with their eyes glued on the enemy's line. They
+simply hadn't realised they were really in the war. The Major knew this,
+but made a mental reservation of which the commander of this special
+platoon got full benefit before the night was over.
+
+The front line from here onward followed a small ridge running generally
+east and west, but now bearing slightly to the northward. We were told
+the German line ran in the same general direction, but at this point
+bore to the southward.
+
+The opposing lines in the direction of our course were converging and we
+were approaching the place where they were the closest in the sector. If
+German listening posts heard the progress of our party through the line,
+only a telephone call back to the artillery was necessary to plant a
+shell among us, as every point on the system was registered.
+
+As we silently considered various eventualities immaterial to the
+prosecution of the war but not without personal concern, our progress
+was brought to a sudden standstill.
+
+"Huh-huh-halt!" came a drawn-out command in a husky, throaty stammer,
+weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted
+in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot
+was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready for a thrust.
+
+"Huh-huh-huh-halt!" came the nervous, whispering command again, although
+we had been motionless since the first whisper.
+
+We heard a click as the safety catch on the man's rifle lock was thrown
+off and the weapon made ready to discharge. The Major was watching the
+nervous hand that rested none too steadily on the trigger stop. He
+stepped to one side, but the muzzle of the gun followed him.
+
+"Huh-huh-huh-halt! I tuh-tuh-tell you."
+
+This time the whisper vibrated with nervous tension and there was no
+mistaking the state of mind of the sentry.
+
+"Take it easy," replied the Major with attempted calm. "I'm waiting for
+you to challenge me. Don't get excited. This is the commanding
+officer."
+
+"What's the countersign?" came from the voice in a hard strain.
+
+"Troy," the Major said, and the word seemed to bring worlds of
+reassurance to the rifleman, who sighed with relief, but forgot to move
+his rifle until the Major said:
+
+"Will you please take that gun off me and put the safety back in?"
+
+The nervous sentry moved the gun six inches to the right and we
+correspondents, standing in back of the Major, looked into something
+that seemed as big as the La Salle street tunnel. I jumped out of range
+behind the Major. Eyre plunged knee-deep into water out of range, and
+Woods with the rubber boots started to go over the top.
+
+The click of the replaced safety lock sounded unusually like the snap of
+a trigger, but no report followed and three hearts resumed their
+beating.
+
+"There is no occasion to get excited," the Major said to the young
+soldier in a fatherly tone. "I'm glad to see you are wide-awake and on
+the job. Don't feel any fears for your job and just remember that with
+that gun and bayonet in your hands you are better than any man who turns
+that trench corner or crosses out there. You've got the advantage of
+him, and besides that you are a better man than he is."
+
+The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the latter conducted the
+party quietly around the trench corner and into a sap leading directly
+out into No Man's Land. Twice the trench passed under broad belts of
+barbed wire, which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, because
+any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons.
+
+After several minutes of this cautious advance, we reached a small
+listening post that marked the closest point in the sector to the German
+line. Several silent sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit.
+Gunny sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above. We
+remained silent while the Major in the lowest whisper spoke with a
+corporal and learned that except for two or three occasions, when the
+watchers thought they heard sounds near our wire, the night had been
+calm.
+
+We departed as silently as we came. The German line from a distance of
+forty yards looked no different from its appearance at a greater
+distance, but since it was closer, it was carried with a constant tingle
+of anticipation.
+
+Into another communicating trench and through better walled
+fortifications of splintered forest, the Major led us to a place where
+the recent shelling had changed twenty feet of trench into a gaping
+gulley almost without sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail
+was endeavouring to repair the damage. In parties of two, we left the
+trench and crossed an open space on the level. The forty steps we
+covered across that forbidden ground were like stolen fruit. Such
+rapture! Bazin, who was seeking a title for a book, pulled "Eureka!"
+
+"Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad, eh?"
+
+Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for our long trip back
+to quarters, he led the way to the entrance of a cemetery, well kept in
+the midst of surrounding chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon
+row.
+
+"I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that held this line until
+we took it over," he said simply. "Our own boys that we've lost since
+we've been here, are buried down in the next village."
+
+We silently saluted the spot as we passed it thirty minutes later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE
+
+
+As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in the Toul sector, it
+was inevitable that belligerent activity would increase and this, in
+spite of the issuance of strict orders that there should be no
+development of the normal daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist
+the temptation to start something.
+
+As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to suspect that they were
+faced by different troops from the ones who had been confronting them.
+The enemy set out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on
+the American line.
+
+It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th that the Germans
+lowered a terrific barrage on one of our advance listening posts and
+then rushed the position with a raiding party outnumbering the
+defendants ten to one.
+
+Two Americans held that post--five more succeeded in making their way
+through the storm of falling shells and in coming to the assistance of
+the first two. That made seven Americans in the fight. When the fighting
+ceased, every one of the seven had been accounted for in the three
+items, dead, wounded or captured.
+
+That little handful of Americans, fought, died or were wounded in the
+positions which they had been ordered to hold. Although the engagement
+was an extremely minor one, it being the first of its kind on the
+American sector, it was sufficient to give the enemy some idea of the
+determination and fighting qualities of the individual American
+soldier. Their comrades were proud of them, and were inclined to
+consider the exploit, "Alamo stuff."
+
+Two of the defenders were killed, four were wounded, and one was
+captured. The wounded men reported that the captured American continued
+to fight even after being severely wounded. He was the last to remain on
+his feet and when a bomb blew his rifle from his hand and injured his
+arm, he succumbed to superior numbers and was carried off by his
+captors.
+
+After the hurried sortie, the Germans beat a hasty retreat so that the
+position was reoccupied immediately by another American detail.
+
+The "Alamo" seven had not been taken by surprise. Through a downpour of
+rather badly placed shells, they held their position on the firing step
+and worked both their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party,
+which they could not see, but knew would be advancing behind the curtain
+of fire. Hundreds of empty cartridges and a broken American bayonet
+constituted impartial testimony to the fierceness of the fighting. After
+the first rush, in which the defenders accounted for a number of
+Germans, the fighting began at close quarters, the enemy peppering the
+listening post with hand-grenades.
+
+In the meantime the German barrage had been lifted and lengthened until
+it was lowered again between the "Alamo" seven and their comrades in the
+rear.
+
+There were calls to surrender, but no acceptances. The fighting became
+hand-to-hand with bayonet and gun butt. The defenders fought on in the
+hope that assistance soon would arrive from the American artillery.
+
+But the Germans had planned the raid well. Their first barrage cut all
+telephone wires leading back from our front lines and the signal rocket
+which one of the men in the listening post had fired into the air, had
+been smothered in the dense mist. That rocket had called for a
+defensive barrage from American artillery and when no answer came to it,
+a second one was fired, but that also was snuffed out by the fog.
+
+The net result of the raid was that the Germans had captured one of our
+wounded men and had thereby identified the organisation opposing them as
+the First Regular Division of the United States Army, composed of the
+16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Regular U. S. Infantry Regiments and the 5th,
+6th and 7th Regular U. S. Army Field Artillery. The division was under
+the command of Major General Robert Lee Bullard.
+
+In the days and weeks that followed, the daily exchange of shells on the
+sector increased to two and three times the number it had been before
+our men arrived there. There were nightly patrols in No Man's Land and
+several instances where these patrols met in the dark and engaged one
+another with casualties on both sides.
+
+One night a little over a month later--the early morning of March 4th,
+to be exact--it was my privilege to witness from an exceptional vantage
+point, the first planned and concentrated American artillery action
+against the enemy. The German lines selected for this sudden downpour of
+shell, comprised two small salients jutting out from the enemy's
+positions in the vicinity of the ruined village of Lahayville, in the
+same sector.
+
+In company with an orderly who had been despatched as my guide, I
+started from an artillery battalion headquarters shortly before
+midnight, and together we made our way up the dark muddy road that led
+through the dense Bois de la Reine to the battery positions. Half an
+hour's walk and O'Neil, the guide, led me off the road into a darker
+tunnel of overlaced boughs where we stumbled along on the ties of a
+narrow gauge railroad that conveyed heavy shells from the road to the
+guns. We passed through several gun pits and stopped in front of a huge
+_abri_ built entirely above ground.
+
+Its walls and roof must have been between five and seven feet thick and
+were made from layers of logs, sandbags, railroad iron and slabs of
+concrete reinforced with steel. It looked impenetrable.
+
+"Battery commander's headquarters," O'Neil said to me as we entered a
+small hot room lighted by two oil lamps and a candle. Three officers, at
+two large map tables, were working on sheets of figures. Two wooden
+bunks, one above the other, and two posts supporting the low ceiling
+completed the meagre furnishings of the room. A young officer looked up
+from his work, O'Neil saluted, and addressed him.
+
+"The Major sent me up with this correspondent. He said you could let him
+go wherever he could see the fun and that you are not responsible for
+his safety." O'Neil caught the captain's smile at the closing remark and
+withdrew. The captain showed me the map.
+
+"Here we are," he said, indicating a spot with his finger, "and here's
+what we are aiming at to-night. There are two places you can stay to see
+the fun. You can stay in this shelter and hear the sound of it, or you
+can go up a little further front to this point, and mount the platform
+in our observation tree. In this _abri_ you are safe from splinters and
+shrapnel but a direct hit would wipe us out. In the tree you are exposed
+to direct hits and splinters from nearby bursts but at least you can see
+the whole show. It's the highest point around here and overlooks the
+whole sector."
+
+I sensed that the captain expected a busy evening and looked forward
+with no joy to possible interference from a questioning visitor, so I
+chose the tree.
+
+"All right," he said, "you've got helmet and gas masks, I see. Now how's
+your watch? Take the right time off mine. We have just synchronised ours
+with headquarters. Zero is one o'clock. You had better start now."
+
+He called for an orderly with a German name, and the two of us left.
+Before I was out of the room, the captain had returned to his
+mathematics and was figuring out the latest range variations and making
+allowances for latest developments in wind, temperature and barometer.
+The orderly with the German name and I plunged again into the trees and
+brought up shortly on the edge of a group of men who were standing in
+the dark near a large tree trunk. I could hear several other men and
+some stamping horses off to one side.
+
+The party at the foot of the tree was composed of observers, signal
+linemen and runners. All of them were enlisted men. I inquired who were
+to be my comrades in the tree top and three presented themselves. One
+said his name was Pat Guahn, the second gave his as Peter Griffin and
+the third acknowledged Mike Stanton. I introduced myself and Griffin
+said, "I see we are all from the same part of Italy."
+
+At twenty minutes to one, we started up the tree, mounting by rudely
+constructed ladders that led from one to the other of the four crudely
+fashioned platforms. We reached the top breathless and with no false
+impressions about the stability of our swaying perch. The tree seemed to
+be the tallest in the forest and nothing interfered with our forward
+view. The platform was a bit shaky and Guahn put my thoughts to words
+and music by softly singing--
+
+    "Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top,
+    When the shell comes the runners all flop,
+    When the shell busts, good-bye to our station,
+    We're up in a tree, bound for damnation."
+
+The compass gives us north and we locate in the forward darkness an
+approximate sweep of the front lines. Guahn is looking for the flash of
+a certain German gun and it will be his duty to keep his eyes trained
+through the fork of a certain marked twig within arm's reach.
+
+"If she speaks, we want to know it," Guahn says; "I can see her from
+here when she flashes and there's another man who can see her from
+another place. You see we get an intersection of angles on her and then
+we know where she is just as though she had sent her address. Two
+minutes later we drop a card on her and keep her warm."
+
+"Is that that gun from Russia we heard about?" Griffin asks.
+
+"No," answers Guahn, "we are not looking for her from that station.
+Besides, she isn't Russian. She was made by the British, used by the
+Russians, captured by the Germans and in turn is used by them against
+Americans. We have found pieces of her shell and they all have an
+English trade mark on them. She fires big eight inch stuff."
+
+Griffin is watching in another direction for another flash and Stanton
+is on the lookout for signal flares and the flash of a signal light
+projector which might be used in case the telephone communication is
+disturbed by enemy fire. It is then that the runners at the base of the
+tree must carry the message back by horse.
+
+Only an occasional thump is heard forward in the darkness. Now and then
+machine guns chatter insanely as they tuck a seam in the night. At
+infrequent intervals, a star shell curves upward, bursts, suspends its
+silent whiteness in mid-air, and dies.
+
+In our tree top all seems quiet and so is the night. There is no moon
+and only a few stars are out. A penetrating dampness takes the place of
+cold and there is that in the air that threatens a change of weather.
+
+The illuminated dial of my watch tells me that it is three minutes of
+one and I communicate the information to the rest of the Irish quartet.
+In three minutes, the little world that we look upon from our tree top
+is due to change with terrific suddenness and untold possibilities.
+
+Somewhere below in the darkness and to one side, I hear the clank of a
+ponderous breech lock as the mechanism is closed on a shell in one of
+the heavy guns. Otherwise all remains silent.
+
+Two minutes of one. Each minute seems to drag like an hour. It is
+impossible to keep one's mind off that unsuspecting group of humans out
+there in that little section of German trench upon which the heavens are
+about to fall. Griffin leans over the railing and calls to the runners
+to stand by the horses' heads until they become accustomed to the coming
+roar.
+
+One minute of one. We grip the railing and wait.
+
+Two flashes and two reports, the barest distinguishable interval, and
+the black horizon belches red. From extreme left to extreme right the
+flattened proscenium in front of us glows with the ghastliness of the
+Broockon.
+
+Waves of light flush the dark vault above like the night sky over South
+Chicago's blast furnaces. The heavens reflect the glare. The flashes
+range in colour from blinding yellow to the softest tints of pink. They
+seem to form themselves from strange combinations of greens and mauves
+and lavenders.
+
+The sharp shattering crash of the guns reaches our ears almost on the
+instant. The forest shakes and our tree top sways with the slam of the
+heavies close by. The riven air whimpers with the husky whispering of
+the rushing load of metal bolts passing above us.
+
+Looking up into that void, we deny the uselessness of the act and seek
+in vain to follow the trains of those unseen things that make the air
+electric with their presence. We hear them coming, passing, going, but
+see not one of them.
+
+"There's whole blacksmith's shops sailing over our heads on the way to
+Germany," Pat Guahn shouts in my ear. "I guess the Dutchman sure knows
+how to call for help. He doesn't care for that first wallop, and he
+thinks he would like about a half million reserves from the Russian
+front."
+
+"That darkness out in No Man's Land don't make any hit with him either,"
+Stanton contributes. "He's got it lit up so bright I'm homesick for
+Broadway."
+
+Now comes the thunder of the shell arrivals. You know the old covered
+wooden bridges that are still to be found in the country. Have you ever
+heard a team of horses and a farm wagon thumping and rumbling over such
+a bridge on the trot?
+
+Multiply the horse team a thousand times. Lash the animals from the trot
+to the wild gallop. Imagine the sound of their stampede through the
+echoing wooden structure and you approach in volume and effect the
+rumble and roar of the steel as it rained down on that little German
+salient that night.
+
+"Listen to them babies bustin'," says Griffin. "I'm betting them
+groundhogs is sure huntin' their holes right now and trying to dig clear
+through to China."
+
+That was the sound and sight of that opening salvo from all guns, from
+the small trench mortars in the line, the lightest field pieces behind
+them, the heavy field pieces about us and the ponderous railroad
+artillery located behind us.
+
+Its crash has slashed the inkiness in front of us with a lurid red
+meridian. I don't know how many hands had pulled lanyards on exactly the
+same instant but the consequent spread of fire looked like one
+continuous flame.
+
+Now the "seventy-fives" are speaking, not in unison, but at various
+speeds, limited only by the utmost celerity of the sweating gun crews.
+
+But the German front line is not the only locality receiving unsolicited
+attention. Enemy gun positions far behind the lines are being plastered
+with high explosives and anesthetised with gas shells.
+
+So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of the German
+batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty minutes before the
+first enemy gun replies to the terrific barrage. And though expected
+momentarily, a German counter barrage fails to materialise.
+
+In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shelling but the
+retaliation does not develop. When occupying an exposed position, the
+suspense of waiting for an impending blow increases in tenseness as the
+delay continues and the expectations remain unrealised. With no
+inclination to be unreasonable, one even prays for the speedy delivery
+of the blow in the same way that the man with the aching tooth urges the
+dentist to speed up and have it over with.
+
+"Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Griffin asks. "I've had myself
+all tuned up for the last twenty minutes to have a leg blown off and be
+thankful. I hate this waiting stuff."
+
+"Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 'em a chance to get
+their breath and come out of their holes. That barrage drove 'em down a
+couple hundred feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to
+come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."
+
+We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they
+were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into
+lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant
+operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only
+desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland came our way, and
+even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't
+know exactly where they were going and didn't care.
+
+Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit not far above our
+tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly looked as though we were
+shooting all the hard-stuff and the German end of the fireworks party
+was all coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells that passed
+us, three failed to explode upon landing.
+
+"That makes three dubs," said Guahn.
+
+"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you mean duds and even
+then you are wrong. Those were gas pills. They just crack open quietly
+so you don't know it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll
+hear the gas alert soon."
+
+Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the throaty gurgling of
+the sirens. The alarm started on our right and spread from station to
+station through the woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our
+muffled faces toward the firing line. Through the moisture fogged
+glasses of my mask, I looked first upon my companions on this rustic
+scaffold above the forest.
+
+War's demands had removed our appearances far from the human. Our heads
+were topped with uncomfortable steel casques, harder than the backs of
+turtles. Our eyes were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and
+owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rubber cloth. Our
+lungs sucked air through tubes from a canvass bag under our chins and we
+were inhabiting a tree top like a family of apes. It really required
+imagination to make it seem real.
+
+"Looks like the party is over," came the muffled remark from the masked
+figure beside me. The cannonading was dying down appreciably. The
+blinking line of lights in front of us grew less.
+
+A terrific upward blast of red and green flame from the ground close to
+our tree, reminded us that one heavy still remained under firing orders.
+The flash seen through the forest revealed in intricate tracings the
+intertwining limbs and branches of the trees. It presented the
+appearance of a piece of strong black lace spread out and held at arm's
+length in front of a glowing grate.
+
+From the German lines an increased number of flares shot skyward and as
+the cannon cracks ceased, save for isolated booms, the enemy machine
+guns could be heard at work, riveting the night with sprays of lead and
+sounding for all the world like a scourge of hungry woodpeckers.
+
+"God help any of the doughboys that are going up against any of that
+stuff," Griffin observed through his mask.
+
+"Don't worry about our doughboys," replied Stanton; "they are all safe
+in their trenches now. That's most likely the reason why our guns were
+ordered to lay off. I guess Fritzie got busy with his typewriters too
+late."
+
+I descended the tree, leaving my companions to wait for the orders
+necessary for their departure. Unfamiliar with the unmarked paths of
+the forest and guided only as to general directions, I made my way
+through the trees some distance in search of the road back from the
+front.
+
+A number of mud and water-filled shell holes intervened to make the
+exertion greater and consequently the demand upon lungs for air greater.
+After floundering several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas
+mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that comes to tear off
+the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxiation for just one breath of fresh
+air.
+
+A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided me to a log cabin
+where I learned from a sentry that the gas scare had just been called
+off. Continuing on the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a
+walking horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly the advantage
+over him as his head was still encased. I told him the gas alarm was off
+and he tore away the mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was
+removing the horse's gas mask.
+
+A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good-night to the battalion
+commander in front of his roadside shack. A party of mounted runners was
+passing on the way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity
+quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in command of regular army
+artillery, he said:
+
+"Good-night, men, we licked hell out of them."
+
+The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans, always maintained a
+high daily rating of artillery activity. The opposing forces were
+continually planning surprises on one another. At any minute of the
+night or day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas might break
+out on either side. Both sides operated their sound ranging apparatus
+to a rather high degree of efficiency.
+
+By these delicate instruments we could locate the exact position of an
+unseen enemy battery. Following that location, the battery would
+immediately be visited with a concentrated downpour of hot steel
+intended to wipe it out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so
+that in the artillery, when the men were not actually manning the guns
+in action, they were digging gun pits for reserve positions which they
+could occupy if the enemy happened to get the proper range of the old
+positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery adopted a
+system by which many lives were saved.
+
+If a German battery began shelling one of our battery positions, the
+artillerymen in that position were not called upon to stand by their
+guns and return the fire. The order would be given to temporarily
+abandon the position and the men would be withdrawn a safe distance. The
+German battery that was firing would be responded to, two to one, by
+other American batteries located nearby and which did not happen to be
+under fire at the time. By this system we conserved our strength.
+
+Our infantry was strong in their praise of the artillery. I observed
+this particularly one day on the Toul front when General Pershing
+dropped in unexpectedly at the division headquarters, then located in
+the hillside village of Bourcq. While the commander and his party were
+awaiting a meal which was being prepared, four muddy figures tramped
+down the hallway of the Château. Through the doorway the general
+observed their entrance.
+
+The two leading figures were stolid German soldiers, prisoners of war,
+and behind them marched their captors, two excusably proud young
+Americans. One of them carried his bayoneted rifle at the ready, while
+the second carried the equipment which had been taken from the
+prisoners. The American commander ordered the group brought before him
+and asked one of the Americans to relate the story of the capture.
+
+"We in the infantry got 'em, sir," replied one, "but the artillery
+deserved most of the credit. It happened just at dawn this morning. Jim
+here, and myself, were holding down an advance machine gun post when the
+Germans laid down a flock of shells on our first line trench. We just
+kept at the gun ready to let them have it if they started to come over.
+
+"Pretty soon we saw them coming through the mist and we began to put it
+to 'em. I think we got a bunch of them but they kept on coming.
+
+"Then somebody back in our first line shot up the signal for a barrage
+in our sector. It couldn't have been a minute before our cannon cut
+loose and the shells began to drop right down in the middle of the
+raiding party.
+
+"It was a good heavy barrage, sir, and it cut clean through the centre
+of the raiders. Two Germans were ahead of the rest and the barrage
+landed right in back of them. The rest started running back toward their
+lines, but the first pair could not go back because they would have had
+to pass through the barrage. I kept the machine gun going all the time
+and Jim showed himself above the trench and pointed his rifle at the
+cut-off pair.
+
+"They put up their hands right quick and we waved to 'em to come in.
+They took it on the jump and landed in our trench as fast as they could.
+We took their equipment off them and we were ordered to march them back
+here to headquarters. That's all there was to it, sir."
+
+The enemy in front of Toul manifested an inordinate anxiety to know more
+about the strength of our forces and the character of the positions we
+occupied. A captured German document issued to the Fifth Bavarian
+Landwehr infantry brigade instructed every observer and patrol to do his
+or its best "to bring information about the new enemy."
+
+"Nothing is known as yet about the methods of fighting or leadership,"
+the document set forth, "and all information possible must be gathered
+as to particular features of American fighting and outpost tactics. This
+will then be used for extending the information bulletin. Any
+observation or identification, however insignificant, may be of the
+greatest value."
+
+The document directed that data on the following questions be obtained:
+
+"Are sentry posts sentry posts or stronger posts? Further advanced
+reconnoitring patrols? Manner of challenging? Behaviour on post during
+day and night? Vigilance? Ambush tactics and cunning?
+
+"Do they shoot and signal on every occasion? Do the posts hold their
+ground on the approach of a patrol, or do they fall back?
+
+"Are the Americans careful and cautious? Are they noisy? What is their
+behaviour during smoke screens?"
+
+The enemy's keen desire to acquire this information was displayed in the
+desperate efforts it made. One day the French troops occupying the
+trenches on the right flank of the American sector, encountered a
+soldier in an American uniform walking through their positions.
+
+He was stopped and questioned. He said he had been one of an American
+patrol that had gone out the night before, that he had lost his way in
+No Man's Land and that he thought he was returning to his own trenches,
+when he dropped into those held by the French.
+
+Although the man wore our uniform and spoke excellent English and seemed
+straightforward in his replies, as to his name and rank and
+organisation, the French officer before whom he was brought was not
+completely satisfied. To overcome this hesitancy, the suspected man
+opened his shirt and produced an American identification tag verifying
+his answers.
+
+The French officer, still suspicious, ordered the man held while he
+telephoned to the American organisation mentioned to ascertain whether
+any man of the name given was missing from that unit.
+
+"Yes," replied the American captain. "We lost him last October, when we
+were in the front line down in the Luneville sector. He was captured
+with eight others by the Germans."
+
+"Well, we've got him over here on your right flank. He came into our
+lines this morning--" the French officer started to say.
+
+"Bully," came the American interruption over the wire. "He's escaped
+from the Germans and has come clear through their lines to get back to
+his company. He'll get a D. S. C. for that. We'll send right over for
+him."
+
+"But when we questioned him," replied the Frenchman, "he said he left
+your lines only last night on patrol and got lost in No Man's Land."
+
+"I'll come right over and look at that party, myself," the American
+captain hastily replied.
+
+He reached the French officer's dugout several hours later and the
+suspect was ordered brought in.
+
+"He must be crazy, sir," the French orderly said. "He tried to kill
+himself a few minutes ago and we have had to hold him."
+
+The man was brought into the dugout between two poilus who held his
+arms. The American captain took a careful look and said:
+
+"That's not our man. He wears our uniform correctly and that's our
+regulation identification tag. Both of them must have been taken away
+from our man when he was captured. This man is an impostor."
+
+"He's more than that," replied the Frenchman with a smile. "He's a
+German spy."
+
+The prisoner made no reply, but later made a full confession of his act,
+and also gave to his interrogators much valuable information, which,
+however, did not save him from paying the penalty in front of a firing
+squad. When he faced the rifles, he was not wearing the stolen uniform.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH
+
+
+Toward the end of March, 1918, just at the time when the American
+Expeditionary Forces were approaching the desired degree of military
+effectiveness, the fate of civilisation was suddenly imperilled by the
+materialisation of the long expected German offensive.
+
+This push, the greatest the enemy had ever attempted, began on March
+21st, and the place that Hindenburg selected for the drive was Picardy,
+the valley of the Somme, the ancient cockpit of Europe. On that day the
+German hordes, scores upon scores of divisions, hurled themselves
+against the British line between Arras and Noyon.
+
+Before that tremendous weight of manpower, the Allied line was forced to
+give and one of the holding British armies, the Fifth, gave ground on
+the right flank, and with its left as a hinge, swung back like a gate,
+opening the way for the Germans toward Paris.
+
+There have been many descriptions of the fierce fighting put up by the
+French and British to stem the German advance, but the most interesting
+one that ever came to my notice, came from one of the few American
+soldiers that participated in the defence. Two weeks after the opening
+of the battle and at a time when the German advance had been stopped, I
+came upon this American in a United States Military Hospital at Dijon.
+
+An interne led me to the bedside of Jimmy Brady, a former jockey from
+the Pimlico turf in Baltimore, and now a proud wearer of Uncle Sam's
+khaki. In his own quaint way, Jimmy told me the story of what a little
+handful of Americans did in the great battle in Picardy. Jimmy knew.
+Jimmy had been there.
+
+"Lad," he said, "I'm telling you it was a real jam. I learned one hell
+of a headful in the last ten days that I'll not be forgetting in the
+next ten years. I've got new ideas about how long this war is goin' to
+last. Of course, we're going to lick the Boches before it ends, but I've
+sorter given up the picture I had of myself marching up Fifth Avenue in
+a victory parade on this coming Fourth of July. I'll say it can't be
+done in that time.
+
+"Our outfit from old ---- engineers, and believe me there's none better,
+have been working up in the Somme country for the last two months. We
+were billeted at Brie and most of our work had been throwing bridges
+across the Canal du Nord about three miles south of Peronne. I'm telling
+you the Somme ain't a river. It's a swamp, and they just hardly squeeze
+enough water outer it to make a canal which takes the place of a river.
+
+"We was working under the British. Their old bridges over the canal were
+wooden affairs and most of them had signs on them reading, 'This bridge
+won't hold a tank,' and that bridge wouldn't bear trotting horses, and
+so on. Some of 'em we tore down must have been put in for scenery
+purposes only. We were slamming up some husky looking steel structures
+like you see in the States, and believe me it makes me sick to think
+that we had to blow 'em all up again before the Boches got to 'em.
+
+"I see by the papers that the battle began on the 21st, but I've got no
+more idea about the date of it than the King of Honolulu. They say it's
+been on only about ten days, but I couldn't swear it hadn't been on
+since New Year's Eve. It sure seemed a long time. As I told you, we were
+working just south of Peronne on the main road between St. Quentin and
+Amiens. She started on a foggy morning and for two days the music kept
+getting closer. On the first day, all traffic was frontward, men, guns,
+and camions going up towards the lines, and then the tide began to flow
+back.
+
+"Ambulances and camions, full of poor wounded devils, filled the road,
+and then came labour battalions of chattering Chinks, Egyptians, and
+Fiji Islanders and God knows what. None of these birds were lingering,
+because the enemy was sprinkling the roads with shells and sorter
+keeping their marching spirits up. Orders came for us to ditch our packs
+and equipment all except spades, rifles, belts and canteens, and we set
+off toward the rear.
+
+"Do you mind your map of the Somme? Well, we pulls up at Chaulnes for a
+breath. It was a big depot and dump town--aeroplanes and everything
+piled up in it. We were ordered onto demolition work, being as we was
+still classed as non-combatants. I don't know how many billions of
+dollars' worth of stuff we blew up and destroyed, but it seemed to me
+there was no end of it. Fritz kept coming all the time and they hiked us
+on to Aubercourt and then to Dormant, and each place we stopped and dug
+trenches, and then they shoots us into camions and rushes us north to a
+town not far out of Amiens.
+
+"With about forty men, we marched down the road, this time as
+non-combatants no longer. We stopped just east of the village of
+Marcelcave and dug a line of trenches across the road. We had twenty
+machine guns and almost as many different kinds of ammunition as there
+was different nationalities in our trench. Our position was the fifth
+line of defence, we was told, but the guns kept getting closer and a
+lot of that long range stuff was giving us hell. Near me there was a
+squad of my men, one Chink, three Canadians, and we two Dublin
+fusileers.
+
+"Then we begin to see our own guns, that is, British guns, beginning to
+blow hell out of this here village of Marcelcave right in front of us.
+It made me wild to see the artillery making a mistake like that, so I
+says to one of these here Dublin fusileers:
+
+"'Whatinell's 'matter wid dose guns firing on our own men up there in
+the village? If this is the fifth line, then that must be our fourth
+line in the village?'
+
+"'Lad,' says the Dublin fusileer to me, 'I don't want to discourage you
+for the life of me, but this only used to be the fifth line. We are in
+the first line now and it's up to you and me and the Chink and the rest
+of us to keep the Fritzes out of Amiens. At this moment we are all
+that's between.'
+
+"We started to the machine guns and began pouring it in on 'em. The
+minute some of 'em would start out of the town we would wither them.
+Holy mother, but what a beautiful murder it was!
+
+"I didn't know then, and don't know yet, what has become of all the rest
+of our officers and men, but I sorter felt like every shot I sent over
+was paying 'em back for some of their dirty work. We kept handing it to
+'em hot. You oughter seen that Chink talking Mongolian to a machine gun,
+and, believe me, he sure made it understand him. I'm here to say that
+when a Chink fights, he's a fighting son-of-a-gun and don't let anybody
+kid you different.
+
+"Well, our little mob held 'em off till dark and then British Tommies
+piled in and relieved us. We needed it because we hadn't had a bite in
+seventy hours and I had been lying in the mud and water for twice that
+time. Just before relief comes on, two skulking figures comes over the
+top. I was thinking that maybe these was Hindus or Eskimos coming to
+join our little international party and we shouts out to 'em and asks
+'em where they hails from. Both of 'em yelled back, 'Kamerad,' and then
+I knew that we'd not only held the fort, but had captured two prisoners
+even if they was deserters.
+
+"I marched 'em back that night to the next town and took 'em into a
+grocery store, where there was a lot of Tommies helping themselves to
+the first meal in days. While we were eating bread and cheese and
+sardines and also feeding me two prisoners, we talks to them and finds
+out that, as far as they are concerned, the Kaiser will never get their
+vote again.
+
+"One Tommy says to one of my prisoners: 'Kaiser no good--pas bon, ain't
+it?' and the prisoner said, 'Yah,' and I shoved my elbow into his ribs
+and right quick he said, 'Nein.' Then the Tommy said: 'Hindenburg dirty
+rotter, nacy pa?' and the Fritz said, 'Yah. Nein,' and then looked at me
+and said 'Yah' again. They was not bad prisoners and I marched 'em
+twenty miles that night, just the three of us--two of them in front and
+me in back with the rifle over me arm.
+
+"And the joke of it was that both of them could have taken the gun and
+killed me any minute for all I could have done."
+
+"How do you figure that, Corporal?" I asked.
+
+For reply, Jimmy Brady drew from beneath the blankets a pair of knotted
+hands with fingers and thumbs stiffened and bent in and obviously
+impossible to use on a trigger. Brady is not in the hospital for wounds.
+Four days and nights in water and mud in the battle of battles had
+twisted and shrunken him with rheumatism. But he is one rheumatic who
+helped to save Amiens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the heels of the German successes in Picardy, developments followed
+fast. Principal among these, was the materialisation of a unified
+command of all the armies of the Allies. General Ferdinand Foch was
+selected and placed in supreme command of every fighting man under the
+Allied flags.
+
+One of the events that led up to this long delayed action, was the
+unprecedented action of General Pershing, when he turned over the
+command of all the American forces in France to General Foch. He did
+this with the words:
+
+  "I come to say to you that the American people would hold it a great
+  honour for our troops were they engaged in the present battle. I ask
+  it of you in my name and in that of the American people.
+
+  "There is at this moment no other question than that of fighting.
+  Infantry, artillery, aviation--all that we have are yours to dispose
+  of as you will. Others are coming which are as numerous as will be
+  necessary. I have come to say to you that the American people would
+  be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in history."
+
+The action met with the unqualified endorsement of every officer and man
+in the American forces. From that minute on, the American slogan in
+France was "Let's go," and every regiment began to hope that it would be
+among the American organisations selected to do battle with the German
+in Picardy. Secretary of War Baker, then in France, expressed his
+pleasure over General Pershing's unselfish offer with the following
+public statement on Mar. 30th:
+
+  "I am delighted with the prompt and effective action of General
+  Pershing in placing all American troops at the disposal of the
+  Allies in the present situation. His action will meet with hearty
+  approval in the United States, where the people desire their
+  Expeditionary Force to be of the utmost service to the common cause.
+
+  "I have visited practically all the American troops in France, some
+  of them quite recently, and had an opportunity to observe the
+  enthusiasm with which the officers and men receive the announcement
+  that they may be used in the present conflict. Regiments to which
+  the announcement was made, broke spontaneously into cheers."
+
+Particularly were there cheers when the news spread through the ranks of
+the First United States division, then on duty on the line in front of
+Toul, that it had been the first American division chosen to go into
+Picardy. I was fortunate enough to make arrangements to go with them.
+
+I rode out from old positions with the guns and boarded the troop train
+which took our battery by devious routes to changes of scenery,
+gratifying both to vision and spirit. We lived in our cars on tinned
+meat and hard bread, washed down with swallows of _vin ordinaire_,
+hurriedly purchased at station _buvettes_. The horses rode well.
+
+Officers and men, none of us cared for train schedule simply because
+none of us knew where we were going, and little time was wasted in
+conjecture. Soldierly curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that we
+were on our way, and with this satisfaction, the hours passed easily.
+In fact, the blackjack game in the officers' compartment had reached the
+point where the battery commander had garnered almost all of the French
+paper money in sight, when our train passed slowly through the environs
+of Paris.
+
+Other American troop trains had preceded us, because where the railroad
+embankment ran close and parallel to the street of some nameless
+Faubourg, our appearance was met with cheers and cries from a welcoming
+regiment of Paris street gamins, who trotted in the street beside the
+slow moving troop train and shouted and threw their hats and wooden
+shoes in the air. Sous and fifty centime pieces and franc pieces
+showered from the side doors of the horses' cars as American soldiers,
+with typical disregard for the value of money, pitched coin after coin
+to the scrambling mob of children. At least a hundred francs must have
+been cast out upon those happy, romping waves of childish faces and
+up-stretched dirty hands.
+
+"A soldier would give his shirt away," said a platoon commander, leaning
+out of the window and watching the spectacle, and surreptitiously
+pitching a few coins himself. "Hope we get out of this place before the
+men pitch out a gun or a horse to that bunch. Happy little devils,
+aren't they? It's great to think we are on our way up to meet their
+daddies."
+
+Unnumbered hours more passed merrily in the troop train before we were
+shunted into the siding of a little town. Work of unloading was started
+and completed within an hour. Guns and wagons were unloaded on the quay,
+while the animals were removed from the cars on movable runways or
+ramps. As each gun or wagon reached the ground, its drivers hitched in
+the horses and moved it away. Five minutes later we rode out of the
+yards and down the main street of the town.
+
+Broad steel tires on the carriages of the heavies bumped and rumbled
+over the clean cobbles and the horses pranced spryly to get the kinks
+out of their legs, long fatigued from vibrations of the train. Women,
+old and young, lined the curbs, smiling and throwing kisses, waving
+handkerchiefs and aprons and begging for souvenirs. If every request for
+a button had been complied with, our battery would have reached the
+front with a shocking shortage of safety pins.
+
+Darkness came on and with it a fine rain, as we cleared the town and
+halted on a level plain between soft fields of tender new wheat, which
+the horses sensed and snorted to get at. In twenty minutes, Mess
+Sergeant Kelly, from his high altar on the rolling kitchen, announced
+that the last of hot coffee had been dispensed. Somewhere up ahead in
+the darkness, battery bugle notes conveyed orders to prepare to mount.
+With the rattle of equipment and the application of endearing epithets,
+which horses unfortunately don't understand, we moved off at the sound
+of "forward."
+
+Off on our left, a noiseless passenger train slid silently across the
+rim of the valley, blue dimmed lights in its coach windows glowing like
+a row of wet sulphur matches. Far off in the north, flutters of white
+light flushed the night sky and an occasional grumbling of the distant
+guns gave us our first impression of the battle of battles. Every man in
+our battery tingled with the thrill. This was riding frontward with the
+guns--this was rolling and rumbling on through the night up toward the
+glare and glamour of war. I was riding beside the captain at the head of
+the column. He broke silence.
+
+"It seems like a far cry from Honolulu with the moon playing through the
+palm trees on the beach," he said quizzically, "to this place and these
+scenes and events to-night, but a little thing like a flip of coin
+decided it for me, and I'm blessing that coin to-night.
+
+"A year ago January, before we came into the war, I was stationed at San
+Antonio. Another officer friend of mine was stationed there and one day
+he received orders to report for duty at Honolulu. He had a girl in San
+Antonio and didn't want to leave her and he knew I didn't have a girl
+and didn't give a damn where I went, or was sent, so long as it was with
+the army. He put up the proposition of mutual exchange being permitted
+under regulations.
+
+"He wanted to take my place in San Antonio and give me his assignment in
+Honolulu, which I must say looked mighty good in those days to anybody
+who was tired of Texas. I didn't think then we'd ever come to war and
+besides it didn't make much difference to me one way or the other where
+I went. But instead of accepting the proposition right off the reel, I
+told Jim we'd flip a coin to decide.
+
+"If it came tails, he would go to Honolulu. If it came heads, I would go
+to Honolulu. He flipped. Tails won. I'm in France and poor Jim is out
+there in Honolulu tending the Ukulele crop with prospects of having to
+stay there for some time. Poor devil, I got a letter from him last week.
+
+"Do you know, man knows no keener joy in the world than that which I
+have to-night. Here I am in France at the head of two hundred and fifty
+men and horses and the guns and we're rolling up front to kick a dent in
+history. The poor unfortunate that ain't in this fight has almost got
+license to shoot himself. Life knows no keener joy than this."
+
+It was a long speech for our captain, but his words expressed not only
+the feeling of our battery, but our whole regiment, from the humblest
+wagon driver up to the colonel who, by the way, has just made himself
+most unpopular with the regiment by being promoted to a Brigadier
+Generalship. The colonel is passing upward to a higher command and the
+regiment is sore on losing him. One of his humblest critics has
+characterised the event as the "first rough trick the old man ever
+pulled."
+
+Midnight passed and we were still wheeling our way through sleeping
+villages, consulting maps under rays of flashlights, gathering
+directions some of the time from mile posts and wall signs, and at other
+times gaining knowledge of roads and turns and hills from sleepy heads
+in curl wrappers that protruded from bedroom chambers and were
+over-generous in advice.
+
+The animals were tired. Rain soaked the cigarettes and made them draw
+badly. Above was drizzle and below was mud. There were a few grumbles,
+but no man in our column would have traded places with a brother back
+home even if offered a farm to boot.
+
+It was after three in the morning when we parked the guns in front of a
+château, brought forward some lagging combat wagons and discovered the
+rolling kitchen had gone astray. In another hour the animals had been
+unhitched but not unharnessed, fed and watered in darkness and the men,
+in utter weariness, prepared to lie down and sleep anywhere. At this
+juncture, word was passed through the sections that the battery would
+get ready to move immediately. Orders were to clear the village by six
+o'clock. Neither men nor horses were rested, but we moved out on time
+and breakfasted on the road.
+
+The way seemed long, the roads bad and the guns heavy. But we were
+passing through an Eden of beauty--green fields and rolling hills
+crested by ancient châteaux. At times, the road wound down through
+hillside orchards, white and pink with apple blooms. Fatigue was heavy
+on man and beast, but I heard one walking cannoneer singing, "When It's
+Apple Blossom-time in Normandie." Another rider in the column recalled
+the time when his father used to give him ten cents for standing on the
+bottom of an upturned tin basin and reciting, "Over the mountains
+winding down, horse and foot into Frederickstown."
+
+"The jar of these guns as they grind over the gravel is enough to grind
+the heart out of you," said a sweating cannoneer who was pressing a
+helping shoulder to one of the heavies as we negotiated a steep hill.
+
+"What in hell you kicking about," said the man opposite. "Suppose you
+was travelling with one of them guns the Germans are using on Paris--I
+mean that old John J. Longdistance. You'd know what heavy guns are then.
+They say that the gun's so big and takes so many horses to haul it, that
+the man who drives the lead pair has never spent the night in the same
+town with the fellow who rides wheel swing."
+
+A young reserve lieutenant with mind intensely on his work, combined for
+my benefit his impressions of scenery with a lesson in artillery
+location. His characterisation of the landscape was as technical as it
+was unpoetical.
+
+"A great howitzer country," was the tenor of his remarks. "Look at the
+bottom of that slide. Fine position for one fifty-five. Take that gully
+over there. That's a beaut of a place. No use talking. Great howitzer
+country."
+
+During the afternoon, a veterinarian turned over two horses to a French
+peasant. One was exhausted and unable to proceed, and the other suffered
+a bad hoof, which would require weeks for healing. News that both
+animals were not going to be shot was received with joy by two men who
+had ridden them. I saw them patting the disabled mounts affectionately
+on the neck and heard one of them say,
+
+"'Salright, old timer--'salright. Frenchy here is going to take care of
+you all right. Uncle Sam's paying the bill and I am coming back and get
+you soon's we give Fritzie his bumps."
+
+An hour later, a young cannoneer gave in to fatigue and ignored orders
+to the extent of reclining on gun trail and falling asleep. A rut in the
+road made a stiff jolt, he rolled off and one ponderous wheel of the gun
+carriage passed over him. One leg, one arm and two ribs were broken and
+his feet crushed, was the doctor's verdict as the victim was carried
+away in an ambulance.
+
+"He'll get better all right," said the medico, "but he's finished his
+bit in the army."
+
+The column halted for lunch outside of a small town and I climbed on
+foot to the hilltop castle where mediæval and modern were mixed in mute
+mélange. A drawbridge crossed a long dry moat to cracked walls of rock
+covered with ivy. For all its well preserved signs of artistic ruin, it
+was occupied and well fitted within. From the topmost parapet of one
+rickety looking tower, a wire stretched out through the air to an old,
+ruined mill which was surmounted by a modern wind motor, the tail of
+which incongruously advertised the words "Ideal power," with the
+typical conspicuity of American salesmanship.
+
+Near the base of the old mill was another jumble of moss-covered rocks,
+now used as a summer house, but open on all sides. At a table in the
+centre of this open structure, sat a blond haired young American soldier
+with black receivers clamped to either ear. I approached and watched him
+jotting down words on a paper pad before him. After several minutes of
+intent silence, he removed the harness from his head and told me that he
+belonged to the wireless outfit with the artillery and this station had
+been in operation since the day before.
+
+"Seems so peaceful here with the sun streaming down over these old
+walls," he said.
+
+"What do you hear out of the air?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, we pick up a lot of junk," he replied, "I'm waiting for the German
+communiqué now. Here's some Spanish stuff I just picked up and some more
+junk in French. The English stations haven't started this afternoon. A
+few minutes ago I heard a German aeroplane signalling by wireless to a
+German battery and directing its fire. I could tell every time the gun
+was ordered to fire and every time the aviator said the shot was short
+or over. It's kinder funny to sit back here in quiet and listen in the
+war, isn't it?" I agreed it was weird and it was.
+
+In darkness again at the end of a hard day on the road, we parked the
+guns that night in a little village which was headquarters for our
+regiment and where I spent the night writing by an old oil lamp in the
+Mayor's office. A former Chicago bellhop who spoke better Italian than
+English and naturally should, was sleeping on a blanket roll on the
+floor near me. On the walls of the room were posted numerous flag-decked
+proclamations, some now yellow with the time that had passed over them
+since their issue back in 1914. They pertained to the mobilisation of
+the men of the village, men whose names remain now only as a memory.
+
+But in their place was the new khaki-clad Chicago bellhop snoring there
+on the floor and several thousand more as sturdy and ready as he, all
+billeted within a stone's throw of that room. They were here to finish
+the fight begun by those village peasants who had marched away four
+years before when the Mayor of the town posted that bulletin. These
+Americans stood ready to go down to honoured graves beside them.
+
+Our division was under the French high command and was buried in the
+midst of the mighty preparations then on foot. Our ranks were full, our
+numbers strong, our morale high. Every officer and man in the
+organisation had the feeling that the eyes of dashing French
+comrades-in-arms and hard fighting British brothers were on them. Our
+inspiration was in the belief that the attention of the Allied nations
+of the world and more particularly the hope and pride of our own people
+across the sea, was centred upon us. With that sacred feeling, the first
+division stood resolute to meet the test.
+
+Some of the disquieting news then prevalent in the nervous civilian
+areas back of the lines, reached us, but its effect, as far as I could
+see, was nil. Our officers and men were as unconcerned about the reports
+of enemy successes as though we were children in the nursery of a
+burning house and the neighbourhood was ringing with fire alarms. German
+advances before Amiens, enemy rushes gaining gory ground in Flanders,
+carried no shock to the high resolve that existed in the Allied reserves
+of which we were a part.
+
+Our army knew nothing but confidence. If there was other than optimism
+to be derived from the current events, then our army was inclined to
+consider such a result as gratifying, because it could be calculated to
+create a greater measure of speed and assistance from the slowly
+functioning powers in America. The reasoning was that any possible
+pessimism would hurry to the wheel every American shoulder that had
+failed to take up its individual war burden under the wave of optimism.
+The army had another reason for its optimism. Our officers knew
+something about the dark days that had preceded the first battle at the
+Marne. They were familiar with the gloomy outlook in 1914 that had led
+to the hurried removal of the French government from Paris to Bordeaux.
+Our men recalled how the enemy was then overrunning Belgium, how the old
+British "Contemptibles" were in retreat, and how the German was within
+twenty miles of the French capital.
+
+In that crisis had come the message by Foch and the brilliant stroke
+with which he backed it up. What followed was the tumble and collapse of
+the straddling German effort and the forced transformation in the
+enemy's plans from a war of six weeks to a war of four years.
+
+Our army knew the man who turned the trick at the Marne. We knew that we
+were under his command, and not the slightest doubt existed but that it
+was now our destiny to take part in another play of the cards which
+would call and cash the German hand. Our forces in the coming
+engagements were staking their lives, to a man, on Foch's ace in the
+hole.
+
+That was the deadly earnestness of our army's confidence in Foch. The
+capture of a hill top in Picardy or the loss of a village in Flanders
+had no effect upon that confidence. It found reinforcement in the
+belief that since March 21st, America had gained a newer and keener
+appreciation of her part in the war.
+
+Our army began to feel that the American people, more than three
+thousand miles away from the battle fronts, would have a better
+understanding of the intense meaning that had been already conveyed in
+General Pershing's words, "Confidence is needed but overconfidence is
+dangerous." In other words, our soldiers in the field began to feel that
+home tendencies that underrated the enemy's strength and underestimated
+the effort necessary to overcome him, had been corrected. The army had
+long felt that such tendencies had made good material for Billy Sunday's
+sermons and spread-eagle speeches, but they hadn't loaded guns or placed
+men in the front line.
+
+We felt that this crisis had brought to America a better realisation of
+the fact that Germany had not been beaten and that she was yet to be
+beaten and that America's share in the administration of that beating
+would have to be greater and more determined than had heretofore been
+deemed necessary. It was the hope of the army that this realisation
+would reach the people with a shock. Shocks were known to make
+realisations less easy to forget. Forgetfulness from then on might have
+meant Allied defeat.
+
+Lagging memories found no billet in the personnel of that First
+Division. Its records, registering five hundred casualties, kept in mind
+the fact that the division had seen service on the line and still had
+scores to settle with the enemy.
+
+Its officers and men, with but few exceptions, had undergone their
+baptism in German fire and had found the experience not distasteful. The
+division had esprit which made the members of every regiment and
+brigade in it vie with the members of any other regiment and brigade.
+If you had asked any enlisted man in the division, he would have told
+you that his company, battery, regiment or brigade "had it all over the
+rest of them."
+
+That was the feeling that our division brought with them when we marched
+into Picardy to meet the German push. That was the spirit that dominated
+officers and men during the ten days that we spent in manoeuvres and
+preparations in that concentration area in the vicinity of the ancient
+town of Chaumont-en-Vexin in the department of the Oise. It was the
+feeling that made us anxious and eager to move on up to the actual
+front.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+UNDER FIRE
+
+
+On the day before our departure for the front from the concentration
+area in Picardy, every officer in the division, and they numbered almost
+a thousand, was summoned to the temporary divisional headquarters, where
+General Pershing addressed to them remarks which have since become known
+as the commander's "farewell to the First." We had passed out from his
+command and from then on our orders were to come from the commander of
+the French army to which the division was to be attached.
+
+General Pershing stood on a mound at the rear of a beautiful château of
+Norman architecture, the Château du Jard, located on the edge of the
+town of Chaumont-en-Vexin. The officers ranged themselves in informal
+rows on the grass. Birds were singing somewhere above in the dense,
+green foliage, and sunlight was filtering through the leaves of the
+giant trees.
+
+The American commander spoke of the traditions which every American
+soldier should remember in the coming trials. He referred to the
+opportunity then present for us, whose fathers established liberty in
+the New World, now to assist the Old World in throwing off its yoke of
+tyranny. Throughout this touching farewell to the men he had trained--to
+his men then leaving for scenes from which some of them would never
+return--the commander's voice never betrayed the depth of feeling behind
+it.
+
+That night we made final arrangements for the morrow's move. I
+travelled with the artillery where orders were received for the
+reduction of all packs to the lightest possible as all men would be
+dismounted and the baggage wagons would be reserved for food, ammunition
+and officers' luggage only. Officers' packs, by the same order, had to
+shrink from one hundred and fifty pounds to twenty.
+
+There were many misgivings that night as owners were forced to discard
+cherished belongings. Cumbersome camp paraphernalia, rubber bathtubs,
+pneumatic mattresses, extra blankets, socks, sweaters, etc., all parted
+company from erstwhile owners. That order caused many a heart-break and
+the abandonment of thousands of dollars' worth of personal equipment in
+our area.
+
+I have no doubt that some of the village maidens were surprised at the
+remarkable generosity of officers and men who presented them with
+expensive toilet sets. Marie at the village _estaminet_ received five of
+them all fitted in neat leather rolls and inscribed with as many
+different sets of initials. The old men of the town gloried in the
+sweaters, woollen socks and underwear.
+
+There was no chance to fudge on the slim baggage order. An officer,
+bound by duty, weighed each officer's kit as it reached the baggage
+wagons and those tipping the scales at more than the prescribed twenty
+pounds, were thrown out entirely. I happened to be watching the loading
+when it came turn for the regimental band to stow away its encased
+instruments in one wagon. It must be remembered that musicians at the
+front are stretcher bearers. The baggage judge lifted the case
+containing the bass horn.
+
+"No horn in the world ever weighed that much," he said. "Open it up,"
+was the terse command. The case was opened and the base horn pulled out.
+The baggage officer began operations on the funnel. I watched him
+remove from the horn's interior two spare blankets, four pairs of socks,
+an extra pair of pants and a carton of cigarettes. He then inserted his
+arm up to the shoulder in the instrument's innards and brought forth two
+apples, a small tin of blackberry jam and an egg wrapped in an
+undershirt.
+
+The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band was heartbroken. The
+clarinet player, who had watched the operation and whose case followed
+for inspection, saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden
+chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was observing the ruthless
+pillage but, strangely, his countenance was the opposite of the others.
+He was actually smiling. I inquired the cause of his mirth.
+
+"When we packed up, those guys with the big hollow instruments all had
+the laugh on me," he said. "Now I've got it on them. I play the
+piccolo."
+
+All the mounted men under the rank of battery commanders were dismounted
+in order to save the horses for any possibilities in the war of
+movement. A dismounted artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed with
+a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just prior to setting
+out for a long tramp. In his opinion, he has been reduced too near the
+status of the despised doughboy.
+
+It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a horse to ride and
+a saddle to strap one's pack on. In the lineup before we started, I saw
+two of these gunners standing by weighted down with their cumbersome,
+unaccustomed packs. They were backed against a stone wall and were
+easing their burdens by resting the packs on the stone ledge. Another
+one similarly burdened passed and, in a most serious tone, inquired:
+
+"Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another blanket roll?" The
+reply of two dejected gunners would bar this story from publication.
+
+We were on the march early in the morning, but not without some initial
+confusion by reason of the inevitable higher orders which always come at
+the last minute to change programmes. On parallel roads through that
+zone of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our columns swung along
+the dusty highroads.
+
+There were many who held that America would not be thoroughly awake to
+the full meaning of her participation in the war until the day there
+came back from the battlefields a long list of casualties--a division
+wiped out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions expressed in France
+and many firmly believed that nothing short of such a shock would arouse
+our nation to the exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the
+Allied cause from defeat.
+
+On this march, that thought recurred to some and perhaps to many who
+refrained soberly from placing it in words. I knew several in the
+organisation who felt that we were on our way to that sacrifice. I can
+not estimate in how many minds the thought became tangible, but among
+several whom I heard seriously discussing the matter, I found a perfect
+willingness on their part to meet the unknown--to march on to the
+sacrifice with the feeling that if the loss of their life would help
+bring about a greater prosecution of the war by our country, then they
+would not have died in vain.
+
+If this was the underlying spirit, it had no effect whatever upon
+outward appearances which could hardly be better described than with
+Cliff Raymond's lilting words: "There are roses in their rifles just the
+same." If this move was on to the sacrifice--if death awaited at the
+end of the road, then those men were marching toward it with a song.
+
+It takes a hard march to test the morale of soldiers. When the feet are
+road-sore, when the legs ache from the endless pounding of hobnails on
+hard macadam, when the pack straps cut and burn to the shoulder blades,
+and the tin hat weighs down like a crown of thorns, then keep your ear
+open for a jest and if your hearing is rewarded, you will know that you
+march with men.
+
+Many times that first day, those jests came to enliven dejected spirits
+and put smiles on sweat-rinsed faces. I recall our battery as it
+negotiated the steep hills. When the eight horses attached to the gun
+carriages were struggling to pull them up the incline, a certain
+subaltern with a voice slow, but damnably insistent, would sing out,
+"Cannoneers, to the wheels." This reiterated command at every grade
+forced aching shoulders already weary with their own burdens to strain
+behind the heavy carriages and ease the pull on the animals.
+
+Once on a down grade, our way crossed the tracks of a narrow gauge
+railroad. Not far from the crossing could be seen a dinky engine puffing
+and snorting furiously in terrific effort to move up the hill its
+attached train of loaded ammunition cars. The engine was having a hard
+fight when some light-hearted weary one in our column gave voice to
+something which brought up the smile.
+
+"Cannoneers, to the wheel!" was the shout and even the dignified
+subaltern whose pet command was the butt of the exclamation, joined in
+the wave of laughs that went down the line.
+
+An imposing château of the second empire now presided over by an
+American heiress, the wife of a French officer, was regimental
+headquarters that night. Its barns and outbuildings were the cleanest
+in France according to individuals who had slept in so many barns that
+they feel qualified to judge.
+
+"Painfully sanitary," said a young lieutenant, who remarked that the
+tile floor might make a stable smell sweeter but it hardly offered the
+slumbering possibilities of a straw shakedown. While the men arranged
+their blankets in those quarters, the horses grazed and rolled in green
+paddocks fenced with white painted rails. The cooks got busy with the
+evening meal and the men off duty started exploring the two nearby
+villages.
+
+For the American soldier, financial deals were always a part of these
+explorations. It was seldom more than an hour after his arrival in a
+populated village before the stock market and board of trade were in
+full operation. These mobile establishments usually were set up in the
+village square if headquarters did not happen to be located too close.
+There were plenty to play the rôles of bulls and bears; there was much
+bidding and shouting of quotations.
+
+The dealings were not in bushels of wheat or shares in oils or rails.
+Delicacies were the bartered commodities and of these, eggs were the
+strongest. The German intelligence service could have found no surer way
+to trace the peregrinations of American troops about France, than to
+follow up the string of eggless villages they left behind them.
+
+As soon as billets were located, those without extra duty began the egg
+canvass of the town. There was success for those who made the earliest
+start and struck the section with the most prolific hens. Eggs were
+bought at various prices before news of the American arrivals had caused
+peasants to set up a new scale of charges. The usual late starter and
+the victim of arrangements was the officer's striker who lost valuable
+time by having to take care of his officer's luggage and get the latter
+established in billets. It was then his duty to procure eggs for the
+officer's mess.
+
+By that time, all natural egg sources had been obliterated and the only
+available supply was cornered by the soldiers' board of trade. The
+desired breakfast food could be obtained in that place only. It was the
+last and only resort of the striker, who is euphoniously known as a dog
+robber. In the board of trade he would find soldiers with helmets full
+of eggs which could be bought at anywhere from two to three times their
+original price. It was only by the payment of such prices that the
+officer was able to get anything that could possibly leave a trace of
+yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the soldiers themselves had
+ample belt room to accommodate it.
+
+In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen eggs which he
+ordered Madame to fry in succession. I can believe it because I saw it.
+Madame saw it also, but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A
+captain of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastronomic
+feat.
+
+"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for," he said. "Our
+department handles claims for all stolen or destroyed property and we
+have yet to receive the first claim from this town. Of course every one
+knows that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those who hold
+that theft for the purpose of satisfying demands of the stomach is not
+theft. But our records show that the American soldier in France is ready
+to, willing to, and capable of buying what he needs outside of his
+ration allowance.
+
+"We have some instances of stealing, but most of them are trivial.
+Recently, we took from the pay of one whole battalion the cost of
+thirty-one cheeses which were taken from a railroad restaurant counter.
+The facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry and the
+train was stopping only for five minutes and the woman behind the
+counter didn't have time to even take, much less change, the money
+offered, so the men grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to
+board the train as it was moving off.
+
+"There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam didn't have the heart to
+charge any one. He paid the bill himself and maybe if you could send the
+story back home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth the
+money. It happened during a recent cold spell when some of our troops
+were coming from seaboard to the interior. They travelled in semi-opened
+horse cars and it was cold, damn cold.
+
+"One of the trains stopped in front of a small railroad station and six
+soldiers with cold hands and feet jumped from the car and entered the
+waiting room, in the centre of which was a large square coal stove with
+red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders and disjointed
+the stove pipe. At the same time, two others placed poles under the
+bottom of the stove, lifted it off the floor and walked out of the room
+with it.
+
+"They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out of one door and
+were warm for the remainder of the trip. It was the first time in the
+history of that little village that anybody had ever stolen a red hot
+stove. The French government, owning the railroads, made claim against
+us for four hundred francs for the stove and eleven francs' worth of
+coal in it. Uncle Sam paid the bill and was glad to do it.
+
+"I know of only one case to beat that one and that concerned an
+infantryman who stole a hive full of honey and took the bees along with
+it. The medical department handled one aspect of the case and the
+provost marshal the other. The bees meted out some of the punishment and
+we stung his pay for the costs."
+
+There was one thing, however, that men on the move found it most
+difficult to steal and that was sleep. So at least it seemed the next
+morning when we swung into the road at daybreak and continued our march
+into the north. Much speculation went the rounds as to our destination.
+The much debated question was as to whether our forces would be
+incorporated with Foch's reserve armies and held in readiness for a
+possible counter offensive, or whether we should be placed in one of the
+line armies and assigned to holding a position in the path of the German
+push. But all this conjecture resulted in nothing more than passing the
+time. Our way led over byroads and side lanes which the French master of
+circulation had laid down for us.
+
+Behind an active front, the French sanctified their main roads and
+reserved them for the use of fast motor traffic and the rushing up of
+supplies or reserves in cases of necessity. Thousands of poilus too old
+for combat duty did the repair work on these main arteries. All minor
+and slow moving traffic was side-tracked to keep the main line clear. At
+times we were forced to cross the main highroads and then we encountered
+the forward and backward stream of traffic to and from the front. At one
+of those intersections, I sought the grass bank at the side of the road
+for rest. Two interesting actors in this great drama were there before
+me. One was an American soldier wearing a blue brassard with the white
+letters M. P. He was a military policeman on duty as a road marker
+whose function is to regulate traffic and prevent congestion.
+
+Beside him was seated a peculiar looking person whose knee length skirts
+of khaki exposed legs encased in wrap puttees. A motor coat of yellow
+leather and the visored cap of a British Tommy completed the costume.
+The hair showing beneath the crown of the cap was rather long and
+straight, but betrayed traces of having been recently close cropped. For
+all her masculine appearance, she was French and the young road marker
+was lavishing upon her everything he had gleaned in a Freshman year of
+French in a Spokane high school.
+
+I offered my cigarette case and was surprised when the girl refrained.
+That surprise increased when I saw her extract from a leather case of
+her own a full fledged black cigar which she proceeded to light and
+smoke with gusto. When I expressed my greater surprise, she increased it
+by shrugging her shoulders prettily, plunging one gauntleted hand into a
+side pocket and producing a pipe with a pouch of tobacco.
+
+There was nothing dainty about that pipe. It had no delicate amber stem
+nor circlet of filigree gold. There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It
+was just a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the black burnt
+bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth piece. It looked like one of
+those that father used to consent to have boiled once a year, after
+mother had charged it with rotting the lace curtains. If war makes men
+of peace-time citizens, then----
+
+[Illustration: FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT
+CHÂTEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS "CHARS D'ASSAUTS,"
+ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS]
+
+[Illustration: YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHÂTEAU-THIERRY,
+WHERE, IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE
+AGAINST THE HUNS]
+
+But she was a girl and her name was Yvonne. The red-winged letter on her
+coat lapel placed her in the automobile service and the motor ambulance
+stationed at the road side explained her special branch of work. She
+inquired the meaning of my correspondent's insignia and then
+explained that she had drawn pastelles for a Paris publication before
+the war, but had been transporting _blessés_ since. The French lesson
+proceeded and Spokane Steve and I learned from her that the longest word
+in the French language is spelled "Anticonstitutionellement." I
+expressed the hope that some day both of us would be able to pronounce
+it.
+
+On the girl's right wrist was a silver chain bracelet with
+identification disk. In response to our interested gaze, she exhibited
+it to us, and upon her own volition, informed us that she was a
+descendant of the same family as Jeanne d'Arc. Steve heard and winked to
+me with a remark that they couldn't pull any stuff like that on anybody
+from Spokane, because he had never heard that that Maid of Orleans had
+been married. Yvonne must have understood the last word because she
+explained forthwith that she had not claimed direct descendence from the
+famous Jeanne, but from the same family. Steve looked her in the eye and
+said, "Jay compraw."
+
+She explained the meaning of the small gold and silver medals suspended
+from the bracelet. She detached two and presented them to us. One of
+them bore in relief the image of a man in flowing robes carrying a child
+on his shoulder, and the reverse depicted a tourist driving a motor
+through hilly country.
+
+"That is St. Christophe," said Yvonne. "He is the patron saint of
+travellers. His medal is good luck against accidents on the road. Here
+is one of St. Elias. He is the new patron saint of the aviators. You
+remember. Didn't he go to heaven in a fiery chariot, or fly up on golden
+wings or something like that? Anyhow, all the aviators wear one of his
+medals."
+
+St. Christophe was attached to my identification disk. Steve declared
+infantrymen travelled too slowly ever to have anything happen to them
+and that he was going to give his to a friend who drove a truck. When I
+fell in line with the next passing battery and moved down the road,
+Spokane Steve and the Yvonne of the family of Jeanne had launched into a
+discussion of prize fighting and chewing tobacco.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In billets that night, in a village not far from Beauvais, the singing
+contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered by the battalion
+commander Major Robert R. McCormick was resumed with intense rivalry
+between the tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery man
+was croaking Annie Laurie, when an "A" Battery booster in the audience
+remarked audibly,
+
+"Good Lord, I'd rather hear first call." First call is the bugle note
+that disturbs sleep and starts the men on the next day's work.
+
+A worried lieutenant found me in the crowd around the rolling kitchen
+and inquired:
+
+"Do you know whether there's a provost guard on that inn down the road?"
+I couldn't inform him, but inquired the reason for his alarm.
+
+"I've got a hunch that the prune juice is running knee deep to-night,"
+he replied, "and I don't want any of my section trying to march
+to-morrow with swelled heads."
+
+"Prune juice" is not slang. It is a veritable expression and anybody who
+thinks that the favourite of the boarding house table cannot produce a
+fermented article that is _très fort_ in the way of a throat burner, is
+greatly mistaken. In France the fermented juice of the prune is called
+"water of life," but it carries a "dead to the world" kick. The simple
+prune, which the army used to call "native son" by reason of its
+California origin, now ranks with its most inebriating sisters of the
+vine.
+
+The flow of _eau de vie_ must have been dammed at the inn. On the road
+the next day, I saw a mule driver wearing a sixteen candle power black
+eye. When I inquired the source of the lamp shade, he replied:
+
+"This is my first wound in the war of movement. Me and the cop had an
+offensive down in that town that's spelt like Sissors but you say it
+some other way." I knew he was thinking of Gisors.
+
+The third and fourth day's march brought us into regions nearer the
+front, where the movement of refugees on the roads seemed greater, where
+the roll of the guns came constantly from the north, where enemy motors
+droned through the air on missions of frightfulness.
+
+There was a major in our regiment whose knowledge of French was confined
+to the single affirmative exclamation, "Ah, oui." He worked this
+expression constantly in the French conversation with a refugee woman
+from the invaded districts. She with her children occupied one room in
+the cottage. When the major started to leave, two days later, the
+refugee woman addressed him in a reproving tone and with tears. He could
+only reply with sympathetic "Ah, oui's," which seemed to make her all
+the more frantic.
+
+An interpreter straightened matters out by informing the major that the
+woman wanted to know why he was leaving without getting her furniture.
+
+"What furniture?" replied the puzzled major.
+
+"Why, she says," said the interpreter, "that you promised her you would
+send three army trucks to her house back of the German lines and bring
+all of her household goods to this side of the line. She says that she
+explained all of it to you and you said, 'Ah, oui.'"
+
+The major has since abandoned the "ah, oui" habit.
+
+At one o'clock one morning, orders reached the battalion for
+reconnaissance detail; each battery to be ready to take road by
+daylight. We were off at break of day in motor trucks with a reel cart
+of telephone wire hitched on behind. Thirty minutes later we rumbled
+along roads under range of German field pieces and arrived in a village
+designated as battalion headquarters to find that we were first to reach
+the sector allotted for American occupation. The name of the town was
+Serevilliers.
+
+Our ears did not delude us about the activity of the sector, but I found
+that officers and men of the detail were inclined to accept the heavy
+shelling in a non-committal manner until a French interpreter attached
+to us remarked that artillery action in the sector was as intense as any
+he had experienced at Verdun.
+
+If the ever present crash of shells reminded us that we were opposite
+the peak of the German push, there was plenty of work to engage minds
+that might otherwise have paid too much attention to the dangers of
+their location. A chalk cellar with a vaulted ceiling and ventilators,
+unfortunately opening on the enemy side of the upper structure, was
+selected as the battalion command post. The men went to work immediately
+to remove piles of dirty billeting straw under which was found glass,
+china, silverware and family portraits, all of which had been hurriedly
+buried by the owners of the house not two weeks before.
+
+While linemen planned communications, and battery officers surveyed gun
+positions, the battalion commander and two orienting officers went
+forward to the frontal zone to get the first look at our future targets
+and establish observation posts from which our firing could be
+directed. I accompanied the small party, which was led by a French
+officer familiar with the sector. It was upon his advice that we left
+the roads and took cuts across fields, avoiding the path and road
+intersections and taking advantage of any shelter offered by the ground.
+
+Virgin fields on our way bore the enormous craters left by the explosion
+of poorly directed German shells of heavy calibre. Orders were to throw
+ourselves face downward upon the ground upon the sound of each
+approaching missile. There is no text book logic on judging from the
+sound of a shell whether it has your address written on it, but it is
+surprising how quick that education may be obtained by experience.
+Several hours of walking and dropping to the ground resulted in an
+attuning of the ears which made it possible to judge approximately
+whether that oncoming, whining, unseen thing from above would land
+dangerously near or ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common
+to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the sounds. Time
+after time the collective judgment and consequent prostration of the
+entire party was proven well timed by the arrival of a shell
+uncomfortably close.
+
+We gained a wooded hillside that bristled with busy French
+seventy-fives, which the German tried in vain to locate with his
+howitzer fire. We mounted a forest plateau, in the centre of which a
+beautiful white château still held out against the enemy's best efforts
+to locate it with his guns. One shell addressed in this special
+direction fortunately announced its coming with such unmistakable
+vehemence that our party all landed in the same shell hole at once.
+
+Every head was down when the explosion came. Branches and pieces of tree
+trunk were whirled upward, and the air became populated with deadly
+bumble bees and humming birds, for such is the sound that the shell
+splinters make. When I essayed our shell hole afterward, I couldn't
+fathom how five of us had managed to accommodate ourselves in it, but in
+the rush of necessity, no difficulty had been found.
+
+Passing from the woods forward, one by one, over a bald field, we
+skirted a village that was being heavily shelled, and reached a trench
+on the side of the hill in direct view of the German positions. The
+enemy partially occupied the ruined village of Cantigny not eight
+hundred yards away, but our glasses were unable to pick up the trace of
+a single person in the débris. French shells, arriving endlessly in the
+village, shot geysers of dust and wreckage skyward. It was from this
+village, several days later, that our infantry patrols brought in
+several prisoners, all of whom were suffering from shell shock. But our
+men in the village opposite underwent the same treatment at the hands of
+the German artillery.
+
+It was true of this sector that what corresponded to the infantry front
+line was a much safer place to be in than in the reserve positions, or
+about the gun pits in villages or along roads in our back area. Front
+line activity was something of minor consideration, as both sides seemed
+to have greater interests at other points and, in addition to that, the
+men of both sides were busy digging trenches and shelters. There were
+numerous machine gun posts which swept with lead the indeterminate
+region between the lines, and at night, patrols from both sides explored
+as far as possible the holdings of the other side.
+
+Returning to the battalion headquarters that night by a route apparently
+as popular to German artillery as was the one we used in the forenoon,
+we found a telephone switchboard in full operation in the sub-cellar,
+and mess headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the ground.
+Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed that one door had suffered
+some damage which had caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster
+ceiling of the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen places.
+At every shock to the earth, a little stream of oats would come through
+the holes from the attic above. These falling down on the officer's neck
+in the midst of a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to
+call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain.
+
+We learned more about the sinister meaning of that broken door and the
+ceiling holes when it became necessary later in the evening to move mess
+to a safer location. The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of
+the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of German shells that
+missed the intersection caused too much interruption in our cook's work.
+
+We found that the mess room was vacant by reason of the fact that it had
+become too unpleasant for French officers, who had relinquished it the
+day before. We followed their suite and were not surprised when an
+infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and just one day
+later, to the hour, followed us out of it.
+
+Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and listening to the
+pound of arriving shells on nearby cross roads and battery positions, we
+estimated how long it would be before this little village would be
+completely levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappearing from
+houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and stone walls were showing
+jagged gaps. One whole wall of the village school had crumbled before
+one blast, so that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and
+their books and papers were exposed to view from the street. On the
+blackboard was a penmanship model which read:
+
+"Let no day pass without having saved something."
+
+An officer came down the dark stone steps into the cellar, kicked off
+his boots and lay down on some blankets in one corner.
+
+"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode," I remarked. "Do
+you know whether they were gas or duds?"
+
+"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said, "but I do know
+that that horse out in the yard is certainly getting ripe."
+
+The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered grave adjoining our
+ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask was not the most unpleasant form of
+slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE CANTIGNY
+
+
+It is strange how sleep can come at the front in surroundings not unlike
+the interior of a boiler factory, but it does. I heard of no man who
+slept in the cellars beneath the ruins of Serevilliers that night being
+disturbed by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground, both
+of which were ever present through our dormant senses. Stranger still
+was the fact that at midnight when the shelling almost ceased, for small
+intervals, almost every sleeper there present was aroused by the sudden
+silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep returned.
+
+"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago," said one officer, "I
+don't believe I will be able to sleep unless I get somebody to stand
+under my window and shake a thunder sheet all night."
+
+It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such conditions, can
+turn off the switch on an energetic imagination and resign himself
+completely to fate. In those cellars that night, every man knew that one
+direct hit of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar wall,
+would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such a possibility demands
+consideration in the slowest moving minds.
+
+Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon this matter at
+varying lengths, but I doubt in the end if there is much difference in
+the conclusion arrived at. Such reflections produce the inevitable
+decision that if one particular shell is coming into your particular
+abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so "What the hell!"
+You might just as well go to sleep and forget it because if it gets you,
+you most probably will never know anything about it anyway. I believe
+such is the philosophy of the shelled.
+
+It must have been three o'clock in the morning when a sputtering motor
+cycle came to a stop in the shelter of our cellar door and a gas guard
+standing there exchanged words with some one. It ended in the sound of
+hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider descended, lighting
+his way with the yellow shaft from an electric pocket lamp.
+
+"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and rolling over on his
+side.
+
+"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the messenger. "I'm
+carrying orders on to the next town. Adjutant gave me this letter to
+deliver to you, sir. The Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for
+waking you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope looked
+important and he thought you might like to get it right away."
+
+"Hmm," said the Major, weighing the official looking envelope in one
+hand and observing both the American stamps in one corner and numerous
+addresses to which the missive had been forwarded. He tore off one end
+and extracted a sheet which he unfolded and read while the messenger
+waited at his request. I was prepared to hear of a promotion order from
+Washington and made ready to offer congratulations. The Major smiled and
+tossed the paper over to me, at the same time reaching for a notebook
+and fountain pen.
+
+"Hold a light for me," he said to the messenger as he sat on the edge of
+the bed and began writing. "This is urgent and I will make answer now.
+You will mail it at regimental headquarters." As his pen scratched
+across the writing pad, I read the letter he had just received. The
+stationery bore the heading of an alumni association of a well-known
+eastern university. The contents ran as follows:
+
+  "Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country? What are you doing
+  to help win the war? While our brave boys are in France facing the
+  Kaiser's shell and gas, the alumni association has directed me as
+  secretary to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite
+  them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We ask your
+  subscription to a fund which we are raising to send cigarettes to
+  young students of the university who are now serving with the
+  colours and who are so nobly maintaining the traditions of our Alma
+  Mater. Please fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession
+  and present occupation. Fraternally yours, ---- Secretary."
+
+The Major was watching me with a smile as I concluded reading.
+
+"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook leaf:
+
+  "Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little village in France.
+  With regard to my present profession, will inform you that I am an
+  expert in ammunition trafficking and am at present occupied in
+  exporting large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route.
+  Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes for
+  youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding the sacred
+  traditions of our school. After all, we old boys should do something
+  to help along the cause. Yours to best the Kaiser. ----, Major.
+  ---- Field Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France."
+
+"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major as he folded the
+letter and addressed an envelope. It rather seemed to me that it would
+but before I could finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his
+blankets.
+
+By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc wrought by the shells
+that had arrived in the night. I had thought in seeing refugees moving
+southward along the roads, that there was little variety of articles
+related to human existence that they failed to carry away with them. But
+one inspection of the abandoned abodes of the unfortunate peasants of
+Serevilliers was enough to convince me of the greater variety of things
+that had to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and the French
+peasants pride themselves upon never throwing anything away.
+
+The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded clothing of all ages,
+discarded but saved. Old shoes and dresses, ceremonial high hats and
+frock coats, brought forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on
+the floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. Shutters
+and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the village _estaminet_ much
+mud had been tracked in by exploring feet and the red tiled floor was
+littered with straw and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the
+antiquary.
+
+The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the
+six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this
+discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with
+three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet
+ball is a romping substitute when it hits the green cushions.
+
+That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the next town to the
+north. Men who do this job are, in my opinion, the most daring in any
+organisation that depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone
+communication. For them, there is no shelter when a deluge of shells
+pours upon a field across which their wire is laid. Without protection
+of any kind from the flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot
+to repair the cut wires and restore communication. During one of these
+shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side _abri_ and prepared to
+await clearer weather.
+
+In the distance, down the road, appeared a scudding cloud of dust. An
+occasional shell dropping close on either side of the road seemed to add
+speed to the apparition. As it drew closer, I could see that it was a
+motor cycle of the three wheeled bathtub variety. The rider on the cycle
+was bending close over his handle bars and apparently giving her all
+there was in her, but the bulky figure that filled to overflowing the
+side car, rode with his head well back.
+
+At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub contraption bounced on
+its springs, bow and stern rising and falling like a small ship in a
+rough sea. Its nearer approach revealed that the giant torso apparent
+above its rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment which might
+have marked the wearer as either the master of a four in hand or a
+Mississippi steamboat of the antebellum type. The enormous shoulders,
+thus draped, were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its
+rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as chin and double
+chin. The whole was topped by a huge fat cigar which sprouted upward
+from the elevated chin and at times gave forth clouds like the forward
+smoke-stack on the _Robert E. Lee_.
+
+I was trying to decide in my mind whether the elevated chin posture of
+the passenger was the result of pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's
+apple, when the scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting
+bank in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I occupied. As
+the machine came to halt, the superior chin depressed itself ninety
+degrees, and brought into view the smiling features of that smile-making
+gentleman from Paducah--Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine, rider and passenger
+stopped for breath and I made bold to ask the intrepid humourist if he
+suffered from a too keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar.
+
+"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an inordinate
+admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge Priest explained with
+reference to his former stiff-necked pose, "but George here," waving to
+the driver, "took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The jolt
+almost took my head off and the wind kept me from getting it back into
+position. George stuck his spurs into this here flying bootblack stand
+just about the time something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen
+stove half loaded with window weights and window panes. I think George
+made a record for this road. I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard."
+
+When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached the next deserted
+town without incident. It was almost the vesper hour or what had been
+the allotted time for that rite in those parts when I entered the yard
+of the village church, located in an exposed position at a cross roads
+on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable whirr sounded above and I
+threw myself on the ground just as the high velocity, small calibre
+German shell registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof
+and wall met.
+
+While steel splinters whistled through the air, an avalanche of slate
+tiles slid down the slanting surface of the roof, and fell in a
+clattering cascade on the graves in the yard below. I sought speedy
+shelter in the lee of a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the
+churchyard and one of them had landed on the final resting place of the
+family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble slab which had sealed the
+top of the sunken vault had been heaved aside and one wall was
+shattered, leaving open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy
+caskets lying in an orderly row.
+
+Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, surmounted by now unpainted
+wooden crosses on which were inscribed in pencil the names of French
+soldiers with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the
+tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior. In the soil at the
+head of each grave, an ordinary beer bottle had been planted neck
+downward, and through the glass one could see the paper scroll on which
+the name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved. While I
+wondered at this prosaic method of identification, an American soldier
+came around the corner of the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down
+on an old tombstone.
+
+"Stick around if you want to hear something good," he said, "That is if
+that last shell didn't bust the organ. There's a French poilu who has
+come up here every afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and
+he plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is great. Reminds
+me of when I was an altar boy, back in St. Paul."
+
+We waited and soon there came from the rickety old organ loft the
+soothing tones of an organ. The ancient pipes, sweetened by the
+benedictions of ages, poured forth melody to the touch of one whose
+playing was simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the graves as
+the rays of the dying sun brought to life new colouring in the leaded
+windows of stained glass behind which a soldier of France swayed at the
+ivory keyboard and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of death
+and destruction that might arrive through the air any minute.
+
+My companion informed me that the poilu at the organ wore a uniform of
+horizon blue which marked him as casual to this village, whose French
+garrisons were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki worn by all French
+colonials in service. The sign of the golden crescent on their collar
+tabs identified them as children of Mahomet and one would have known as
+much anyway upon seeing the use to which the large crucifix standing in
+what was the market place had been put.
+
+So as not to impede traffic through the place, it had become necessary
+to elevate the field telephone wires from the ground and send them
+across the road overhead. The crucifix in the centre of the place had
+presented itself as excellent support for this wire and the sons of the
+prophet had utilised it with no intention of disrespect. The uplifted
+right knee of the figure on the cross was insulated and wired. War, the
+moderniser and mocker of Christ, seemed to have devised new pain for the
+Teacher of Peace. The crucifixion had become the electrocution.
+
+At the foot of the cross had been nailed a rudely made sign conveying to
+all who passed the French warning that this was an exposed crossing and
+should be negotiated rapidly. Fifty yards away another board bore the
+red letters R. A. S. and by following the direction indicated by arrows,
+one arrived at the cellar in which the American doctor had established a
+Relief Aid Station. The Medico had furnished his subterranean apartments
+with furniture removed from the house above.
+
+"Might as well bring it down here and make the boys comfortable," he
+said, "as to leave it up there and let shells make kindling out of it.
+Funny thing about these cellars. Ones with western exposure--that is,
+with doors and ventilators opening on the side away from the enemy seem
+scarcest. That seems to have been enough to have revived all that talk
+about German architects having had something to do with the erection of
+those buildings before the war. You remember at one time it was said
+that a number of houses on the front had been found to have plaster
+walls on the side nearest the enemy and stone walls on the other side.
+There might be something to it, but I doubt it."
+
+Across the street an American battalion headquarters had been
+established on the first floor and in the basement of the house, which
+appeared the most pretentious in the village. Telephone wires now
+entered the building through broken window panes, and within maps had
+been tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to the hard
+usage demanded by war. An old man conspicuous by his civilian clothes
+wandered about the yard here and there, picking up some stray implement
+or nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or placing it carefully aside.
+
+"There's a tragedy," the battalion commander told me. "That man is mayor
+of this town. He was forced to flee with the rest of the civilians. He
+returned to-day to look over the ruins. This is his house we occupy. I
+explained that much of it is as we found it, but that we undoubtedly
+have broken some things. I could see that every broken chair and window
+and plate meant a heart throb to him, but he only looked up at me with
+his wrinkled old face and smiled as he said, 'It is all right, Monsieur.
+I understand. _C'est la guerre._'"
+
+The old man opened one of his barn doors, revealing a floor littered
+with straw and a fringe of hobnailed American boots. A night-working
+detail was asleep in blankets. A sleepy voice growled out something
+about closing the door again and the old man with a polite,
+"_Pardonnez-moi, messieurs_," swung the wooden portal softly shut. His
+home--his house--his barn--his straw--_c'est la guerre_.
+
+An evening meal of "corn willy" served on some of the Mayor's remaining
+chinaware, was concluded by a final course of fresh spring onions. These
+came from the Mayor's own garden just outside the door. As the cook
+affirmed, it was no difficulty to gather them.
+
+"Every night Germans drop shells in the garden," he said. "I don't even
+have to pull 'em. Just go out in the morning and pick 'em up off the
+ground."
+
+I spent part of the night in gun pits along the road side, bordering the
+town. This particular battery of heavies was engaged on a night long
+programme of interdiction fire laid down with irregular intensity on
+cross roads and communication points in the enemy's back areas. Under
+screens of camouflage netting, these howitzers with mottled bores
+squatting frog-like on their carriages, intermittently vomited flame,
+red, green and orange. The detonations were ear-splitting and cannoneers
+relieved the recurring shocks by clapping their hands to the sides of
+their head and balancing on the toes each time the lanyard was pulled.
+
+Infantry reserves were swinging along in the road directly in back of
+the guns. They were moving up to forward positions and they sang in an
+undertone as they moved in open order.
+
+    "Glor--ree--us, Glor--ree--us!
+    One keg of beer for the four of us.
+    Glory be to Mike there are no more of us,
+    For four of us can drink it all alone."
+
+Some of these marchers would come during an interval of silence to a
+position on the road not ten feet from a darkened, camouflaged howitzer
+just as it would shatter the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness
+and unexpectedness of the detonation would make the marchers start and
+jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions, the gun crews would laugh
+heartily and indulge in good natured raillery with the infantrymen.
+
+"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened. We were just shipping
+a load of sauerkraut to the Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner.
+"Haven't you heard the orders against running your horses? Come down to
+a gallop and take it easy."
+
+"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman, "You smell like a
+livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork for a bayonet and come on up
+where there's some fighting."
+
+"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy," came another voice
+from the dark gun pit. "This is a tray forte sector. If you don't get
+killed the first eight days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing.
+You're marching over what's called 'the road you don't come back on.'"
+
+A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the moment when the
+road was unoccupied, put in appearance as the end of the infantry column
+passed, and the captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading
+and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men received big shells
+in their arms and carried them to the roadside dumps where they were
+piled in readiness for the guns. The road was in an exposed position and
+this active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time, so the
+ammunition train captain was anxious to get his charges away in a hurry.
+
+His fears were not without foundation, because in the midst of the
+unloading, one German missile arrived in a nearby field and sprayed the
+roadway with steel just as every one flattened out on the ground. Five
+ammunition hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swearing at
+the shell fragment which had gone through the radiator of his truck and
+liberated the water contents. The unloading was completed with all
+speed, and the ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck. With
+some of the gunners who had helped in unloading, I crawled into the
+chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters in the straw.
+
+"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as he sat in the straw,
+unwrapping his puttees. I told him.
+
+"Do you want to know the most popular publication around this place?" he
+asked, and I replied affirmatively.
+
+"It's called the _Daily Woollen Undershirt_," he said. "Haven't you seen
+everybody sitting along the roadside reading theirs and trying to keep
+up with things? Believe me, it's some reading-matter, too."
+
+"Don't let him kid you," said the section chief, "I haven't had to read
+mine yet. The doctor fixed up the baths in town and yesterday he passed
+around those flea charms. Have you seen them?"
+
+For our joint inspection there was passed the string necklace with two
+linen tabs soaked in aromatic oil of cedar, while the section chief
+gave an impromptu lecture on personal sanitation. It was concluded by a
+peremptory order from without for extinction of all lights. The candle
+stuck on the helmet top was snuffed and we lay down in darkness with the
+guns booming away on either side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our positions were located in a country almost as new to war as were the
+fields of Flanders in the fall of '14. A little over a month before it
+had all been peaceful farming land, far behind the belligerent lines.
+Upon our arrival, its sprouting fields of late wheat and oats were
+untended and bearing their first harvest of shell craters.
+
+The abandoned villages now occupied by troops told once more the mute
+tales of the homeless. The villagers, old men, old women and children,
+had fled, driving before them their cows and farm animals even as they
+themselves had been driven back by the train of German shells. In their
+deserted cottages remained the fresh traces of their departure and the
+ruthless rupturing of home ties, generations old.
+
+On every hand were evidences of the reborn war of semi-movement. One day
+I would see a battery of light guns swing into position by a roadside,
+see an observing officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the
+firing of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the next morning,
+they would have changed position, rumbled off to other parts, leaving
+beside the road only the marks of their cannon wheels and mounds of
+empty shell cases.
+
+Between our infantry lines and those of the German, there was yet to
+grow the complete web of woven wire entanglements that marred the
+landscapes on the long established fronts. Still standing, silent
+sentinels over some of our front line positions were trees, church
+steeples, dwellings and barns that as yet had not been levelled to the
+ground. Dugouts had begun to show their entrances in the surface of the
+ground and cross roads had started to sprout with rudely constructed
+shelters. Fat sandbags were just taking the places of potted geraniums
+on the sills of first floor windows. War's toll was being exacted daily,
+but the country had yet to pay the full price. It was going through that
+process of degeneration toward the stripped and barren but it still held
+much of its erstwhile beauty.
+
+Those days before Cantigny were marked by particularly heavy artillery
+fire. The ordnance duel was unrelenting and the daily exchange of shells
+reached an aggregate far in excess of anything that the First Division
+had ever experienced before.
+
+Nightly the back areas of the front were shattered with shells. The
+German was much interested in preventing us from bringing up supplies
+and munition. We manifested the same interest toward him. American
+batteries firing at long range, harassed the road intersections behind
+the enemy's line and wooded places where relief troops might have been
+assembled under cover of darkness. The expenditure of shells was
+enormous but it continued practically twenty-four hours a day. German
+prisoners, shaking from the nervous effects of the pounding, certified
+to the untiring efforts of our gunners.
+
+The small nameless village that we occupied almost opposite the German
+position in Cantigny seemed to receive particular attention from the
+enemy artillery. In retaliation, our guns almost levelled Cantigny and a
+nearby village which the enemy occupied. Every hour, under the rain of
+death, the work of digging was continued and the men doing it needed no
+urging from their officers. There was something sinister and emphatic
+about the whine of a "two ten German H. E." that inspired one with a
+desire to start for the antipodes by the shortest and most direct route.
+
+The number of arrivals by way of the air in that particular village
+every day numbered high in the thousands. Under such conditions, no
+life-loving human could have failed to produce the last degree of
+utility out of a spade. The continual dropping of shells in the ruins
+and the unending fountains of chalk dust and dirt left little for the
+imagination, but one officer told me that it reminded him of living in a
+room where some one was eternally beating the carpet.
+
+This taste of the war of semi-movement was appreciated by the American
+soldier. It had in it a dash of novelty, lacking in the position warfare
+to which he had become accustomed in the mud and marsh of the Moselle
+and the Meuse. For one thing, there were better and cleaner billets than
+had ever been encountered before by our men. Fresh, unthrashed oats and
+fragrant hay had been found in the hurriedly abandoned lofts back of the
+line and in the caves and cellars nearer the front.
+
+In many places the men were sleeping on feather mattresses in
+old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that had been removed from jeopardy above
+ground to comparative safety below. Whole caves were furnished, and not
+badly furnished, by this salvage of furniture, much of which would have
+brought fancy prices in any collection of antiques.
+
+Forced to a recognition solely of intrinsic values, our men made prompt
+utilisation of much of the material abandoned by the civilian
+population. Home in the field is where a soldier sleeps and after all,
+why not have it as comfortable as his surroundings will afford? Those
+caves and vegetable cellars, many with walls and vaulted ceilings of
+clean red brick or white blocks of chalk, constituted excellent shelters
+from shell splinters and even protected the men from direct hits by
+missiles of small calibre.
+
+Beyond the villages, our riflemen found protection in quickly scraped
+holes in the ground. There were some trenches but they were not
+contiguous. "No Man's Land" was an area of uncertain boundary. Our
+gunners had quarters burrowed into the chalk not far from their gun
+pits. All communication and the bringing up of shells and food were
+conducted under cover of darkness. Under such conditions, we lived and
+waited for the order to go forward.
+
+Our sector in that battle of the Somme was so situated that the opposing
+lines ran north and south. The enemy was between us and the rising sun.
+Behind our rear echelons was the main road between Amiens and Beauvais.
+Amiens, the objective of the German drive, was thirty-five kilometres
+away on our left, Beauvais was the same distance on our right and two
+hours by train from Paris.
+
+We were eager for the fight. The graves of our dead dotted new fields in
+France. We were holding with the French on the Picardy line. We were
+between the Germans and the sea. We were before Cantigny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS--"ZERO AT 2 A. M."
+
+
+While the First U. S. Division was executing in Picardy a small, planned
+operation which resulted in the capture of the German fortified
+positions in the town of Cantigny, other American divisions at other
+parts along the line were indulging in that most common of frontal
+diversions--the raid.
+
+I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front. The 26th
+Division, composed of National Guard troops from New England, made the
+raid. On Memorial Day, I had seen those men of the Yankee Division
+decorating the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the
+line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw them come trooping
+back across No Man's Land after successfully decorating the enemy
+positions with German graves.
+
+It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the ruined village of
+Hamondville and came into first contact with the American soldiers that
+had been selected for the raid. Their engineers were at work in the
+street connecting sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were to
+be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire. In interested
+circles about them were men who were to make the dash through the break
+even before the smoke cleared and the débris ceased falling. They were
+to be distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that the
+helmets worn by the raiders were covered with burlap and some of them
+had their faces blackened.
+
+In the failing evening light, we walked on through several heaps of
+stone and rafters that had once been villages, and were stopped by a
+military policeman who inquired in broad Irish brogue for our passes.
+These meeting with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road
+ahead with its dangerous twist, known as "Dead Man's Curve," for the
+reason that the enemy was at that minute placing his evening
+contribution of shells in that vicinity. Acting on the policeman's
+suggestion, we took a short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old
+craters were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with which
+this country abounds at this time of year. Newer punctures showed as
+wounds in the yellow soil and contained pools of evil-smelling water,
+green with scum.
+
+Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened us from direct
+enemy observation, we advanced toward the jagged skyline of a ruined
+village on the crest. The odour of open graves befouled the sheltered
+slope, indicating that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection
+and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen.
+
+Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the winding duckboards and
+were led by small signs painted on wood to the colonel's headquarters.
+We descended the stone steps beneath a rickety looking ruin and entered.
+
+"Guests for our party," was the Colonel's greeting. The command post had
+a long narrow interior which was well lighted but poorly ventilated, the
+walls and floor were of wood and a low beamed ceiling was supported by
+timbers. "Well, I think it will be a good show."
+
+"We are sending over a little party of new boys just for practice and a
+'look-see' in Hunland. We have two companies in this regiment which feel
+they've sorter been left out on most of the fun to date, so this affair
+has been arranged for them. We put the plans together last week and
+pushed the boys through three days of training for it back of the
+lines. They're fit as fiddlers to-night and it looks like there'll be no
+interruption to their pleasure.
+
+"No one man in the world, be he correspondent or soldier, could see
+every angle of even so small a thing as a little raid like this," the
+Colonel explained. "What you can't see you have got to imagine. I'm
+suggesting that you stay right in here for the show. That telephone on
+my adjutant's desk is the web centre of all things occurring in this
+sector to-night and the closer you are to it, the more you can see and
+learn. Lieutenant Warren will take you up the road first and give you a
+look out of the observatory, so you'll know in what part of Germany our
+tourists are going to explore."
+
+Darkness had fallen when we emerged, but there were sufficient stars out
+to show up the outline of the gaping walls on either side of our way. We
+passed a number of sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a
+ruin. After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened passage for
+some minutes, we entered a small room where several officers were
+gathered around a table on which two burning candles were stuck in
+bottles. Our guide, stepping to one end of the room, pulled aside a
+blanket curtain and passed through a narrow doorway. We followed.
+
+Up a narrow, steep, wooden stairway between two walls of solid masonry,
+not over two feet apart, we passed, and arrived on a none too stable
+wooded runway with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through the
+ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now almost nude of tiles, we
+could see the starry sky. Proceeding along the runway, we arrived,
+somewhere in that cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose
+interior blackness was relieved by a lighter slit, an opening facing
+the enemy.
+
+Against the starry skyline, we could see the black outline of a flat
+tableland in the left distance which we knew to be that part of the
+heights of Meuse for whose commanding ridge there have been so many
+violent contests between the close-locked lines in the forest of
+Apremont. More to the centre of the picture, stood Mont Sec, detached
+from the range and pushing its summit up through the lowland mist like
+the dorsal fin of a porpoise in a calm sea. On the right the lowland
+extended to indistinct distances, where it blended with the horizon.
+
+In all that expanse of quiet night, there was not a single flicker of
+light, and at that time not a sound to indicate that unmentionable
+numbers of our men were facing one another in parallel ditches across
+the silent moor.
+
+"See that clump of trees way out there?" said the lieutenant, directing
+our vision with his arm. "Now then, hold your hand at arm's length in
+front of you, straight along a line from your eyes along the left edge
+of your hand to that clump of trees. Now then, look right along the
+right edge of your hand and you will be looking at Richecourt. The Boche
+hold it. We go in on the right of that to-night."
+
+We looked as per instructions and saw nothing. As far as we were
+concerned Richecourt was a daylight view, but these owls of the lookout
+knew its location as well as they knew the streets of their native towns
+back in New England. We returned to the colonel's command post, where
+cots were provided, and we turned in for a few hours' sleep on the
+promise of being called in time.
+
+It was 2 A. M. when we were summoned to command post for the colonel's
+explanation of the night's plans. The regimental commander, smoking a
+long pipe with a curved stem, sat in front of a map on which he
+conducted the exposition.
+
+"Here," he said, placing his finger on a section of the line marking the
+American trenches, "is the point of departure. That's the jumping off
+place. These X marks running between the lines is the enemy wire, and
+here, and here, and here are where we blow it up. We reach the German
+trenches at these points and clean up. Then the men follow the enemy
+communicating trenches, penetrate three hundred metres to the east edge
+of Richecourt, and return.
+
+"Zero hour is 2:30. It's now 2:10. Our raiders have left their trenches
+already. They are out in No Man's Land now. The engineers are with them
+carrying explosives for the wire. There are stretcher bearers in the
+party to bring back our wounded and also signal men right behind them
+with wire and one telephone. The reports from that wire are relayed here
+and we will also be kept informed by runners. The whole party has thirty
+minutes in which to crawl forward and place explosives under the wire.
+They will have things in readiness by 2:30 and then the show begins."
+
+Five minutes before the hour, I stepped out of the dugout and looked at
+the silent sky toward the front. Not even a star shell disturbed the
+blue black starlight. The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all
+this was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash and crash.
+There is always that minute of uncertainty before the raiding hour when
+the tensity of the situation becomes almost painful. Has the enemy
+happened to become aware of the plans? Have our men been deprived of the
+needed element of surprise? But for the thousands of metres behind us,
+we know that in black battery pits anxious crews are standing beside
+their loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the jerk of
+the lanyard.
+
+Suddenly the earth trembles. Through the dugout window facing back from
+the lines, I see the night sky burst livid with light. A second later
+and the crash reaches our ears. It is deafening. Now we hear the whine
+of shells as they burn the air overhead. The telephone bell rings.
+
+"Yes, this is Boston," the Adjutant speaks into the receiver. We listen
+breathlessly. Has something gone wrong at the last minute?
+
+"Right, I have it," said the Adjutant, hanging up the receiver and
+turning to the Colonel; "X-4 reports barrage dropped on schedule."
+
+"Good," said the Colonel. "Gentlemen, here's what's happening. Our
+shells are this minute falling all along the German front line, in front
+of the part selected for the raid and on both flanks. Now then, this
+section of the enemy's position is confined in a box barrage which is
+pounding in his front and is placing a curtain of fire on his left and
+his right and another in his rear. Any German within the confines of
+that box trying to get out will have a damn hard time and so will any
+who try to come through it to help him."
+
+"Boston talking," the Adjutant is making answer over the telephone. He
+repeats the message. "233, all the wire blown up, right."
+
+"Fine," says the Colonel. "Now they are advancing and right in front of
+them is another rolling barrage of shells which is creeping forward on
+the German lines at the same pace our men are walking. They are walking
+in extended order behind it. At the same time our artillery has taken
+care of the enemy's guns by this time so that no German barrage will be
+able to come down on our raiders. Our guns for the last three minutes
+have been dumping gas and high explosives on every battery position
+behind the German lines. That's called 'Neutralisation.'"
+
+"Boston talking." The room grows quiet again as the Adjutant takes the
+message.
+
+"2:36. Y-1 reports O. K."
+
+"Everything fine and dandy," the Colonel observes, smiling.
+
+"Boston talking." There is a pause.
+
+"2:39. G-7 reports sending up three red rockets east of A-19. The
+operator thinks it's a signal for outposts to withdraw and also for
+counter barrage."
+
+"Too late," snaps the Colonel. "There's a reception committee in Hades
+waiting for 'em right now."
+
+At 2:40 the dugout door opens and in walks Doc Comfort from the Red
+Cross First Aid Station across the road.
+
+"Certainly is a pretty sight, Colonel. Fritzies' front door is lit up
+like a cathedral at high mass."
+
+At 2:41. "A very good beginning," remarks a short, fat French Major who
+sits beside the Colonel. He represents the French army corps.
+
+2:43. "Boston talking,--Lieutenant Kernan reports everything quiet in
+his sector."
+
+2:45. "Boston talking," the Adjutant turns to the Colonel and repeats,
+"Pittsburgh wants to know if there's much coming in here."
+
+"Tell them nothing to amount to anything," replies the Colonel and the
+Adjutant repeats the message over the wire. As he finished, one German
+shell did land so close to the dugout that the door blew open. The
+officer stepped to the opening and called out into the darkness.
+
+"Gas guard. Smell anything?"
+
+"Nothing, sir. Think they are only high explosives."
+
+2:47. "Boston talking--enemy sent up one red, one green rocket and then
+three green rockets from B-14," the Adjutant repeats.
+
+"Where is that report from?" asks the Colonel.
+
+"The operator at Jamestown, sir," replies the Adjutant.
+
+"Be ready for some gas, gentlemen," says the Colonel. "I think that's
+Fritzie's order for the stink. Orderly, put down gas covers on the doors
+and windows."
+
+I watched the man unroll the chemically dampened blankets over the doors
+and windows.
+
+2:49. "Boston talking--23 calls for barrage."
+
+The Colonel and Major turn immediately to the wall map, placing a finger
+on 23 position.
+
+"Hum," says the Colonel. "Counter attack, hey? Well, the barrage will
+take care of them, but get me Watson on the line."
+
+"Connect me with Nantucket," the Adjutant asks the operator. "Hello,
+Watson, just a minute," turning to Colonel, "here's Watson, sir."
+
+"Hello, Watson," the Colonel says, taking the receiver. "This is Yellow
+Jacket. Watch out for counter attack against 23. Place your men in
+readiness and be prepared to support Michel on your right. That's all,"
+returning 'phone to the Adjutant, "Get me Mr. Lake."
+
+While the Adjutant made the connection, the Colonel explained quickly
+the planned flanking movement on the map. "If they come over there," he
+said to the French Major, "not a God-damn one of them will ever get back
+alive."
+
+The French Major made a note in his report book.
+
+"Hello, Lake," the Colonel says, taking the 'phone. "This is Yellow
+Jacket. Keep your runners in close touch with Michel and Watson. Call me
+if anything happens. That's all."
+
+3:00. "Boston talking--G-2 reports all O.K. Still waiting for the
+message from Worth."
+
+3:02. "Storming party reports unhindered progress. No enemy encountered
+yet."
+
+This was the first message back from the raiders. It had been sent over
+the wire and the instruments they carried with them and then relayed to
+the Colonel's command post.
+
+"_Magnifique_," says the French Major.
+
+3:04. "Boston talking. X-10 reports gas in Bois des Seicheprey."
+
+3:05. "Boston talking. Hello, yes, nothing coming in here to amount to
+anything. Just had a gas warning but none arrived yet."
+
+3:07. "Boston talking,----Yes, all right" (turning to Colonel),
+"operator just received message from storming party 'so far so good.'"
+
+"Not so bad for thirty-seven minutes after opening of the operation,"
+remarks the Colonel.
+
+"What is 'so far so good'?" inquires the French Major, whose knowledge
+of English did not extend to idioms. Some one explained.
+
+3:09. "Boston talking--Watson reports all quiet around 23 now."
+
+"Guess that barrage changed their minds," remarks the Colonel.
+
+With gas mask at alert, I walked out for a breath of fresh air. The
+atmosphere in a crowded dugout is stifling. From guns still roaring in
+the rear and from in front came the trampling sound of shells arriving
+on German positions. The first hints of dawn were in the sky. I
+returned in time to note the hour and hear:
+
+3:18. "Boston talking--O-P reports enemy dropping line of shells from
+B-4 to B-8."
+
+"Trying to get the boys coming back, hey?" remarks the Colonel. "A fat
+chance. They're not coming back that way."
+
+3:21. "Boston talking--23 reports that the barrage called for in their
+sector was because the enemy had advanced within two hundred yards of
+his first position. Evidently they wanted to start something, but the
+barrage nipped them and they fell back fast."
+
+"Perfect," says the French Major.
+
+3:25. "Boston talking--two green and two red rockets were sent up by the
+enemy from behind Richecourt."
+
+"Hell with 'em, now," the Colonel remarks.
+
+3:28. "Boston talking--all O. K. in Z-2. Still waiting to hear from
+Michel."
+
+"I rather wish they had developed their counter attack," says the
+Colonel. "I have a reserve that would certainly give them an awful
+wallop."
+
+3:30. "Boston talking--more gas in Bois des Seicheprey."
+
+3:33. "Boston talking--white stars reported from Richecourt."
+
+"They must be on their way back by this time," says the Colonel, looking
+at his watch.
+
+3:37. "Boston talking,--enemy now shelling on the north edge of the
+town. A little gas."
+
+3:40. "Boston talking--X-1 reports some enemy long range retaliation on
+our right.
+
+"They'd better come back the other way," says the Colonel.
+
+"That was the intention, sir," the lieutenant reported from across the
+room.
+
+3:42. "Boston talking--signalman with the party reports everything O.
+K."
+
+"We don't know yet whether they have had any losses or got any
+prisoners," the Colonel remarks. "But the mechanism seems to have
+functioned just as well as it did in the last raid. We didn't get a
+prisoner that time, but I sorter feel that the boys will bring back a
+couple with them to-night."
+
+3:49. "Boston talking--G-9 reports some of the raiding party has
+returned and passed that point."
+
+"Came back pretty quick, don't you think so, Major?" said the Colonel
+with some pride. "Must have returned over the top."
+
+It is 3:55 when we hear fast footsteps on the stone stairs leading down
+to the dugout entrance. There is a sharp rap on the door followed by the
+Colonel's command, "Come in."
+
+A medium height private of stocky build, with shoulders heaving from
+laboured breathing and face wet with sweat, enters. He removes his
+helmet, revealing disordered blonde hair. He faces the Colonel and
+salutes.
+
+"Sir, Sergeant Ransom reports with message from Liaison officer. All
+groups reached the objectives. No enemy encountered on the right, but a
+party on the left is believed to be returning with prisoners. We blew up
+their dugouts and left their front line in flames."
+
+"Good work, boy," says the Colonel, rising and shaking the runner's
+hand. "You got here damn quick. Did you come by the Lincoln trench?"
+
+"No, sir, I came over the top from the battalion post. Would have been
+here quicker, but two of us had to carry back one boy to that point
+before I could get relieved."
+
+"Wounded?"
+
+"No, sir,--dead."
+
+"Who was it?" asks the young lieutenant.
+
+"Private Kater, sir, my squad mate."
+
+As the sergeant raised his hand in parting salute, all of us saw
+suspended from his right wrist a most formidable weapon, apparently of
+his own construction. It was a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one
+end and the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled up like
+a ball of yarn. He smiled as he noticed our gaze.
+
+"It's the persuader, sir," he said. "We all carried them."
+
+He had hardly quitted the door when another heavily breathing figure
+with shirt half torn off by barbed wire appeared.
+
+"K Company got there, sir; beg pardon, sir. I mean sir, Sergeant Wiltur
+reports, sir, with message from Liaison officer. All groups reached the
+objectives. They left their dugouts blazing and brought back one machine
+gun and three prisoners."
+
+"Very good, Sergeant," said the Colonel. "Orderly, get some coffee for
+these runners."
+
+"I'd like to see the doctor first, sir," said the runner with the torn
+shirt. "Got my hand and arm cut in the wire."
+
+"Very well," said the Colonel, turning to the rest of the party, "I knew
+my boys would bring back bacon."
+
+More footsteps on the entrance stairway and two men entered carrying
+something between them. Sweat had streaked through the charcoal coating
+on their faces leaving striped zebra-like countenances.
+
+"Lieutenant Burlon's compliments, sir," said the first man. "Here's one
+of their machine guns."
+
+"Who got it?" inquired the Colonel.
+
+"Me and him, sir."
+
+"How did you get it?"
+
+"We just rolled 'em off it and took it."
+
+"Rolled who off of it?"
+
+"Two Germans, sir."
+
+"What were they doing all that time?"
+
+"Why, sir, they weren't doing anything. They were dead."
+
+"Oh, very well, then," said the Colonel. "How did you happen to find the
+machine gun?"
+
+"We knew where it was before we went over, sir," said the man simply.
+"We were assigned to get it and bring it back. We expected we'd have to
+fight for it, but I guess our barrage laid out the crew. Anyhow we
+rushed to the position and found them dead."
+
+"All right," said the Colonel, "return to your platoon. Leave the gun
+here. It will be returned to you later and will be your property."
+
+I went out with the machine gun captors and walked with them to the
+road. There was the hum of motors high overhead and we knew that
+American planes were above, going forward to observe and photograph
+German positions before the effects of our bombardments could be
+repaired. A line of flame and smoke pouring up from the enemy's front
+line showed where their dugouts and shelters were still burning.
+
+Daylight was pouring down on a ruined village street, up which marched
+the returning raiders without thought of order. They were a happy,
+gleeful party, with helmets tipped back from their young faces wet and
+dirty, with rifles swung over their shoulders and the persuaders
+dangling from their wrists. Most of them were up to their knees and
+their wrap puttees were mostly in tatters from the contact with the
+entanglements through which they had penetrated.
+
+As they approached, I saw the cause for some of the jocularity. It was a
+chubby, little, boyish figure, who sat perched up on the right shoulder
+of a tall, husky Irish sergeant. The figure steadied itself by grasping
+the sergeant's helmet with his left hand. The sergeant steadied him by
+holding one right arm around his legs.
+
+But there was no smile on the face of the thus transformed object. His
+chubby countenance was one of easily understood concern. He was not a
+day over sixteen years and this was quite some experience for him. He
+was one of the German prisoners and these happy youngsters from across
+the seas were bringing him in almost with as much importance as though
+he had been a football hero. He was unhurt and it was unnecessary to
+carry him, but this tribute was voluntarily added, not only as an
+indication of extreme interest, but to reassure the juvenile captive of
+the kindly intentions of his captors.
+
+"Jiggers, here's the Colonel's dugout," one voice shouted. "Put him down
+to walk, now."
+
+The big sergeant acted on the suggestion and the little Fritz was
+lowered to the ground. He immediately caught step with the big sergeant
+and took up the latter's long stride with his short legs and feet
+encased in clumsy German boots. His soiled uniform had been the German
+field grey green. His helmet was gone but he wore well back on his head
+the flat round cloth cap. With his fat cheeks he looked like a typical
+baker's boy, and one almost expected to see him carrying a tray of rolls
+on his head.
+
+"For the luva Mike, Tim," shouted an ambulance man, "do you call that a
+prisoner?"
+
+"Sure he does look like a half portion," replied Sergeant Tim with a
+smile. "We got two hundred francs for a whole one. I don't know what we
+can cash this one in for."
+
+"He ought to be worth more," some one said; "that barrage cost a million
+dollars. He's the million dollar baby of the raid."
+
+"Sergeant, I'm not kidding," came one serious voice. "Why turn him in as
+a prisoner? I like the kid's looks. Why can't we keep him for the
+company mascot?"
+
+The discussion ended when the Sergeant and his small charge disappeared
+in the Colonel's quarters for the inevitable questioning that all
+prisoners must go through. Several wounded were lying on the stretchers
+in front of the first aid dugout waiting for returning ambulances and
+passing the time meanwhile by smoking cigarettes and explaining how
+close each of them had been to the shell that exploded and "got 'em."
+
+But little of the talk was devoted to themselves. They were all praise
+for the little chaplain from New England who, without arms, went over
+the top with "his boys" and came back with them. It was their opinion
+that their regiment had some sky pilot. And it was mine, also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ON LEAVE IN PARIS
+
+
+"So this--is Paris,"--this observation spoken in mock seriousness, in a
+George Cohan nasal drawl and accompanied by a stiff and stagy wave of
+the arm, was the customary facetious pass-word with which American
+soldiers on leave or on mission announced their presence in the capital
+of France.
+
+Paris, the beautiful--Paris, the gay--Paris, the historical--Paris, the
+artistic--Paris, the only Paris, opened her arms to the American soldier
+and proceeded toward his enlightenment and entertainment on the sole
+policy that nothing was too good for him.
+
+I saw the first American soldiers under arms reach Paris. It was early
+in the morning of July 3rd, 1917, when this first American troop train
+pulled into the Gare d'Austerlitz. It was early in the morning, yet
+Paris was there to give them a welcome. The streets outside the station
+were jammed with crowds. They had seen Pershing; they had seen our staff
+officers and headquarters details, but now they wanted to see the type
+of our actual fighting men--they wanted to see the American poilus--the
+men who were to carry the Stars and Stripes over the top.
+
+The men left the cars and lined up in the station yard. It had been a
+long, fifteen hour night ride and the cramped quarters of the troop
+train had permitted but little sleep. There was no opportunity for them
+to breakfast or wash before they were put on exhibition. Naturally, they
+were somewhat nervous.
+
+The standing line was ordered to produce its mess cups and hold them
+forward. Down the line came a bevy of pretty French girls, wearing the
+uniform of Red Cross nurses. They carried canisters of black coffee and
+baskets of cigarettes. They ladled out steaming cupfuls of the black
+liquid to the men. The incident gave our men their first surprise.
+
+Rum or alcohol has never been a part of the United States army ration.
+In the memory of the oldest old-timers in the ranks of our old regular
+army, "joy water" had never been issued. On the other hand, its use had
+always been strictly forbidden in the company messes. Our men never
+expected it. Thus it was that, with no other idea occurring to them,
+they extended their mess cups to be filled with what they thought was
+simply strong hot coffee. Not one of them had the slightest suspicion
+that the French cooks who had prepared that coffee for their new
+American brothers in arms, had put a stick in it--had added just that
+portion of cognac which they had considered necessary to open a man's
+eyes and make him pick up his heels after a long night in a troop train.
+
+I watched one old-timer in the ranks as he lifted the tin cup to his
+lips and took the initial gulp. Then he lowered the cup. Across his face
+there dawned first an expression of curious suspicion, then a look of
+satisfied recognition, and then a smile of pleased surprise, which he
+followed with an audible smacking of the lips. He finished the cup and
+allowed quite casually that he could stand another.
+
+"So this is Paris,"--well, it wasn't half bad to start with. With that
+"coffee" under their belts, the men responded snappily to the march
+order, and in column of four, they swung into line and moved out of the
+station yard, at the heels of their own band, which played a stirring
+marching air.
+
+Paris claimed them for her own. All that the war had left of Paris' gay
+life, all the lights that still burned, all the music that still played,
+all the pretty smiles that had never been reduced in their quality or
+quantity, all that Paris had to make one care-free and glad to be
+alive--all belonged that day to that pioneer band of American
+infantrymen.
+
+The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed men removed their hats
+to them and shook their hands and street boys followed in groups at
+their heels making the air ring with shrill "Vive's." There were not
+many of them, only three companies. The men looked trim and clean-cut.
+They were tall and husky-looking and the snap with which they walked was
+good to the eyes of old Paris that loves verve.
+
+With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their following admirers stretch
+their legs, the boys in khaki marched from the Austerlitz station to the
+Neuilly barracks over a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris
+was in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the following
+day, the shop windows and building fronts were decked with American
+flags.
+
+Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street intersections
+and the gendarmes were unable to prevent the crowds from overflowing the
+sidewalks and pressing out into the streets where they could smile their
+greetings and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking a
+column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the curb reached out,
+grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A snicker ran through the platoon
+as the sergeant, with face red beneath the tan, withdrew his hand and
+recaught his step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes front!"
+and tried to look at ease.
+
+How the bands played that day! How the crowds cheered! How the flags and
+handkerchiefs and hats waved in the air, and how thousands of throats
+volleyed the "Vive's!" This was the reception of our first fighting men.
+But on the following day they received even a greater demonstration,
+when they marched through the streets of the city on parade, and
+participated in the first Parisian celebration of American Independence
+Day.
+
+Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so many flags, not even
+during the days three years before, when the sons of France had marched
+away to keep the Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary
+clusters of Allied flags had been almost entirely replaced for the day
+by groups composed solely of the French tri-colour and the Stars and
+Stripes. Taxis and fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable
+places. Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded streets.
+Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogising Uncle Sam and his
+nephews, and garnered harvests of sous for their efforts.
+
+The three companies of our regulars marched with a regiment of French
+colonials, all veterans of the war and many of them incapacitated for
+front service through wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the
+trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle front life,
+cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of middinettes waved their aprons
+from the windows of millinery shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les
+Teddies!" America--the great, good America--the sister republic from
+across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day long. Paris
+capitulated unconditionally to three companies of American infantry.
+
+From that day on, every American soldier visiting Paris has been made to
+feel himself at home. And the unrestricted hospitality did not seem to
+be the result of an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For
+months afterward, any one wearing an American uniform along the
+boulevards could hear behind him dulcet whispers that carried the words
+_très gentil_.
+
+At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed for work in the
+city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie Barracks, where other
+soldiers from all of the Allied armies in the world were quartered. Our
+men mingled with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese, tall
+blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians and New
+Zealanders. At considerable expense to these comrades in arms, our men
+instructed them in the all-American art of plain and fancy dice rolling.
+
+Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other arrangements for
+housing were made. The American policing of Paris, under the direction
+of the Expeditionary Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was
+turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our men conducted
+themselves in Paris with the orderliness of a guest at the home of his
+host, or whether it was that the Marines with their remarkable
+discipline suppressed from all view any too hearty outbursts of American
+exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and the bearing of
+American soldiers in Paris were always above reproach.
+
+I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in Paris, in spite of
+the fact that more opportunities presented themselves for drinking than
+had ever before been presented to an American army. The privilege of
+sitting at a table in front of a sidewalk café on a busy boulevard and
+drinking a small glass of beer unmolested, was one that our men did not
+take advantage of. It was against the law to serve any of the stronger
+liqueurs to men in uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all
+the time. All cafés closed at 9:30. In spite of the ever present
+opportunity to obtain beverages of the above character, there was many
+and many an American soldier who tramped the boulevards and canvassed
+the cafés, drug stores and delicatessen shops in search of a
+much-desired inexistent, ice cream soda.
+
+Many of our men spent their days most seriously and most studiously,
+learning the mysteries of transportation on the busses and the Paris
+underground system, while they pored over their guide books and digested
+pages of information concerning the points of interest that Paris had to
+offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the tiled corridors of the
+Invalides or looking down into the deep crypt at the granite tomb of the
+great Napoleon. In the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the
+Tuilleries, or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever present.
+At least one day out of every ten day leave was spent in the palace and
+the grounds at Versailles.
+
+The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of amusement. One of
+the most popular among these was the Folies Bergères. Some of our men
+didn't realise until after they entered the place that it was a French
+theatre. Due to the French pronunciation of the name, some of the
+American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon run by an Irishman
+by the name of Foley. "Bergère" to some was unpronounceable, so the
+Folies Bergères was most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley's
+place."
+
+Another popular amusement place was the Casino de Paris, where an echo
+from America was supplied by an American negro jazz band, which
+dispensed its questionable music in the _promenoir_ during the
+intermission. There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one of
+them seemed to have an ardent dislike for the remaining four.
+Individually they manifested their mutual contempt by turning their
+backs on one another while they played. Strange as it may seem, a most
+fascinating type of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of
+shoulders, nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among the American
+soldiers in the crowd. French men and women, with their old world
+musical taste, would consider the musical gymnastics of the demented
+drummer in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and come to
+the conclusion that the world had gone plumb to hell.
+
+All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca as soon as the
+desired permissions had been granted. One day I sat opposite a
+remarkable type whom I found dining in a small restaurant. I noticed the
+absence of either beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained
+that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked me, but refused
+to accept a cigarette I offered, saying without aside that he had yet
+his first one to smoke. When I heard him tell Madame that he did not
+care for coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother had
+always told him it was injurious and he had never tasted it.
+
+I became more interested in this ideal, young American soldier and
+questioned him about his life. I found that he and his father had worked
+in the copper mines in Michigan. They were both strong advocates of
+union labour and had participated vigorously in the bloody Michigan
+strikes.
+
+"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he said. "Our union
+demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as
+we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that
+Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions
+for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world's greatest scab. I am
+over here to help get him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining with an American
+Brigadier General, when an American soldier of the ranks approached the
+table. At a respectful distance of five feet, the soldier halted,
+clicked his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the orderly
+desires permission to take the General's car to headquarters and deliver
+the packages."
+
+"All right, Smith," replied the General, looking at his watch. "Find out
+if my other uniform is back yet and then get back here yourself with the
+car in half an hour."
+
+"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, executed a snappy right
+about face and strode out of the dining-room.
+
+"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said the General to me. "I
+had a lot of extra work yesterday on his account. I had to make out his
+income tax returns. He and his dad own almost all the oil in Oklahoma.
+When he paid his income tax, Uncle Sam got a little over a hundred
+thousand dollars. He went in the army in the ranks. He is only an
+enlisted private now, but he's a good one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man in an American
+uniform and a French Gendarme vainly trying to talk with each other. The
+Frenchman was waving his arms and pointing in various directions and the
+American appeared to be trying to ask questions. With the purpose of
+offering my limited knowledge of French to straighten out the
+difficulty, I approached the pair and asked the American soldier what he
+wanted. He told me but I don't know what it was to this day. He spoke
+only Polish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our soldiers spread the
+fame of America. In the peaceful countrysides far behind the flaming
+fronts, the Yankee fighting men won their way into the hearts of the
+French people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebration in a
+little French village in the Vosges.
+
+Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the murky half-light of the
+village street. A long line of soldiers wound their way past flaming
+stoves of the mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out
+of the cold morning stomachs.
+
+Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on the snow-clad
+furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for centuries, the village of
+Saint Thiébault has drowsed more or less happily beside its ancient
+canal and in the shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint
+Thiébault.
+
+Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal-helmeted, know the huts
+and stables of Saint Thiébault as their billets, and the seventy little
+boys and girls of the parish know those same thousand men as their new
+big brothers--_les bons Américains_.
+
+The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those seventy youngsters
+have been away from Saint Thiébault for a long time now--yes, this is
+the fourth Christmas that the urgent business in northern France has
+kept them from home. They may never return but that is unknown to the
+seventy young hopefuls.
+
+[Illustration: MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON ON THE
+FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS]
+
+[Illustration: BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHÂTEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED
+BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN]
+
+There was great activity in the colonel's quarters during the morning,
+and it is said that a sleuthing seventy were intent on unveiling the
+mystery of these unusual American preparations. They stooped to get a peep
+through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, walking his post in
+front of the sacred precincts, had to shoo them away frequently with
+threatening gestures and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay
+veet--Allay veet t'ell outer here."
+
+An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook shack indicated that one
+juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul
+Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold
+hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of
+his breeches.
+
+Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the cook shack shaking
+a soup ladle after the departing Paul and shouting imprecations in
+Italian-American.
+
+"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the low camp stove and
+removed a hot pan, the surface of whose bubbling contents bore an
+unmistakable imprint. "Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de
+finger in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He fall over
+de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He spoila de mess. He burn
+heese pants. Tam good!"
+
+And over there in front of the regimental wagon train picket line, a
+gesticulating trio is engaged in a three cornered Christmas discussion.
+One is M. Lecompte, who is the uniformed French interpreter on the
+Colonel's staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, the
+tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the triangle is little
+Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte's hand and looks up in awe at
+the huge Irish soldier.
+
+"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, pointing to the
+enormous hip boots which Moriarity is wearing.
+
+"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the Irishman. "And for
+the love of heavin, what would he be after doin' wid it? Sure and the
+top of it is higher than the head of him."
+
+"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. "The French children
+do not hang up their stockings for Christmas. Instead they place their
+wooden shoes on the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them.
+You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."
+
+"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one boot and hopping on
+one foot toward the stables. "Take it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it
+filled wid dimonds and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near
+the fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a oyster."
+
+The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace of red-whiskered
+ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking his lips. Then little Pierre
+was off to his mother's cottage, dragging the seven league boot after
+him.
+
+With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had been tied with red
+cords and labelled, and the interior of the Colonel's quarters looked
+like an express office in the rush season. The packages represented the
+purchases made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battalion had
+contributed for the purpose of having Christmas come to Saint Thiébault
+in good style.
+
+M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white covering which is to
+be worn by "Hindenburg," the most docile mule in the wagon train, upon
+whom has fallen the honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the
+Christmas saint.
+
+"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man in the
+battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red garments, trimmed with
+white fur and tassels, all made out of cloth by hands whose familiarity
+with the needle has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has donned
+his white wig and whiskers and his red cap, tasseled in white. He is
+receiving his final instructions from the colonel.
+
+"You may grunt, Powers," the colonel is saying, "but don't attempt to
+talk French with that Chicago accent. We don't want to frighten the
+children. And remember, you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel.
+That's what the French children call Santa Claus."
+
+It is three o'clock, and the regimental band, assembled in marching
+formation in the village street, blares out "I Wish I Were in the Land
+of Cotton," and there is an outpouring of children, women and soldiers
+from every door on the street. The colonel and his staff stand in front
+of their quarters opposite the band, and a thousand American soldiers,
+in holiday disregard for formation, range along either side of the
+street.
+
+The large wooden gate of the stable yard, next to the commandant's
+quarters, swings open; there is a jingle of bells, and "Hindenburg,"
+resplendent in his fittings, and Papa Noel Powers sitting high on the
+package-heaped sleigh, move out into the street. Their appearance is met
+with a crash of cymbals, the blare of the band's loudest brass, and the
+happy cries of the children and the deeper cheers of the men.
+
+Christmas had come to Saint Thiébault. Up the street went the
+procession, the band in the lead playing a lively jingling piece of
+music well matched to the keenness of the air and the willingness of
+young blood to tingle with the slightest inspiration.
+
+"Hindenburg," with a huge pair of tin spectacles goggling his eyes,
+tossed his head and made the bells ring all over his gala caparison.
+Papa Noel, mounted on the pyramid of presents, bowed right and left and
+waved his hands to the children, to the soldiers, to the old men and the
+old women.
+
+As the youngsters followed in the wake of the sleigh, the soldiers
+picked them up and carried them on their shoulders, on "piggy" back, or
+held them out so they could shake hands with Papa Noel and hear that
+dignitary gurgle his appreciation in wonderful north pole language.
+
+When Papa Noel found out that he could trust the flour paste and did not
+have to hold his whiskers on by biting them, he gravely announced, "Wee,
+wee," to all the bright-eyed, red-cheeked salutations directed his way.
+
+The band halted in front of the ancient church of Saint Thiébault, where
+old Father Gabrielle stood in the big doorway, smiling and rubbing his
+hands. Upon his invitation the children entered and were placed in the
+first row of chairs, the mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and young
+women sat in back of them, and further back sat the regimental officers.
+The soldiers filled the rest of the church to the doors.
+
+The brief ceremony ended with a solemn benediction and then the curtains
+were drawn back from one of the arches in front of and to the left of
+the main altar.
+
+There stood Saint Thiébault's first Christmas tree, or at least the
+first one in four years. It was lighted with candles and was resplendent
+with decorations that represented long hours of work with shears and
+paste on the part of unaccustomed fingers. Suggestions from a thousand
+Christmas minds were on that tree, and the result showed it. The star of
+Bethlehem, made of tinsel, glistened in the candlelight.
+
+Not even the inbred decorum of the church was sufficient to restrain the
+involuntary expressions of admiration of the saint by the seventy
+youngsters. They oh-ed and ah-ed and pointed, but they enjoyed it not a
+whit more than did the other children in the church, some of whose ages
+ran to three score and more.
+
+Papa Noel walked down the centre aisle leading a file of soldiers, each
+of whom carried a heaping armful of packages. Young necks craned and
+eyes bulged as the packages were deposited on the tables in front of the
+communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for silence and spoke.
+
+"These Americans," he said, "have come to our country to march and to
+fight side by side with your fathers and your big brothers and your
+uncles and all the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiébault so
+long. These Americans want to take their places for you to-day. These
+Americans in doing these things for you are thinking of their own little
+girls and little boys away back across the ocean who are missing their
+fathers and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you miss
+yours."
+
+There were wet eyes among the women and some of the older men in khaki
+closed their eyes and seemed to be transporting themselves thousands of
+miles away to other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only for
+a minute.
+
+M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribution of gifts and
+the children of Saint Thiébault began their excited progress toward the
+tables. Here Papa Noel delivered the prized packages.
+
+"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a hair ribbon of gold and
+black with a tortoise bandeau."
+
+"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six German soldiers at
+least to shoot."
+
+"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with a collar of wool."
+
+"For Alphonse Bénois, an aeroplane that flies on a string."
+
+"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks."
+
+"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather soles and tops."
+
+"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheepskin muff."
+
+"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the American flag."
+
+It continued for more than an hour. The promoters of the celebration
+were wise to their work. There was more than one present for each child.
+They did not know how many. Time after time, their names were called and
+they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each new surprise.
+
+The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games, candies and nuts,
+but the joy was in sitting there and waiting for one's name to be called
+and going forward to partake of that most desirable "more."
+
+Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served as a climax to
+the distribution. He had whispered something to M. Lecompte and the
+result was that one little duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and
+hugged an enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to hear
+the name "Pierre Lafite" called out.
+
+All the other names had been called once and not his. He waited. All the
+names had been called twice and still not his. He waited through the
+third and the fourth calling in vain, and his chin was beginning to
+tremble suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the sound
+of his name.
+
+The piles of packages on the tables had been getting smaller all the
+time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced the very last name.
+
+"Pierre Lafite," he called.
+
+Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and started up the
+aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The rest of the children had
+returned to their seats. All the elders in the church were watching his
+progress.
+
+"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up the enormous boot.
+"A pair of real leather shoes to fit in the foot of the boot." He placed
+them there.
+
+"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He so placed them.
+
+"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a general
+commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured them into the boot.
+
+"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top of the soldiers.
+
+"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.
+
+"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets.
+_Voilà_, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in
+overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment.
+
+Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward
+his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty,
+and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more
+than his companions in five.
+
+Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band
+struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone
+down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.
+
+"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness.
+
+There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame
+sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green.
+
+"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more
+rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other
+commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and
+pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was
+economically combined with signal practice.
+
+The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and
+French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French
+people learned to love us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU
+
+
+I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the
+young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to
+the creation of units capable of independent action on the front. Only
+that intense and thorough training made it possible for our oversea
+forces to play the veteran part they did play in the great Second Battle
+of the Marne.
+
+The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's Western Front
+offensives of the year. The increasing strength of the American forces
+overseas forced Germany to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn
+hope of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines could
+have the advantage of America's weight.
+
+On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first powerful offensive
+on a front of fifty miles from Arras to Noyon in Picardy and had
+advanced their lines from St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens.
+
+On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in Flanders on a front of
+twenty miles from Lens northward to the River Lys and had cut into the
+Allied front as far as Armentières.
+
+There followed what was considered an abnormal delay in the third act of
+the demonstration. It was known that the Germans were engaged in making
+elaborate arrangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy hope
+in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow against the
+hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising power could be thrown
+into the fight.
+
+The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front selected for the
+assault was twenty-five miles in width, extending from the Ailette near
+Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown
+Prince was the titular chief of the group of armies used in the assault.
+One of these forces was the army of General von Boehm, which before the
+attack had numbered only nine divisions and had extended from the Oise
+at Noyon to east of Craconne. The other army was that of General Fritz
+von Bülow, previously composed of eight divisions and supporting a front
+that extended from Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near
+Auberive. On the day of the attack, these armies had been strengthened
+to twice their normal number of divisions, and subsequently captured
+German plans revealed that the enemy expected to use forty-five
+divisions or practically half a million men in the onslaught.
+
+The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the weakly held French
+positions on the Chemin des Dames. It was preceded by a three hour
+bombardment of terrific intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered
+four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage that was two miles
+deep. It destroyed all wire communications and flooded battery
+emplacements and machine gun posts with every brand of poison gas known
+to German kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated the
+defenders into small groups and screened the attacking waves until they
+had actually penetrated the French positions.
+
+The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood across the Chemin des
+Dames with its ground sacred with tragic memories, but a withdrawal was
+necessary. The French command was forced to order a retreat to the
+Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units of the British
+Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in Picardy in March, made an
+orderly withdrawal southward.
+
+On the second day of the fight the enemy made a strong thrust toward
+Soissons, and after keeping the city under continual bombardment,
+succeeded in overcoming all resistance and occupying the city on May
+29th. On the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand explosive,
+incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in amongst the hospitals in
+Soissons. American ambulance units did heroic work in the removal of the
+wounded.
+
+The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the following day, May
+30th, they had crossed the Vesle River and had captured
+Fère-en-Tardenois. On the following day their victorious hordes had
+reached the Marne and were closing in on Château-Thierry.
+
+Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offensive may be gained
+from a recapitulation which would show that in five days the Germans had
+pushed through five successive lines of Allied defence, and had
+penetrated more than twenty-five miles. On the first day, they had
+captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second day, they had overcome all
+resistance on the Aisne, on the third day, their forces, pushing
+southward, had crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had
+destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the fifth day,
+they had reached the Marne.
+
+It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle with the apex
+pointing southward toward Paris. The west side of the triangle extended
+fifty miles northward from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east
+side of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims. The
+point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north bank of the Marne
+at Château-Thierry. The enemy had advanced to within forty miles of the
+capital of France; the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance.
+
+Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that I know the real
+reason why the German hordes stopped at Château-Thierry on the north
+bank of the Marne. To me that reason will always be this--because on the
+south bank of the Marne stood the Americans.
+
+On that day and in that event there materialised the German fears which
+had urged them on to such great speed and violence. In the eleventh
+hour, there at the peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of
+Germany's triumphant advances, there at the point where a military
+decision for the enemy seemed almost within grasp, there and then the
+American soldier stepped into the breech to save the democracy of the
+world.
+
+The Marne River makes a loop at this place and Château-Thierry lies on
+both banks. The Marne there is called a river, but it would hardly come
+up to the American understanding of the word. The waterway is more like
+a canal with banks built up with stone blocks. There are streets on
+either bank, and these being the principal streets of the town, are
+bordered with comparatively high buildings.
+
+While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city, American forces had
+made brilliant counter attacks on both sides. To the west of
+Château-Thierry the German advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly
+Wood, had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east of
+Château-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing the Marne in the
+vicinity of Jaulgonne.
+
+This operation was carried out by the German 36th Division. On the night
+of May 30th, at a point where the Marne looped northward eight miles to
+the east of Château-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few men
+across the river.
+
+Along the south bank of the river at that place, the Paris-Châlons ran
+through a number of deep cuts and one tunnel. The enemy took shelter in
+these natural protections. They suffered serious losses from the Allied
+artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons across the river,
+but in spite of this, the Germans succeeded in re-enforcing the units on
+the south bank to the strength of about a battalion.
+
+Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this place received
+re-enforcements from the Americans. Units of the 3rd United States
+Regular Division and the 28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of
+Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training
+areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in fitting
+themselves for line duty. These incompletely trained American units
+abandoned their bayonet-stabbing of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare
+to rush forward into the real thing.
+
+On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of French officers, began
+the counter attack to sweep the Germans back from the south bank. By
+that time the enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges
+across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead position with a
+number of machine guns and a strong force of men in the railway station
+on the south bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.
+
+This position was attacked frontally by the Americans and French. Our
+novices in battle were guilty of numerous so-called strategical
+blunders, but in the main purpose of killing the enemy, they proved
+irresistible. The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the French
+artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges crossing the river,
+with the result that many of the fleeing enemy were killed and more
+drowned. Only thirty or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them
+threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder of the battalion
+was wiped out. At the close of the engagement the Americans and the
+French were in full command of the south bank.
+
+But it was in Château-Thierry itself that the Germans made their most
+determined effort to cross the river and get a footing on the south
+bank, and it was there, again, that their efforts were frustrated by our
+forces. On May 31st, American machine gun units, then in training
+seventy-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly bundled into
+motor lorries and rushed northward into Château-Thierry.
+
+The Germans were advancing their patrols into the north side of the
+city. They were pouring down the streets in large numbers, with the
+evident purpose of crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on
+the south bank.
+
+It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that those American
+machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. That night while
+the German artillery raked the south bank of the river with high
+explosive shells, those Americans, shouldering their machine guns,
+marched into the city and took up defensive positions on the south bank
+of the river.
+
+During the night many houses were turned into ruins. Shells striking the
+railroad station had caused it to burn. In the red glare our men saw the
+houses about them collapse under clouds of dust and débris. Under cover
+of darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the north side
+of the river. The American machine gunners went into position in the
+windows of houses on the south bank and in gardens between the houses,
+and from these positions it was possible to command all of the bridge
+approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite side.
+
+During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young Pittsburgher but
+recently graduated from West Point, started across one of the bridges
+and reached the north bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine
+guns. This little unit went into position in a place commanding the
+forked highways which converged not far from the northern approach of
+the iron bridge crossing the river. It was this unit's function to
+prevent the enemy advance from this direction. The unit was separated
+from its comrades on the south bank by the river and about two hundred
+yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy artillery intensified its
+shelling of the south bank, the American machine gunners remained at
+their posts without firing and played a waiting game.
+
+With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make their rushes for the
+bridges. Small compact forces would dart forward carrying light machine
+guns and ammunition with them. They encountered a terrific burst of
+American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that survived crawled
+back to the shelter of protecting walls, where they were re-enforced
+with fresh units, and again the massed formations charged down the
+streets toward the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until the
+approaches were dotted with bodies of the enemy slain.
+
+On June 1st, the Germans having consolidated positions on the hills
+commanding the city from the north, they directed a terrific artillery
+and machine gun fire into our exposed positions on the south bank, as
+well as the small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant
+Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position held by the
+little American group had long been considered untenable, the members of
+it stuck it out until nightfall, when they received orders to retire to
+the south bank. At the same time, French colonials which had held a
+position throughout the day on the north bank on the edge of the town,
+withdrew in accordance with the same plan. The retirement of both
+parties was covered by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured
+a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began occupying them.
+
+By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement was signalised by a
+terrific explosion, as the French colonials blew up one of the stone
+bridges over which they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge
+had cut off the little band of Americans and left them almost surrounded
+by the enemy on the north bank of the river, which was now becoming
+strongly populated by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard the
+sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above the crack of the
+guns there came the weird swish of the grey coats as they pushed forward
+in mass formations.
+
+The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their guns and, with
+each man carrying his allotted piece, they began working their way along
+the river bank toward the main bridge, where they discovered that the
+enemy was almost upon them. They immediately went into position behind
+the stone parapet on the very brink of the river, and, although in
+constant danger from the American fire that poured out from the south
+bank, they poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing German
+ranks.
+
+The Americans on the south bank were not aware of the plight of the
+little party on the north bank. In spite of their losses, the Germans
+continued their grewsome rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge
+across which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating fire.
+Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to cross the bridge, but
+were forced to crawl back to shelter on the north bank, carrying with
+them three of their wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire.
+Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and the first
+intimation that the Americans on the south bank had of the fact that
+Americans were in front of them was when Lieutenant Cobey heard
+Bissell's voice calling his name. A cease fire order was immediately
+given and Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying their
+wounded with them.
+
+On the following day the Germans were in occupation of all the houses
+facing the north bank of the river, and could be seen from time to time
+darting from one shelter to another. Throughout the day their artillery
+maintained a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held by our
+men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle fire and activity of
+snipers, that it meant death to appear in the open. The Americans manned
+their guns throughout the day, but refrained from indulging in machine
+gun fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations of the guns.
+Nightfall approached with a quiet that was deadly ominous of impending
+events.
+
+At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward to the attack. Their
+dense masses charged down the streets leading toward the river. They
+sang as they advanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured
+later, came straight from the high command and demanded the acquisition
+of a foothold on the south bank at all costs. They paid the costs, but
+never reached the south bank.
+
+The American machine gun fire was withering. Time after time, in the
+frequent rushes throughout the night, the remnants of enemy masses would
+reach sometimes as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them
+succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge became carpeted with
+German dead and wounded. They lay thick in the open streets near the
+approaches. By morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and
+subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the bodies of their fallen
+comrades. In this battle of the bridges and the streets, our men showed
+a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of the French
+officers, who were aware by this time that forty-eight hours before
+these same American soldiers had seen battle for the first time.
+
+Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the river into a No
+Man's Land. Their vigilance was unrelenting and every enemy attempt to
+elude it met with disaster. There were serious American casualties
+during that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with the
+thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets and clogged the
+runways of the big bridge in piles. The last night of the fight enormous
+charges of explosive were placed beneath the bridge and discharged.
+
+The bridge was destroyed. High into the air were blown bits of stone,
+steel, timber, débris, wreckage and the bodies of German dead, all to
+fall back into the river and go bobbing up and down in the waters of the
+Marne.
+
+Thus did the Americans save the day at Château-Thierry, but it became
+immediately necessary for the French high command to call upon our young
+forces for another great effort. In response to this call, the Second
+United States Division, including one brigade of the United States
+Marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments, started for the front. The division
+was then occupying support positions in the vicinity of Gisors behind
+the Picardy line. At four o'clock on the morning of May 31st the Marine
+brigade and regiments of United States infantry, the 9th and the 23rd
+Regulars, boarded camions, twenty to thirty men and their equipment in
+each vehicle.
+
+They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne. The road took them
+through the string of pretty villages fifteen miles to the north of
+Paris. The trucks loaded with United States troops soon became part of
+the endless traffic of war that was pouring northward and eastward
+toward the raging front. Our men soon became coated with the dust of the
+road. The French people in the villages through which they passed at top
+speed cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries.
+
+Between Meaux and Château-Thierry, where the road wound along the Marne,
+our men encountered long trains of French refugees, weary mothers
+carrying hungry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household
+belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses on which rode
+grey-haired grandfathers and grandmothers. This pitiful procession was
+moving toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and herds of
+cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim war, moved in the
+opposite direction.
+
+The Second Division was bound for the line to the northwest of
+Château-Thierry. On June 1st, the 6th Marines relieved the French on the
+support lines. The sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the
+sector held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right was held
+by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed French line, weak and weary
+from continual rear guard actions, over a hard fighting period of
+almost a week, fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the
+support positions which we held. To fill gaps between units, the Marines
+extended their brigade sector to between twelve and fourteen kilometres.
+As the French withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the
+Marines held the new first line.
+
+The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located in a stone farmhouse
+at a cross-roads called La Voie Châtel, situated between the villages of
+Champillon and Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that
+point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon on that day of
+clear visibility, the Germans renewed their attacks from the north and
+northeast toward a position called Hill 165, which was defended by the
+5th Regiment.
+
+The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a field of golden
+wheat. More than half of the two columns had left the cover of the trees
+and were moving in perfect order across the field when the shrapnel fire
+from the American artillery in the rear got range on the target. Burst
+after burst of white smoke suddenly appeared in the air over the column,
+and under each burst the ground was marked with a circle of German dead.
+It was not barrage fire: it was individual firing against two individual
+moving targets and its success spoke well for the training which that
+brigade of American artillery had received.
+
+French aviators from above directed the fire of our guns, and from high
+in the air signalled down their "bravos" in congratulation on the
+excellent work. At the same time, the machine gunners of the 5th covered
+the ravines and wooded clumps with a hot fire to prevent small bodies of
+the enemy from infiltrating through our lines. The French marvelled at
+the deliberateness and accuracy of our riflemen.
+
+The Germans, unaware that a change had taken place in the personnel that
+faced them, reeled back demoralised and unable to understand how such a
+sudden show of resistance had been presented by the weakened French
+troops which they had been driving before them for a week. The enemy's
+advance had been made openly and confidently in the mistaken flush of
+victory. Their triumphant advances of the previous week had more than
+supported the statements of the German officers, who had told their men
+that they were on the road to Paris--the end of the war and peace. It
+was in this mood of victory that the enemy encountered the Marines'
+stone wall and reeled back in surprise.
+
+That engagement, in addition to lowering the enemy morale, deprived them
+of their offensive spirit and placed them on the defensive. The next few
+days were spent in advancing small strong points and the strengthening
+of positions. In broad daylight one group of Marines rushed a German
+machine gun pit in the open, killed or wounded every man in the crew,
+disabled the gun and got back to their lines in safety.
+
+It was at five o'clock on the bright afternoon of June 6th that the
+United States Marines began to carve their way into history in the
+battle of the Bois de Belleau. Major General Harbord, former Chief of
+Staff to General Pershing, was in command of the Marine brigade. Orders
+were received for a general advance on the brigade front. The main
+objectives were the eastern edge of the Bois de Belleau and the towns of
+Bussiares, Torcy and Bouresches.
+
+Owing to the difficulty of liaison in the thickets of the wood, and
+because of the almost impossible task of directing it in conjunction
+with the advancing lines, the artillery preparation for the attack was
+necessarily brief. At five o'clock to the dot the Marines moved out from
+the woods in perfect order, and started across the wheat fields in four
+long waves. It was a beautiful sight, these men of ours going across
+those flat fields toward the tree clusters beyond from which the Germans
+poured a murderous machine gun fire.
+
+The woods were impregnated with nests of machine guns, but our advance
+proved irresistible. Many of our men fell, but those that survived
+pushed on through the woods, bayoneting right and left and firing as
+they charged. So sweeping was the advance that in some places small
+isolated units of our men found themselves with Germans both before and
+behind them.
+
+The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the left, and it was not until
+later in the evening that this part of the line reached the northeast
+edge of the woods, after it had completely surrounded a most populous
+machine gun nest which was located on a rocky hill. During the fighting
+Colonel Catlin was wounded and Captain Laspierre, the French liaison
+officer, was gassed, two casualties which represented a distinct blow to
+the brigade, but did not hinder its further progress.
+
+On the right Lieutenant Robertson, with twenty survivors out of his
+entire platoon, emerged from the terrific enemy barrage and took the
+town of Bouresches at the point of the bayonet. Captain Duncan,
+receiving word that one Marine company, with a determination to engage
+the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, had gone two hundred yards in advance,
+raced forward on the double quick with the 96th Marine Company, and was
+met by a terrific machine gun barrage from both sides of Bouresches.
+
+Lieutenant Robertson, looking back, saw Duncan and the rest of his
+company going down like flies as they charged through the barrage. He
+saw Lieutenant Bowling get up from the ground, his face white with pain,
+and go stumbling ahead with a bullet in his shoulder. Duncan, carrying a
+stick and with his pipe in his mouth, was mowed down in the rain of
+lead. Robertson saw Dental Surgeon Osborne pick Duncan up. With the aid
+of a Hospital Corps man, they had just gained the shelter of some trees
+when a shell wiped all three of them out.
+
+In the street fighting that ensued in Bouresches, Lieutenant Robertson's
+orderly, Private Dunlavy, who was later killed in the defence of the
+town, captured one of the enemy's own machine guns and turned it against
+them.
+
+In the dense woods the Germans showed their mastery of machine gun
+manipulation and the method of infiltration by which they would place
+strong units in our rear and pour in a deadly fire. Many of these guns
+were located on rocky ridges, from which they could fire to all points.
+These Marines worked with reckless courage against heavy odds, and the
+Germans exacted a heavy toll for every machine gun that was captured or
+disabled, but in spite of losses the Marine advance continued.
+
+Lieutenant Overton, commanding the 76th Company, made a brilliant charge
+against a strong German position at the top of a rocky hill. He and his
+men captured all of the guns and all of their crews. Overton was hit
+later when the Germans retaliated by a concentration of fire against the
+captured position for forty-eight hours.
+
+Lieutenant Robertson, according to the report brought back by a
+regimental runner, was last seen flat on a rock not twenty yards away
+from one enemy gun, at which he kept shooting with an automatic in each
+hand. He was hit three times before he consented to let his men carry
+him to the rear.
+
+"There was not an officer left in the 82nd Company," according to a
+letter by Major Frank E. Evans, Adjutant of the Sixth. "Major Sibley and
+his Adjutant reorganised them under close fire and led them in a charge
+that put one particular machine gun nest out of business at the most
+critical time in all the fighting. I heard later that at that stage some
+one said: 'Major Sibley ordered that--' and another man said: 'Where in
+hell is Sibley?' Sibley was twenty yards away at that time and a hush
+went down the line when they saw him step out to lead the charge.
+
+"And when the word got around through that dead-tired, crippled outfit
+that 'the Old Man' was on the line, all hell could not have stopped that
+rush."
+
+In such fashion did the Marines go through the Bois de Belleau. Their
+losses were heavy, but they did the work. The sacrifice was necessary.
+Paris was in danger. The Marines constituted the thin line between the
+enemy and Paris. The Marines not only held that line--they pushed it
+forward.
+
+The fighting was terrific. In one battalion alone the casualties
+numbered sixty-four per cent. officers and sixty-four per cent. men.
+Several companies came out of the fighting under command of their first
+sergeants, all of the officers having been killed or wounded.
+
+I witnessed some of that fighting. I was with the Marines at the opening
+of the battle. I never saw men charge to their death with finer spirit.
+I am sorry that wounds prevented me from witnessing the victorious
+conclusion of the engagement. In view of my subsequent absence from the
+fight, I wish to give credit and thanks at this place to Major Frank E.
+Evans, who as Adjutant of the 6th Regiment of Marines, provided me with
+much of the foregoing material which occurred while I was in the
+hospital.
+
+The bravery of that Marine brigade in the Bois de Belleau fight will
+ever remain a bright chapter in the records of the American Army. For
+the performance of deeds of exceptional valour, more than a hundred
+Marines were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. General Pershing, in
+recognition of the conduct of the Second Division, issued the following
+order:
+
+  "It is with inexpressible pride and satisfaction that your commander
+  recounts your glorious deeds on the field of battle. In the early
+  days of June on a front of twenty kilometres, after night marches
+  and with only the reserve rations which you carried, you stood like
+  a wall against the enemy advance on Paris. For this timely action
+  you have received the thanks of the French people whose homes you
+  saved and the generous praise of your comrades in arms.
+
+  "Since the organisation of our sector, in the face of strong
+  opposition, you have advanced your lines two kilometres on a front
+  of eight kilometres. You have engaged and defeated with great loss
+  three German divisions and have occupied important strong
+  points--Belleau Wood, Bouresches, and Vaux. You have taken about
+  1,400 prisoners, many machine guns, and much other material. The
+  complete success of the infantry was made possible by the splendid
+  co-operation of the artillery, by the aid and assistance of the
+  engineer and signal troops, by the diligent and watchful care of the
+  medical and supply services, and by the unceasing work of the
+  well-organised staff. All elements of the division have worked
+  together as a well-trained machine.
+
+  "Amid the dangers and trials of battle, every officer and every man
+  has done well his part. Let the stirring deeds, hardships, and
+  sacrifices of the past month remain forever a bright spot in our
+  history. Let the sacred memory of our fallen comrades spur us on to
+  renewed effort and to the glory of American arms."
+
+All of the German prisoners captured by the Marines in the Bois de
+Belleau could express only surprise over the fighting capacity of their
+captors. Prisoners' statements are not entirely trustworthy, but here is
+one that was not intended for American consumption. It was written by a
+German soldier, who was killed in the Bois de Belleau before he had an
+opportunity to mail it. It was removed from his body. It reads:
+
+                                         "France, June 21, 1918.
+
+  "We are now in the battle zone and canteens dare not come to us on
+  account of the enemy, for the Americans are bombarding the villages
+  fifteen kilometres behind the present front with long-range guns,
+  and you will know that the canteen outfit and the others who are
+  lying in reserve do not venture very far, for it is not 'pleasant to
+  eat cherries' with the Americans. The reason for that is that they
+  have not yet had much experience. The American divisions are still
+  too fiery. They are the first divisions that the French have
+  entered.... We will also show the Americans how good we are, for the
+  day before yesterday we bombarded them heavily with our gas. About
+  400 of us are lying around here. We have one corner of the woods and
+  the American has the other corner. That is not nice, for all of a
+  sudden he rushes forward and one does not know it beforehand.
+  Therefore, one must shoot at every little noise, for one cannot
+  trust them. Here always two men have dug a hold for themselves. Here
+  one lies day and night without a blanket, only with a coat and a
+  shelter-half. One freezes at night like a tailor, for the nights are
+  fiercely cold. I hope that I will be lucky enough to escape from
+  this horrible mess, for up to now I have always been lucky. Many of
+  my comrades are already buried here. The enemy sweeps every evening
+  the whole countryside with machine gun and rifle fire, and then
+  artillery fire. But we in front line are safer than in the support
+  position. At present our food is miserable. We are now fed upon
+  dried vegetables and marmalade and when at night we obtain more food
+  it is unpalatable. It is half sour and all cold. In the daytime we
+  receive nothing."
+
+But it might be wise to support this statement from a German soldier in
+the ranks by excerpts from an official German army report which was
+captured July 7th on a German officer. The document was a carefully
+weighed treatise on the fighting capacity of the United States Marines.
+The document had the following heading:
+
+  _"Intelligence Officer of the Supreme Command at Army Headquarters,
+  Number 7, J. Number 3,528, Army Headquarters, June 17, 1917._
+
+  _"Second American Infantry Division._
+
+  _"Examination of Prisoners from the 5th, 6th, 9th and 23rd
+  Regiments, captured from June 5th to 14th, in the Bouresches
+  Sector."_
+
+After setting forth all information gained, concerning the purpose of
+attack and the arrival of the American units on the line, the German
+Intelligence Report continues, as follows:
+
+  "The Second American Division may be classed as a very good
+  division, perhaps even as assault troops. The various attacks of
+  both regiments on Belleau Wood were carried out with dash and
+  recklessness. The moral effect of our firearms did not materially
+  check the advances of the enemy. The nerves of the Americans are
+  still unshaken.
+
+  "VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL--the individual soldiers are very good.
+  They are healthy, vigorous, and physically well-developed men, of
+  ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-eight, who at present lack only
+  necessary training to make them redoubtable opponents. The troops
+  are fresh and full of straightforward confidence. A remark of one of
+  the prisoners is indicative of their spirit: 'We kill or get
+  killed.'
+
+  "MORALE--the prisoners in general make an alert and pleasing
+  impression. Regarding military matters, however, they do not show
+  the slightest interest. Their superiors keep them purposely without
+  knowledge of the military subjects. For example, most of them have
+  never seen a map. They are no longer able to describe the villages
+  and roads through which they marched. Their idea of the organisation
+  of their unit is entirely confused. For example, one of them told us
+  that his brigade had six regiments and his division twenty-four.
+  They still regard the war from the point of view of the 'big
+  brother' who comes to help his hard-pressed brethren and is
+  therefore welcomed everywhere. A certain moral background is not
+  lacking. The majority of the prisoners simply took as a matter of
+  course that they have come to Europe to defend their country.
+
+  "Only a few of the troops are of pure American origin; the majority
+  is of German, Dutch and Italian parentage, but these semi-Americans,
+  almost all of whom were born in America and never have been in
+  Europe before, fully feel themselves to be true born sons of their
+  country.
+
+                                           (Signed) "VON BERG,
+                               "Lieutenant and Intelligence Officer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since the days I read Hugo's chapters on the Battle of Waterloo in "Les
+Misérables," I always considered as an ideal of fighting capacity and
+the military spirit of sacrifice the old sergeant of Napoleon's Old
+Guard. Hugo made me vividly see that old sergeant standing on a field
+with a meagre remnant of the Old Guard gathered around him. Unable to
+resist further, but unwilling to accept surrender, he and his followers
+faced the British cannon. The British, respecting this admirable
+demonstration of courage, ceased firing and called out to them, "Brave
+Frenchmen, surrender."
+
+The old sergeant, who was about to die, refused to accept this offer of
+his life from the enemy. Into the very muzzles of the British cannon the
+sergeant hurled back the offer of his life with one word. That word was
+the vilest epithet in the French language. The cannons roared and the
+old sergeant and his survivors died with the word on their lips. Hugo
+wisely devoted an entire chapter to that single word.
+
+But I have a new ideal to-day. I found it in the Bois de Belleau. A
+small platoon line of Marines lay on their faces and bellies under the
+trees at the edge of a wheat field. Two hundred yards across that flat
+field the enemy was located in trees. I peered into the trees but could
+see nothing, yet I knew that every leaf in the foliage screened scores
+of German machine guns that swept the field with lead. The bullets
+nipped the tops of the young wheat and ripped the bark from the trunks
+of the trees three feet from the ground on which the Marines lay. The
+minute for the Marine advance was approaching. An old gunnery sergeant
+commanded the platoon in the absence of the lieutenant, who had been
+shot and was out of the fight. This old sergeant was a Marine veteran.
+His cheeks were bronzed with the wind and sun of the seven seas. The
+service bar across his left breast showed that he had fought in the
+Philippines, in Santo Domingo, at the walls of Pekin, and in the streets
+of Vera Cruz. I make no apologies for his language. Even if Hugo were
+not my precedent, I would make no apologies. To me his words were
+classic, if not sacred.
+
+As the minute for the advance arrived, he arose from the trees first and
+jumped out onto the exposed edge of that field that ran with lead,
+across which he and his men were to charge. Then he turned to give the
+charge order to the men of his platoon--his mates--the men he loved. He
+said:
+
+"COME ON, YOU SONS-O'-BITCHES! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WOUNDED--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT
+
+
+Just how does it feel to be shot on the field of battle? Just what is
+the exact sensation when a bullet burns its way through your flesh or
+crashes through your bones?
+
+I always wanted to know. As a police reporter I "covered" scores of
+shooting cases, but I could never learn from the victims what the
+precise feeling was as the piece of lead struck. For long years I had
+cherished an inordinate curiosity to know that sensation, if possible,
+without experiencing it. I was curious and eager for enlightenment just
+as I am still anxious to know how it is that some people willingly drink
+buttermilk when it isn't compulsory.
+
+I am still in the dark concerning the inexplicable taste for the sour,
+clotted product of a sweet, well-meaning cow and the buttery, but I have
+found out how it feels to be shot. I know it now by experience.
+
+Three Germans bullets that violated my person left me as many scars and
+at the same time completely satisfied my curiosity. I think now if I can
+ever muster up enough courage to drink a glass of buttermilk, I shall
+have bereft myself of my last inquisitiveness.
+
+It happened on June 6th just to the northwest of Château-Thierry in the
+Bois de Belleau. On the morning of that day I left Paris by motor for a
+rush to the front. The Germans were on that day within forty miles of
+the capital of France. On the night before, the citizens of Paris, in
+their homes and hotels, had heard the roll of the guns drawing ever
+nearer. Many had left the city.
+
+But American divisions were in the line between the enemy and their
+goal, and the operation of these divisions was my object in hustling to
+the front. On the broad, paved highway from Paris to Meaux, my car
+passed miles and miles of loaded motor trucks bound frontward. Long
+lines of these carried thousands of Americans. Other long lines were
+loaded down with shells and cartridge boxes. On the right side of the
+road, bound for Paris and points back of the line, was an endless stream
+of ambulances and other motor trucks bringing back wounded. Dense clouds
+of dust hung like a pall over the length of the road. The day was hot,
+the dust was stifling.
+
+From Meaux we proceeded along the straight highway that borders the
+south banks of the Marne to LaFerte, at which place we crossed the river
+and turned north to Montreuil, which was the newly occupied headquarters
+of the Second United States Army Division, General Omar Bundy
+commanding. On the day before, the two infantry brigades of that
+division, one composed of the 5th and 6th U. S. Marines, under command
+of Brigadier General Harbord, the other composed of the 9th and 23rd U.
+S. Infantry, had been thrown into the line which was just four miles to
+the north and east.
+
+The fight had been hot during the morning. The Marines on the left flank
+of the divisional sector had been pushing their lines forward through
+triangle woods and the village of Lucy-le-Bocage. The information of
+their advances was given to me by the Divisional Intelligence officer,
+who occupied a large room in the rear of the building that was used as
+Divisional Headquarters. The building was the village _Mairie_, which
+also included the village school-house. Now the desks of the school
+children were being used by our staff officers and the walls and
+blackboards were covered with maps.
+
+I was accompanied by Lieutenant Oscar Hartzell, formerly of the _New
+York Times_ staff. We learned that orders from the French High Command
+called for a continuation of the Marine advance during the afternoon and
+evening, and this information made it possible for us to make our plans.
+Although the Germans were shelling roads immediately behind the front,
+Lieutenant Hartzell and I agreed to proceed by motor from Montreuil a
+mile or so to a place called La Voie du Châtel, which was the
+headquarters of Colonel Neveille of the 5th Marines. Reaching that place
+around four o'clock, we turned a despatch over to the driver of our
+staff car with instructions that he proceed with all haste to Paris and
+there submit it to the U. S. Press Bureau.
+
+Lieutenant Hartzell and I announced our intentions of proceeding at once
+to the front line to Colonel Neveille.
+
+"Go wherever you like," said the regimental commander, looking up from
+the outspread maps on the kitchen table in the low-ceilinged stone
+farm-house that he had adopted as headquarters. "Go as far as you like,
+but I want to tell you it's damn hot up there."
+
+An hour later found us in the woods to the west of the village of Lucy
+le Bocage, in which German shells were continually falling. To the west
+and north another nameless cluster of farm dwellings was in flames. Huge
+clouds of smoke rolled up like a smudge against the background of blue
+sky.
+
+The ground under the trees in the wood was covered with small bits of
+white paper. I could not account for their presence until I examined
+several of them and found that these were letters from American mothers
+and wives and sweethearts--letters--whole packages of them, which the
+tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to remove from their packs and
+destroy in order to ease the straps that cut into aching grooves in
+their shoulders. Circumstances also forced the abandonment of much other
+material and equipment.
+
+Occasional shells were dropping in the woods, which were also within
+range from a long distance, indirect machine gun fire from the enemy.
+Bits of lead, wobbling in their flight at the end of their long
+trajectory, sung through the air above our heads and clipped leaves and
+twigs from the branches. On the edge of the woods we came upon a hastily
+dug out pit in which there were two American machine guns and their
+crews.
+
+The field in front of the woods sloped gently down some two hundred
+yards to another cluster of trees. This cluster was almost as big as the
+one we were in. Part of it was occupied by the Germans. Our machine
+gunners maintained a continual fire into that part held by the enemy.
+
+Five minutes before five o'clock, the order for the advance reached our
+pit. It was brought there by a second lieutenant, a platoon commander.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at the green brassard and
+red "C" on my left arm.
+
+"Looking for the big story," I said.
+
+"If I were you I'd be about forty miles south of this place," said the
+Lieutenant, "but if you want to see the fun, stick around. We are going
+forward in five minutes."
+
+That was the last I saw of him until days later, when both of us,
+wounded, met in the hospital. Of course, the first thing he said was, "I
+told you so."
+
+We hurriedly finished the contents of the can of cold "Corned Willy"
+which one of the machine gunners and I were eating. The machine guns
+were taken down and the barrels, cradles and tripods were handed over to
+the members of the crew whose duties it was to carry them.
+
+And then we went over. There are really no heroics about it. There is no
+bugle call, no sword waving, no dramatic enunciation of catchy commands,
+no theatricalism--it's just plain get up and go over. And it is done
+just the same as one would walk across a peaceful wheat field out in
+Iowa.
+
+But with the appearance of our first line, as it stepped from the
+shelter of the woods into the open exposure of the flat field, the woods
+opposite began to cackle and rattle with the enemy machine gun fire. Our
+men advanced in open order, ten and twelve feet between men. Sometimes a
+squad would run forward fifty feet and drop. And as its members
+flattened on the ground for safety another squad would rise from the
+ground and make another rush.
+
+They gained the woods. Then we could hear shouting. Then we knew that
+work was being done with the bayonet. The machine gun fire continued in
+intensity and then died down completely. The wood had been won. Our men
+consolidated the position by moving forward in groups ever on the
+watch-out for snipers in the trees. A number of these were brought down
+by our crack pistol shots.
+
+At different times during the advance runners had come through the woods
+inquiring for Major John Berry, the battalion commander. One of these
+runners attached himself to Lieutenant Hartzell and myself and together
+the three of us located the Major coming through the woods. He granted
+permission for Lieutenant Hartzell and me to accompany him and we
+started forward, in all a party of some fifteen, including ten runners
+attached to the battalion commander.
+
+Owing to the continual evidences of German snipers in the trees, every
+one in our party carried a revolver ready in his hand, with the
+exception of myself. Correspondents, you will remember, are
+non-combatants and must be unarmed. I carried a notebook, but it was
+loaded. We made our way down the slope of the wooded hillside.
+
+Midway down the slope, the hill was bisected by a sunken road which
+turned forward on the left. Lying in the road were a number of French
+bodies and several of our men who had been brought down but five minutes
+before. We crossed that road hurriedly knowing that it was covered from
+the left by German machine guns.
+
+At the bottom of the slope there was a V-shaped field. The apex of the V
+was on the left. From left to right the field was some two hundred yards
+in width. The point where we came out of the woods was about one hundred
+yards from the apex. At that point the field was about one hundred yards
+across. It was perfectly flat and was covered with a young crop of oats
+between ten and fifteen inches high.
+
+This V-shaped oat field was bordered on all sides by dense clusters of
+trees. In the trees on the side opposite the side on which we stood,
+were German machine guns. We could hear them. We could not see them but
+we knew that every leaf and piece of greenery there vibrated from their
+fire and the tops of the young oats waved and swayed with the streams of
+lead that swept across.
+
+Major Berry gave orders for us to follow him at intervals of ten or
+fifteen yards. Then he started across the field alone at the head of the
+party. I followed. Behind me came Hartzell. Then the woods about us
+began to rattle fiercely. It was unusually close range. That lead
+travelled so fast that we could not hear it as it passed. We soon had
+visual demonstration of the hot place we were in when we began to see
+the dust puffs that the bullets kicked up in the dirt around our feet.
+
+Major Berry had advanced well beyond the centre of the field when I saw
+him turn toward me and heard him shout:
+
+"Get down everybody."
+
+We all fell on our faces. And then it began to come hot and fast.
+Perfectly withering volleys of lead swept the tops of the oats just over
+us. For some reason it did not seem to be coming from the trees hardly a
+hundred yards in front of us. It was coming from a new direction--from
+the left.
+
+I was busily engaged flattening myself on the ground. Then I heard a
+shout in front of me. It came from Major Berry. I lifted my head
+cautiously and looked forward. The Major was making an effort to get to
+his feet. With his right hand he was savagely grasping his left wrist.
+
+"My hand's gone," he shouted. One of the streams of lead from the left
+had found him. A ball had entered his left arm at the elbow, had
+travelled down the side of the bone, tearing away muscles and nerves of
+the forearm and lodging itself in the palm of his hand. His pain was
+excruciating.
+
+"Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he dropped to the ground.
+I did not know the extent of his injuries at that time but I did know
+that he was courting death every minute he stood up.
+
+"We've got to get out of here," said the Major. "We've got to get
+forward. They'll start shelling this open field in a few minutes."
+
+I lifted my head for another cautious look.
+
+I judged that I was lying about thirty yards from the edge of the trees
+in front of us. The Major was about ten yards in front of me.
+
+"You are twenty yards from the trees," I shouted to the Major. "I am
+crawling over to you now. Wait until I get there and I'll help you. Then
+we'll get up and make a dash for it."
+
+"All right," replied the Major, "hurry along."
+
+I started forward, keeping as flat on the ground as it was possible to
+do so and at the same time move. As far as was feasible, I pushed
+forward by digging in with my toes and elbows extended in front of me.
+It was my object to make as little movement in the oats as possible. I
+was not mistaken about the intensity of fire that swept the field. It
+was terrific.
+
+And then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette touched me in the
+fleshy part of my upper left arm. That was all. It just felt like a
+sudden burn and nothing worse. The burned part did not seem to be any
+larger in area than that part which could be burned by the lighted end
+of a cigarette.
+
+At the time there was no feeling within the arm, that is, no feeling as
+to aches or pain. There was nothing to indicate that the bullet, as I
+learned several days later, had gone through the bicep muscle of the
+upper arm and had come out on the other side. The only sensation
+perceptible at the time was the burning touch at the spot where the
+bullet entered.
+
+I glanced down at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and could not even see
+the hole where the bullet had entered. Neither was there any sudden flow
+of blood. At the time there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm
+and I continued to use it to work my way forward.
+
+Then the second one hit. It nicked the top of my left shoulder. And
+again came the burning sensation, only this time the area affected
+seemed larger. Hitting as it did in the meaty cap of the shoulder, I
+feared that there would be no further use for the arm until it had
+received attention, but again I was surprised when I found upon
+experiment that I could still use it. The bone seemed to be affected in
+no way.
+
+Again there was no sudden flow of blood, nor stiffness. It seemed hard
+for me to believe at the time, but I had been shot twice, penetrated
+through by two bullets and was experiencing not any more pain than I had
+experienced once when I dropped a lighted cigarette on the back of my
+hand. I am certain that the pain in no way approached that sensation
+which the dentist provides when he drills into a tooth with a live nerve
+in it.
+
+So I continued to move toward the Major. Occasionally I would shout
+something to him, although, at this time, I am unable to remember what
+it was. I only wanted to let him know I was coming. I had fears, based
+on the one look that I had obtained of his pain-distorted face, that he
+had been mortally shot in the body.
+
+And then the third one struck me. In order to keep as close to the
+ground as possible, I had swung my chin to the right so that I was
+pushing forward with my left cheek flat against the ground and in order
+to accommodate this position of the head, I had moved my steel helmet
+over so that it covered part of my face on the right.
+
+Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like some one had dropped a
+glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. A barrel of whitewash tipped over
+and it seemed that everything in the world turned white. That was the
+sensation. I did not recognise it because I have often been led to
+believe and often heard it said that when one receives a blow on the
+head everything turns black.
+
+Maybe I am contrarily constructed, but in my case everything became pure
+white. I remember this distinctly because my years of newspaper training
+had been in but one direction--to sense and remember. So it was that,
+even without knowing it, my mind was making mental notes on every
+impression that my senses registered.
+
+I did not know yet where I had been hit or what the bullet had done. I
+knew that I was still knowing things. I did not know whether I was alive
+or dead but I did know that my mind was still working. I was still
+mentally taking notes on every second.
+
+The first recess in that note-taking came when I asked myself the
+following question:
+
+"Am I dead?"
+
+I didn't laugh or didn't even smile when I asked myself the question
+without putting it in words. I wanted to know. And wanting to know, I
+undertook to find out. I am not aware now that there was any appreciable
+passage of time during this mental progress. I feel certain, however,
+that I never lost consciousness.
+
+How was I to find out if I was dead? The shock had lifted my head off
+the ground but I had immediately replaced it as close to the soil as
+possible. My twice punctured left arm was lying alongside my body. I
+decided to try and move my fingers on my left hand. I did so and they
+moved. I next moved my left foot. Then I knew I was alive.
+
+[Illustration: HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING DAMAGE
+CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL]
+
+Then I brought my right hand up toward my face and placed it to the left
+of my nose. My fingers rested on something soft and wet. I withdrew the
+hand and looked at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked at it,
+I was not aware that my entire vision was confined to my right eye,
+although there was considerable pain in the entire left side of my face.
+
+This was sufficient to send me on another mental investigation. I closed
+my right eye and--all was dark. My first thought following this
+experiment was that my left eye was closed. So I again counselled with
+myself and tried to open my left eye--that is, tried to give the mental
+command that would cause the muscles of the left eye to open the lid and
+close it again.
+
+I did this but could not feel or verify in any way whether the eye lid
+responded or not. I only knew that it remained dark on that side. This
+brought me to another conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I
+simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had struck me in
+the eye and had closed it.
+
+I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet striking the ground
+immediately under my left cheek bone, had ricocheted upward, going
+completely through the left eye and then crashing out through my
+forehead, leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved, the
+lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of the skull.
+
+Further progress toward the Major was impossible. I must confess that I
+became so intensely interested in the weird sensations and subjective
+research, that I even neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer
+that I would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held this view
+in spite of the fact that my original intentions were strong. Lying
+there with my left cheek flat on the ground, I was able to observe some
+minutes later the wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail
+of lead rush forward and out of my line of vision.
+
+It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned that he
+reached the shelter of the woods beyond without being hit again, and in
+that place, although suffering intense pain, was able to shout back
+orders which resulted in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun
+nest that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort, General
+Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross.
+
+I began to make plans to get out of the exposed position in which I was
+lying. Whereas the field when I started across it had seemed perfectly
+flat, now it impressed me as being convex and I was further impressed
+with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost and most exposed
+curvature of it. There is no doubt that the continued stream of machine
+gun lead that swept the field superinduced this belief. I got as close
+to the ground as a piece of paper on top of a table. I remember
+regretting sincerely that the war had reached the stage of open movement
+and one consequence of which was that there wasn't a shell hole anywhere
+to crawl into.
+
+This did not, however, eliminate the dangerous possibility of shelling.
+With the fatalism that one acquires along the fronts, I was ready to
+take my chances with the casual German shell that one might have
+expected, but I devoted much thought to a consideration of the French
+and American artillery some miles behind me. I considered the
+possibility of word having been sent back that our advancing waves at
+this point had been cut down by enemy machine gunners who were still in
+position preventing all progress at this place. I knew that such
+information, if sent back, would immediately be forwarded to our guns
+and then a devastating concentration of shells would be directed toward
+the location of the machine gun nests.
+
+I knew that I was lying one hundred yards from one of those nests and I
+knew that I was well within the fatal bursting radius of any shells our
+gunners might direct against that German target. My fear was that myself
+and other American wounded lying in that field would die by American
+guns. That is what would have happened if that information had reached
+our artillery and it is what should have happened.
+
+The lives of the wounded in that field were as nothing compared with the
+importance of wiping out that machine gun nest on our left which was
+holding up the entire advance.
+
+I wanted to see what time it was and my watch was attached to my left
+wrist. In endeavouring to get a look at it, I found out that my left arm
+was stiff and racked with pain. Hartzell, I knew, had a watch, but I did
+not know where he was lying, so I called out.
+
+He answered me from some distance away but I could not tell how far or
+in what direction. I could see dimly but only at the expense of great
+pain. When he answered I shouted back to him:
+
+"Are you hit?"
+
+"No, are you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, what time is it?" I said.
+
+"Are you hit badly?" he asked in reply.
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think I'm all right."
+
+"Where are you hit?" he asked.
+
+"In the head," I said; "I think something hit my eye."
+
+"In the head, you damn fool," he shouted louder with just a bit of anger
+and surprise in his voice. "How the hell can you be all right if you are
+hit in the head? Are you bleeding much?"
+
+"No," I said. "What time is it, will you tell me?"
+
+"I'm coming over to get you," shouted Hartzell.
+
+"Don't move, you damn fool, you want to kill both of us?" I hastened to
+shout back. "If you start moving, don't move near me. I think they think
+I'm dead."
+
+"Well you can't lie there and bleed to death," Hartzell replied. "We've
+got to do something to get to hell out of here. What'll we do?"
+
+"Tell me what time it is and how long it will be before it's dark," I
+asked.
+
+"It's six o'clock now," Hartzell said, "and it won't be dark 'til nine;
+this is June. Do you think you can stick it out?"
+
+I told him that I thought I could and we were silent for some time. Both
+of us had the feeling that other ears--ears working in conjunction with
+eyes trained along the barrels of those machine guns a hundred yards on
+our left--would be aroused to better marksmanship if we continued to
+talk.
+
+I began to take stock of my condition. During my year or more along the
+fronts I had been through many hospitals and from my observations in
+those institutions I had cultivated a keen distaste for one thing--gas
+gangrene. I had learned from doctors its fatal and horrible results and
+I also had learned from them that it was caused by germs which exist in
+large quantities in any ground that has been under artificial
+cultivation for a long period.
+
+Such was the character of the very field I was lying in and I came to
+the realisation that the wound in the left side of my face and head was
+resting flatly on the soil. With my right hand I drew up my British box
+respirator or gas mask and placed this under my head. Thus I rested with
+more confidence, although the machine gun lead continued to pass in
+sheets through the tops of the oats not two or three inches above my
+head.
+
+All of it was coming from the left,--coming from the German nests
+located in the trees at the apex of the V-shaped field. Those guns were
+not a hundred yards away and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply
+of ammunition. Twenty feet away on my left a wounded Marine was lying.
+Occasionally I would open my right eye for a painful look in his
+direction.
+
+He was wounded and apparently unconscious. His pack, "the khaki doll,"
+was still strapped between his shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing
+that which all wounded men do--that is, to assume the position that is
+the most comfortable. He was trying to roll over on his back.
+
+But the pack was on his back and every time he would roll over on this
+it would elevate his body into full view of the German gunners. Then a
+withering hail of lead would sweep the field. It so happened that I was
+lying immediately in line between those German guns and this unconscious
+moving target. As the Marine would roll over on top of the pack his
+chest would be exposed to the fire.
+
+I could see the buttons fly from his tunic and one of the shoulder
+straps of the back pack part as the sprays of lead struck him. He would
+limply roll off the pack over on his side. I found myself wishing that
+he would lie still, as every movement of his brought those streams of
+bullets closer and closer to my head. I even considered the thickness of
+the box respirator on which I had elevated my head off the ground. It
+was about two inches thick.
+
+I remembered my French gas mask hanging from my shoulder and recalled
+immediately that it was much flatter, being hardly half an inch in
+thickness. I forthwith drew up the French mask to my head, extracted the
+British one and rested my cheek closer to the ground on the French one.
+Thus, I lowered my head about an inch and a half--an inch and a half
+that represented worlds of satisfaction and some optimism to me.
+
+Sometimes there were lulls in the firing. During those periods of
+comparative quiet, I could hear the occasional moan of other wounded on
+that field. Very few of them cried out and it seemed to me that those
+who did were unconscious when they did it. One man in particular had a
+long, low groan. I could not see him, yet I felt he was lying somewhere
+close to me. In the quiet intervals, his unconscious expression of pain
+reminded me of the sound I had once heard made by a calf which had been
+tied by a short rope to a tree. The animal had strayed round and round
+the tree until its entanglements in the rope had left it a helpless
+prisoner. The groan of that unseen, unconscious wounded American who
+laid near me on the field that evening sounded exactly like the pitiful
+bawl of that calf.
+
+Those three hours were long in passing. With the successive volleys that
+swept the field, I sometimes lost hope that I could ever survive it. It
+seemed to me that if three German bullets had found me within the space
+of fifteen minutes, I could hardly expect to spend three hours without
+receiving the fatal one. With such thoughts on my mind I reopened
+conversation with Hartzell.
+
+"How's it coming, old man?" I shouted.
+
+"They're coming damn close," he said; "how is it with you? Are you
+losing much blood?"
+
+"No, I'm all right as far as that goes," I replied, "but I want you to
+communicate with my wife, if its 'west' for me."
+
+"What's her address?" said Hartzell.
+
+"It's a long one," I said. "Are you ready to take it?"
+
+"Shoot," said Hartzell.
+
+"'Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, No. 12 Bis, Rue de la Chevalier de la Barre,
+Dijon, Côte d'Or, France.'" I said slowly.
+
+"My God," said Hartzell, "say it again."
+
+Back and forth we repeated the address correctly and incorrectly some
+ten or twelve times until Hartzell informed me that he knew it well
+enough to sing it. He also gave me his wife's address. Then just to make
+conversation he would shout over, every fifteen minutes, and tell me
+that there was just that much less time that we would have to lie there.
+
+I thought that hour between seven and eight o'clock dragged the most,
+but the one between eight and nine seemed interminable. The hours were
+so long, particularly when we considered that a German machine gun could
+fire three hundred shots a minute. Dusk approached slowly. And finally
+Hartzell called over:
+
+"I don't think they can see us now," he said; "let's start to crawl
+back."
+
+"Which way shall we crawl?" I asked.
+
+"Into the woods," said Hartzell.
+
+"Which woods?" I asked.
+
+"The woods we came out of, you damn fool," he replied.
+
+"Which direction are they in?" I said, "I've been moving around and I
+don't know which way I am heading. Are you on my left, or on my right?"
+
+"I can't tell whether I'm on your left or your right," he replied. "How
+are you lying, on your face or on your back?"
+
+"On my face," I said, "and your voice sounds like it comes from in back
+of me and on the left."
+
+"If that's the case," said Hartzell, "your head is lying toward the
+wrong woods. Work around in a half circle and you'll be facing the right
+direction."
+
+I did so and then heard Hartzell's voice on my right. I started moving
+toward him. Against my better judgment and expressed wishes, he crawled
+out toward me and met me half way. His voice close in front of me
+surprised me.
+
+"Hold your head up a little," he said, "I want to see where it hit you."
+
+"I don't think it looks very nice," I replied, lifting my head. I wanted
+to know how it looked myself, so I painfully opened the right eye and
+looked through the oats eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the
+look of horror on it as he looked into mine.
+
+Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through the interminable
+yards of young oats, we reached the edge of the woods and safety.
+
+That's how it feels to be shot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"GOOD MORNING, NURSE"
+
+
+Weakness from the loss of blood began to grow on me as Lieutenant
+Hartzell and I made our way through the deepening shadows of the wooded
+hillside in the rear of the field on which I had been shot. In an
+upright position of walking the pains in my head seemed to increase. We
+stopped for a minute and, neither of us having first aid kits with us, I
+resurrected a somewhat soiled silk handkerchief with which Hartzell
+bound up my head in a manner that applied supporting pressure over my
+left eye and brought a degree of relief.
+
+Hartzell told me later that I was staggering slightly when we reached a
+small relief dugout about a mile back of the wood. There a medical corps
+man removed the handkerchief and bound my head with a white gauze
+bandage. I was anxious to have the wound cleaned but he told me there
+was no water. He said they had been forced to turn it over to the men to
+drink. This seemed to me to be as it should be because my thirst was
+terrific, yet there was no water left.
+
+We stumbled rearward another half mile and, in the darkness, came upon
+the edge of another wooded area. A considerable number of our wounded
+were lying on stretchers on the ground. The Germans were keeping up a
+continual fire of shrapnel and high explosive shell in the woods,
+apparently to prevent the mobilisation of reserves, but the doctors,
+taking care of the wounded, proceeded with their work without notice to
+the whine of the shells passing overhead or the bursting of those that
+landed nearby. They went at their work just as though they were caring
+for injured men on a football field.
+
+Hartzell stretched me out on the ground and soon had a doctor bending
+over me. The doctor removed the eye bandage, took one look at what was
+beneath it and then replaced it. I remember this distinctly because at
+the time I made the mental note that the doctor apparently considered my
+head wound beyond anything he could repair. He next turned his attention
+to my arm and shoulder. He inserted his scissors into my left sleeve at
+the wrist and ripped it up to the shoulder. He followed this operation
+by cutting through my heavy khaki tunic from the shoulder to the collar.
+A few more snips of the nickel-plated blades and my shirt and undershirt
+were cut away. He located the three bullet holes, two in the arm and one
+across the top of the shoulder, and bound them up with bandages.
+
+"We're awful shy on ambulances," he said; "you will have to lie here a
+while."
+
+"I feel that I can walk all right if there is no reason why I
+shouldn't," I replied.
+
+"You ought to be in an ambulance," said the doctor, "but if you feel
+that you can make it, you might take a try at it."
+
+Then turning to Lieutenant Hartzell, he said, "Keep right with him, and
+if he begins to get groggy, make him lie down."
+
+So Hartzell and I resumed our rearward plodding or staggering. He walked
+at my right side and slightly in front of me, holding my right arm over
+his right shoulder and thereby giving me considerable support. We had
+not proceeded far before we heard the racing motor of an automobile
+coming from behind us. An occasional shell was dropping along the road
+we were now on.
+
+A stick struck my legs from behind in the darkness. And then an
+apologetic voice said:
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, just feeling along the road for shell holes.
+Ambulance right behind me, sir. Would you mind stepping to one side?
+Come on, Bill," to the driver of the ambulance, "it looks all clear
+through here."
+
+The automobile with the racing motor turned out to be a light ambulance
+of a popular Detroit make. Its speeding engine was pure camouflage for
+its slow progress. It bubbled and steamed at the radiator cap as it
+pushed along at almost a snail's pace.
+
+"All full?" Hartzell shouted into the darkness of the driver's seat.
+
+"To the brim," responded the driver. "Are you wounded?"
+
+"No, but I have a wounded man with me," said Hartzell. "He can sit
+beside you on the seat if you have room."
+
+"Get right in," said the driver, and Hartzell boosted me into the front
+seat. We pushed along slowly, Hartzell walking beside the car and the
+driver's assistant proceeding ahead of us, searching the dark road with
+his cane for new shell craters.
+
+Occasionally, when our wheels would strike in one of these, groans would
+come from the ambulance proper.
+
+"Take it easy," would come a voice through pain-pressed lips; "for
+Christ's sake, do you think you are driving a truck?"
+
+I heard the driver tell Hartzell that he had three men with bullet
+splintered legs in the ambulance. Every jolt of the car caused their
+broken bones to jolt and increased the pounding of their wearied nerves
+to an extremity of agony. The fourth occupant of the ambulance, he
+said, had been shot through the lungs.
+
+Some distance along, there came a knock on the wooden partition behind
+my back,--the partition that separates the driver's seat from the
+ambulance proper. The car stopped and the driver and Hartzell went to
+the rear door and opened it. The man with the shot through the lungs was
+half sitting up on his stretcher. He had one hand to his mouth and his
+lips, as revealed in the rays of the driver's flashlight, were red wet.
+
+"Quick--get me--to a doctor," the man said between gulps and gurgles.
+
+The driver considered. He knew we were ten miles from the closest doctor.
+Then he addressed himself to the other three stretcher-cases--the men
+with the torture-torn legs.
+
+"If I go fast, you guys are going to suffer the agonies of hell," he
+said, "and if I go slow this guy with the hemorrhage will croak before
+we get there. How do you want me to drive?"
+
+There was not a minute's silence. The three broken leg cases responded
+almost in unison.
+
+"Go as fast as you can," they said.
+
+And we did. With Hartzell riding the running board beside me and the
+crater finder clinging to the mud guards on the other side, we sped
+through the darkness regardless of the ruts and shell holes. The jolting
+was severe but never once did there come another complaint from the
+occupants of the ambulance.
+
+In this manner did we arrive in time at the first medical clearing
+station. I learned later that the life of the man with the hemorrhage
+was saved and he is alive to-day.
+
+The clearing station was located in an old church on the outskirts of a
+little village. Four times during this war the flow and ebb of battle
+had passed about this old edifice. Hartzell half carried me off the
+ambulance seat and into the church. As I felt my feet scrape on the
+flagstoned flooring underneath the Gothic entrance arch, I opened my
+right eye for a painful survey of the interior.
+
+The walls, grey with age, appeared yellow in the light of the candles
+and lanterns that were used for illumination. Blankets, and bits of
+canvas and carpet had been tacked over the apertures where once stained
+glass windows and huge oaken doors had been. These precautions were
+necessary to prevent the lights from shining outside the building and
+betraying our location to the hospital-loving eyes of German bombing
+'planes whose motors we could hear even at that minute, humming in the
+black sky above us.
+
+Our American wounded were lying on stretchers all over the floor. Near
+the door, where I entered, a number of pews had been pushed to one side
+and on these our walking wounded were seated. They were smoking
+cigarettes and talking and passing observations on every fresh case that
+came through the door. They all seemed to be looking at me.
+
+My appearance must have been sufficient to have shocked them. I was
+hatless and my hair was matted with blood. The red-stained bandage
+around my forehead and extending down over my left cheek did not hide
+the rest of my face, which was unwashed, and consequently red with fresh
+blood.
+
+On my left side I was completely bare from the shoulder to the waist
+with the exception of the strips of white-cloth about my arm and
+shoulder. My chest was splashed with red from the two body wounds. Such
+was my entrance. I must have looked somewhat grewsome because I
+happened to catch an involuntary shudder as it passed over the face of
+one of my observers among the walking wounded and I heard him remark to
+the man next to him:
+
+"My God, look what they're bringing in."
+
+Hartzell placed me on a stretcher on the floor and went for water, which
+I sorely needed. I heard some one stop beside my stretcher and bend over
+me, while a kindly voice said:
+
+"Would you like a cigarette, old man?"
+
+"Yes," I replied. He lighted one in his own lips and placed it in my
+mouth. I wanted to know my benefactor. I asked him for his name and
+organisation.
+
+"I am not a soldier," he said; "I am a non-combatant, the same as you.
+My name is Slater and I'm from the Y. M. C. A."
+
+That cigarette tasted mighty good. If you who read this are one of those
+whose contributions to the Y. M. C. A. made that distribution possible,
+I wish to herewith express to you my gratefulness and the gratefulness
+of the other men who enjoyed your generosity that night.
+
+In front of what had been the altar in the church, there had been
+erected a rudely constructed operation table. The table was surrounded
+with tall candelabrum of brass and gilded wood. These ornate accessories
+had been removed from the altar for the purpose of providing better
+light for the surgeons who busied themselves about the table in their
+long gowns of white--stained with red.
+
+I was placed on that table for an examination and I heard a peculiar
+conversation going on about me. One doctor said, "We haven't any more of
+it." Then another doctor said, "But I thought we had plenty." The first
+voice replied, "Yes, but we didn't expect so many wounded. We have used
+up all we had." Then the second voice said, "Well, we certainly need it
+now. I don't know what we're going to do without it."
+
+From their further conversation I learned that the subject under
+discussion was anti-tetanus serum--the all-important inoculation that
+prevents lockjaw and is also an antidote for the germs of gas gangrene.
+You may be sure I became more than mildly interested in the absence of
+this valuable boon, but there was nothing I could say that would help
+the case, so I remained quiet. In several minutes my composure was
+rewarded. I heard hurried footsteps across the flagstoned flooring and a
+minute later felt a steel needle penetrating my abdomen. Then a cheery
+voice said:
+
+"It's all right, now, we've got plenty of it. We've got just piles of
+it. The Red Cross just shot it out from Paris in limousines."
+
+After the injection Hartzell informed me that the doctors could do
+nothing for me at that place and that I was to be moved further to the
+rear. He said ambulances were scarce but he had found a place for me in
+a returning ammunition truck. I was carried out of the church and
+somewhere in the outer darkness was lifted up into the body of the truck
+and laid down on some straw in the bottom. There were some fifteen or
+twenty other men lying there beside me.
+
+The jolting in this springless vehicle was severe, but its severity was
+relieved in some of our cases by the quieting injections we had
+received. The effects of these narcotics had worn off in some of the men
+and they suffered the worse for it. One of them continually called out
+to the truck driver to go slower and make less jolting. To each request
+the driver responded that he was going as slow as he could. As the
+jolting continued the man with the complaining nerves finally yelled out
+a new request. He said:
+
+"Well, if you can't make it easier by going slow, then for God's sake
+throw her into high and go as fast as you can. Let's get it over as
+quick as we can."
+
+Lying on my back in the truck with a raincoat as a pillow, I began to
+wonder where we were bound for. I opened my eye once and looked up
+toward the roof of the leafy tunnel which covered the road. Soon we
+passed out from beneath the trees bordering the roadside and I could see
+the sky above. The moon was out and there were lots of stars. They gave
+one something to think about. After all, how insignificant was one
+little life.
+
+In this mood, something in the jolting of the camion brought to my mind
+the metre and words of George Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion
+Caravan," and I repeat it from memory:
+
+      "Winding down through sleeping town
+      Pale stars of early dawn;
+    Like ancient knight with squire by side,
+    Driver and helper now we ride--
+      The camion caravan.
+
+      "In between the rows of trees
+      Glare of the mid-day sun;
+    Creeping along the highway wide,
+    Slowly in long defile, we ride--
+      The camion caravan.
+
+      "Homeward to _remorque_ and rest,
+      Pale stars of early night;
+    Through stillness of the eventide,
+    Back through the winding town we ride--
+      The camion caravan."
+
+Sometime during the dark hours of the early morning we stopped in the
+courtyard of a hospital and I was taken into another examination room
+illuminated with painfully brilliant lights. I was placed on a table for
+an examination, which seemed rather hurried, and then the table was
+rolled away some distance down a corridor. I never understood that move
+until some weeks later when a Lieutenant medical officer told me that it
+was he who had examined me at that place.
+
+"You're looking pretty fit, now," he said, "but that night when I saw
+you I ticketed you for the dead pile. You didn't look like you could
+live till morning."
+
+His statement gave me some satisfaction. There is always joy in fooling
+the doctor.
+
+Hartzell, who still accompanied me, apparently rescued me from the "dead
+pile" and we started on another motor trip, this time on a stretcher in
+a large, easier-riding ambulance. In this I arrived shortly after dawn
+at the United States Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the
+outskirts of Paris.
+
+There were more hurried examinations and soon I was rolled down a
+corridor on a wheeled table, into an elevator that started upward. Then
+the wheeled table raced down another long corridor and I began to feel
+that my journeyings were endless. We stopped finally in a room where I
+distinctly caught the odour of ether. Some one began removing my boots
+and clothes. As that some one worked he talked to me.
+
+"I know you, Mr. Gibbons," he said. "I'm from Chicago also. I am
+Sergeant Stephen Hayes. I used to go to Hyde Park High School. We're
+going to fix you up right away."
+
+I learned from Hayes that I was lying in a room adjoining the operating
+chamber and was being prepared for the operating table. Some information
+concerning the extent of my injuries and the purpose of the operation
+would have been comforting and would have relieved the sensation of
+utter helpless childishness that I was experiencing.
+
+I knew I was about to go under the influence of the anesthetic and that
+something was going to be done to me. I had every confidence that
+whatever was done would be for the best but it was perfectly natural
+that I should be curious about it. Was the operation to be a serious one
+or a minor one? Would they have to remove my eye? Would they have to
+operate on my skull? How about the arm? Would there be an amputation?
+How about the other eye? Would I ever see again? It must be remembered
+that in spite of all the examinations I had not been informed and
+consequently had no knowledge concerning the extent of my injuries. The
+only information I had received had been included in vague remarks
+intended as soothing, such as "You're all right, old man." "You'll pull
+through fine." "You're coming along nicely." But all of it had seemed
+too professionally optimistic to satisfy me and my doubts still
+remained.
+
+They were relieved, however, by the pressure of a hand and the sound of
+a voice. In the words spoken and in the pressure of the hand, there was
+hardly anything different from similar hand pressures and similar spoken
+phrases that had come to me during the night, yet there was everything
+different. This voice and this hand carried supreme confidence. I could
+believe in both of them. I felt the hand pressure on my right shoulder
+and the mild kindly voice said:
+
+"Son, I am going to operate on you. I have examined you and you are all
+right. You are going to come through fine. Don't worry about anything."
+
+"Thank you, very much," I said, "I like your voice. It sounds like my
+father's. Will you tell me your name?"
+
+"I am Major Powers," the kindly voice said. "Now just take it easy, and
+I will talk to you again in a couple of hours when you feel better."
+
+The speaker, as I learned later, was Major Charles Powers, of Denver,
+Colorado, one of the best-known and best-loved surgeons in the West. A
+man far advanced in his profession and well advanced in his years, a man
+whose life has not been one of continual health, a man who, upon
+America's entry of the war, sacrificed the safety of the beneficial air
+rarity of his native Denver to answer the country's call, to go to
+France at great personal risk to his health--a risk only appreciated by
+those who know him well. It was Major Powers who operated upon the
+compound fracture in my skull that morning.
+
+My mental note-taking continued as the anesthetist worked over me with
+the ether. As I began breathing the fumes I remember that my senses were
+keenly making observations on every sensation I experienced. The thought
+even went through my mind that it would be rather an unusual thing to
+report completely the impressions of coma. This suggestion became a
+determination and I became keyed up to everything going on about me.
+
+The conversation of the young doctor who was administering the
+anesthetic interested me unusually. He was very busy and business-like
+and although I considered myself an important and most interested party
+in the entire proceedings, his conversation ignored me entirely. He not
+only did not talk to me, but he was not even talking about me. As he
+continued to apply the ether, he kept up a running fire of entirely
+extraneous remarks with some other person near the table. I did not
+appreciate then, as I do now, that I was only one of very, very many
+that he had anesthetised that morning and the night before, but at the
+time his seeming lack of all interest in me as me, piqued me
+considerably.
+
+"Are you feeling my pulse?" I said. I could not feel his hand on either
+of my wrists, but I asked the question principally to inject myself into
+the conversation in some way or other, preferably in some way that would
+call him to account, as I had by this time aroused within me a keen and
+healthy dislike for this busy little worker whom I could not see but who
+stood over me and carried on conversations with other people to my utter
+and complete exclusion. And all the time he was engaged in feeding me
+the fumes that I knew would soon steal away my senses.
+
+"Now, never you mind about your pulse," he replied somewhat peevishly.
+"I'm taking care of this." It seemed to me from the tone of his voice
+that he implied I was talking about something that was none of my
+business and I had the distinct conviction that if the proceedings were
+anybody's business, they certainly were mine.
+
+"You will pardon me for manifesting a mild interest in what you are
+doing to me," I said, "but you see I know that something is going to be
+done to my right eye and inasmuch as that is the only eye I've got on
+that side, I can't help being concerned."
+
+"Now, you just forget it and take deep breaths, and say, Charlie, did
+you see that case over in Ward 62? That was a wonderful case. The bullet
+hit the man in the head and they took the lead out of his stomach. He's
+got the bullet on the table beside him now. Talk about bullet
+eaters--believe me, those Marines sure are."
+
+I hurled myself back into the conversation.
+
+"I'll take deep breaths if you'll loosen the straps over my chest," I
+said, getting madder each minute. "How can I take a full breath when
+you've got my lungs strapped down?"
+
+"Well, how's that?" responded the conversational anesthetist, as he
+loosened one of the straps. "Now, take one breath of fresh air--one
+deep, long breath, now."
+
+I turned my head to one side to escape the fumes from the stifling towel
+over my face and made a frenzied gulp for fresh air. As I did so, one
+large drop of ether fell on the table right in front of my nose and the
+deep long breath I got had very little air in it. I felt I had been
+tricked.
+
+"You're pretty cute, old timer, aren't you?" I remarked to the
+anesthetist for the purpose of letting him know that I was on to his
+game, but either he didn't hear me, or he was too interested in telling
+Charlie about his hopes and ambitions to be sent to the front with a
+medical unit that worked under range of the guns. He returned to a
+consideration of me with the following remark:
+
+"All right, he's under now; where's the next one?"
+
+"The hell I am," I responded hastily, as visions of knives and saws and
+gimlets and brain chisels went through my mind. I had no intention or
+desire of being conscious when the carpenters and plumbers started to
+work on me.
+
+I was completely ignored and the table started moving. We rolled across
+the floor and there commenced a clicking under the back of my head, not
+unlike the sound made when the barber lowers or elevates the head-rest
+on his chair. The table rolled seemingly a long distance down a long
+corridor and then came to the top of a slanting runway.
+
+As I started riding the table down the runway I began to see that I was
+descending an inclined tube which seemed to be filled with yellow
+vapour. Some distance down, the table slowed up and we came to a stop in
+front of a circular bulkhead in the tunnel.
+
+There was a door in the centre of the bulkhead and in the centre of the
+door there was a small wicket window which opened and two grotesquely
+smiling eyes peered out at me. Those eyes inspected me from head to foot
+and then, apparently satisfied, they twinkled and the wicket closed with
+a snap. Then the door opened and out stepped a quaint and curious figure
+with gnarled limbs and arms and a peculiar misshapen head, completely
+covered with a short growth of black hair.
+
+I laughed outright, laughed hilariously. I recognised the man. The last
+time I had seen him was when he stepped out of a gas tank on the 18th
+floor of an office building in Chicago where I was reclining at the time
+in a dentist chair. He was the little gas demon who walked with me
+through the Elysian fields the last time I had a tooth pulled.
+
+"Well you poor little son-of-a-gun," I said, by way of greeting. "What
+are you doing way over here in France? I haven't seen you for almost
+two years, since that day back in Chicago."
+
+The gas demon rolled his head from one side to the other and smiled, but
+I can't remember what he said. My mental note-taking concluded about
+there because the next memory I have is of complete darkness, and lying
+on my back in a cramped position while a horse trampled on my left arm.
+
+"Back off of there," I shouted, but the animal's hoofs didn't move. The
+only effect my shouting had was to bring a soft hand into my right one,
+and a sweet voice close beside me.
+
+"You're all right, now," said the sweet voice, "just try to take a
+little nap and you'll feel better."
+
+Then I knew it was all over, that is, the operation was over, or
+something was over. Anyhow my mind was working and I was in a position
+where I wanted to know things again. I recall now, with a smile, that
+the first things that passed through my mind were the threadbare
+bromides so often quoted "Where am I?" I recall feeling the urge to say
+something at least original, so I enquired:
+
+"What place is this, and will you please tell me what day and time it
+is?"
+
+"This is the Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine just on the
+outskirts of Paris, and it is about eleven o'clock in the morning and
+to-day is Friday, June the seventh."
+
+Then I went back to sleep with an etherised taste in my mouth like a
+motorman's glove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL
+
+
+There were fourteen wounded American soldiers in my ward--all men from
+the ranks and representing almost as many nationalistic extractions.
+There was an Irishman, a Swede, an Italian, a Jew, a Pole, one man of
+German parentage, and one man of Russian extraction. All of them had
+been wounded at the front and all of them now had something nearer and
+dearer to them than any traditions that might have been handed down to
+them from a mother country--they had fought and bled and suffered for a
+new country, _their_ new country.
+
+Here in this ward was the new melting pot of America. Not the melting
+pot of our great American cities where nationalistic quarters still
+exist, but a greater fusion process from which these men had emerged
+with unquestionable Americanism. They are the real and the new
+Americans--born in the hell of battle.
+
+One night as we lay there, we heard an automobile racing through a
+street in this sleepy, warm little _faubourg_ of Paris. The motor was
+sounding on its siren a call that was familiar to all of us. It was the
+alarm of a night attack from the air. It meant that German planes had
+crossed the front line and were on their way with death and destruction
+for Paris.
+
+A nurse entered the room and drew the curtains of the tall windows to
+keep from our eyes the flash and the glitter of the shells that soon
+began to burst in the sky above us as the aerial defences located on the
+outer circle of the city began to erect a wall of bursting steel around
+the French capital. We could hear the guns barking close by and
+occasionally the louder boom that told us one of the German bombs had
+landed. Particles of shrapnel began falling in the garden beneath the
+windows of our ward and we could hear the rattle of the pieces on the
+slate roof of a pavilion there. It is most unpleasant, it goes without
+saying, to lie helpless on one's back and grapple with the realisation
+that directly over your head--right straight above your eyes and
+face--is an enemy airplane loaded with bombs. Many of us knew that those
+bombs contained, some of them, more than two hundred pounds of melilite
+and some of us had witnessed the terrific havoc they wrought when they
+landed on a building. All of us knew, as the world knows, the particular
+attraction that hospitals have for German bombs.
+
+The aerial bombardment subsided after some ten or fifteen minutes and
+soon we heard the motor racing back through the streets while a musician
+in the car sounded on a bugle the "prologue" or the signal that the raid
+was over. The invaders had been driven back. All of us in the ward tried
+to sleep. But nerves tingled from this more or less uncomfortable
+experience and wounds ached and burned. Sleep was almost out of the
+question, and in the darkened ward I soon noticed the red glow of
+cigarette after cigarette from bed to bed as the men sought to woo
+relief with tobacco smoke.
+
+We began to discuss a subject very near and very dear to all wounded
+men. That is, what they are going to do as soon as they get out of the
+hospital. It is known, of course, that the first consideration usually
+is, to return to the front, but in many instances in our ward, this was
+entirely out of the question.
+
+So it was with Dan Bailey who occupied a bed two beds on my right. His
+left leg was off above the knee. He lost it going over the top at
+Cantigny.
+
+"I know what I'm going to do when I get home," he said, "I am going to
+get a job as an instructor in a roller skating rink."
+
+In a bed on the other side of the ward was a young man with his right
+arm off. His name was Johnson and he had been a musician. In time of
+battle, musicians lay aside their trombones and cornets and go over the
+top with the men, only they carry stretchers instead of rifles. Johnson
+had done this. Something had exploded quite close to him and his entire
+recollection of the battle was that he had awakened being carried back
+on his own stretcher.
+
+"I know where I can sure get work," he said, glancing down at the stump
+of his lost arm. "I am going to sign up as a pitcher with the St. Louis
+Nationals."
+
+Days later when I looked on Johnson for the first time, I asked him if
+he wasn't Irish, and he said no. Then I asked him where he lost his arm
+and he replied, "At the yoint." And then I knew where he came from.
+
+But concerning after-the-war occupations, I endeavoured that night to
+contribute something in a similar vein to the general discussion, and I
+suggested the possibility that I might return to give lessons on the
+monocle.
+
+The prize prospect, however, was submitted by a man who occupied a bed
+far over in one corner of the room. He was the possessor of a
+polysyllabic name--a name sprinkled with k's, s's and z's, with a
+scarcity of vowels--a name that we could not pronounce, much less
+remember. On account of his size we called him "Big Boy." His was a
+peculiar story.
+
+He had been captured by three Germans who were marching him back to
+their line. In telling me the story Big Boy said, "Mr. Gibbons, I made
+up my mind as I walked back with them that I might just as well be dead
+as to spend the rest of the war studying German."
+
+So he had struck the man on the right and the one on the left and had
+downed both of them, but the German in back of him, got him with the
+bayonet. A nerve centre in his back was severed by the slash of the
+steel that extended almost from one shoulder to the other, and Big Boy
+had fallen to the ground, his arms and legs powerless. Then the German
+with the bayonet robbed him. Big Boy enumerated the loss to
+me,--fifty-three dollars and his girl's picture.
+
+Although paralysed and helpless, there was nothing down in the mouth
+about Big Boy--indeed, he provided most of the fun in the ward. He had
+an idea all of his own about what he was going to do after the war and
+he let us know about it that night.
+
+"All of you guys have told what you're going to do," he said, "now I'm
+going to tell you the truth. I'm going back to that little town of mine
+in Ohio and go down to the grocery store and sit there on a soap box on
+the porch.
+
+"Then I'm going to gather all the little boys in the neighbourhood round
+about me and then I'm going to outlie the G. A. R."
+
+There was one thing in that ward that nobody could lie about and that
+was the twitches of pain we suffered in the mornings when the old
+dressings of the day before were changed and new ones applied.
+
+The doctor and his woman assistant who had charge of the surgical
+dressings on that corridor would arrive in the ward shortly after
+breakfast. They would be wheeling in front of them a rubber-tired,
+white-enamelled vehicle on which were piled the jars of antiseptic
+gauze and trays of nickel-plated instruments, which both the doctor and
+his assistant would handle with rubber-gloved hands. In our ward that
+vehicle was known as the "Agony Cart," and every time it stopped at the
+foot of a bed you would be pretty sure to hear a groan or a stifled wail
+in a few minutes.
+
+We had various ways of expressing or suppressing the pain. You who have
+had a particularly vicious mustard plaster jerked off that tender spot
+in the back, right between the shoulders, have some small conception of
+the delicate sensation that accompanies the removal of old gauze from a
+healing wound.
+
+Some of the men would grit their teeth and grunt, others would put their
+wrists in their mouths and bite themselves during the operation. Some
+others would try to keep talking to the doctor or the nurse while the
+ordeal was in progress and others would just simply shout. There was
+little satisfaction to be gained from these expressions of pain because
+while one man was yelling the other thirteen in the ward were shouting
+with glee and chaffing him, and as soon as his wounds had been redressed
+he would join in the laughs at the expense of those who followed him.
+
+There was a Jewish boy in the ward and he had a particularly painful
+shell wound in his right leg. He was plucky about the painful treatment
+and used to say to the doctor, "Don't mind me yelling, doc. I can't help
+it, but you just keep right on."
+
+The Jew boy's cry of pain as near as I can reproduce it went something
+like this, "Oy! Oy!! Oy!!! YOY!!! Doctor!"
+
+The Jew boy's clear-toned enunciation of this Yiddish lullaby, as the
+rest of the ward called it, brought many a heartless, fiendish laugh
+from the occupants of the other beds. We almost lost one of our
+patients on account of that laugh. He nearly laughed himself to
+death--in fact.
+
+This near victim of uncontrollable risibilities was an Italian boy from
+the East Side of New York. A piece of shrapnel had penetrated one of his
+lungs and pleurisy had developed in the other one. It had become
+necessary to operate on one of the lungs and tape it down. The boy had
+to do his best to breathe with one lung that was affected by pleurisy.
+Every breath was like the stab of a knife and it was quite natural that
+the patient would be peevish and garrulous. The whole ward called him
+the "dying Wop." But his name was Frank.
+
+When the Jew boy would run the scale with his torture cry, the "dying
+Wop" would be forced to forget his laboured breathing and give vent to
+laughter. These almost fatal laughs sounded something like this:
+
+"He! Hee!! Hee!!! (on a rising inflection and then much softer) Oh, Oh,
+Oh! Stop him, stop him, stop him!" The "He-Hee's" were laughs, but the
+"Oh-oh's" were excruciating pain.
+
+Frank grew steadily worse and had to be removed from the ward. Weeks
+afterward I went back to see him and found him much thinner and
+considerably weaker. He occupied a bed on one of the pavilions in the
+garden. He was still breathing out of that one lung and between gasps he
+told me that six men had died in the bed next to him. Then he smiled up
+at me with a look in his eyes that seemed to say, "But they haven't
+croaked the 'dying Wop' yet."
+
+"This here--hospital stuff----" Frank told me slowly, and between gasps,
+"is the big fight after all. I know--I am fighting here--against
+death--and am going to win out, too.
+
+"I'm going to win out even though it is harder to fight--than
+fighting--the Germans--up front. We Italians licked Hell out of them--a
+million years ago. Old General Cæsar did it and he used to bring them
+back to Rome and put 'em in white-wing suits on the streets."
+
+For all his quaint knowledge of Cæsar's successes against the
+progenitors of Kulturland of to-day, Frank was all American. Here was a
+rough-cut young American from the streets of New York's Little Italy.
+Here was a man who had almost made the supreme sacrifice. Here was a man
+who, if he did escape death, faced long weakened years ahead. It
+occurred to me that I would like to know, that it would be interesting
+to know, in what opinion this wounded American soldier, the son of
+uneducated immigrant parents, would hold the Chief Executive of the
+United States, the man he would most likely personify as responsible for
+the events that led up to his being wounded on the battlefield.
+
+"Frank," I asked, "what do you think about the President of the United
+States?"
+
+He seemed to be considering for a minute, or maybe he was only waiting
+to gather sufficient breath to make an answer. He had been lying with
+his eyes directed steadfastly toward the ceiling. Now he turned his face
+slowly toward me. His eyes, sunken slightly in their sockets, shone
+feverishly. His pinched, hollow cheeks were still swarthy, but the
+background of the white pillow made them look wan. Slowly he moistened
+his lips, and then he said:
+
+"Say--say--that guy--that guy's--got hair--on his chest."
+
+That was the opinion of the "dying Wop."
+
+After Frank's removal from our ward, the rest of us frequently sent
+messages of cheer down to him. These messages were usually carried by a
+young American woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not
+strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing uniform on the same
+day that most of us arrived in that ward. She was one of the American
+women who brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She wrote
+letters for us to our mothers. She worked long hours, night and day, for
+us. In her absence, one day, the ward went into session and voted her
+its guardian angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Present"
+instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was and is my wife.
+
+As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife's duties to handle the
+matter of visitors, of which there were many. It seemed, during those
+early days in June, that every American woman in France dropped whatever
+war work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals to be of
+whatever service she could. And it was not easy work these women
+accomplished. There was very little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving
+picture nursing." Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan
+cleaning. They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to perform.
+Many of them worked themselves sick during the long hours of that rush
+period.
+
+Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy of some of the
+visitors produced humourous little incidents in our hospital life.
+Nearly all of the women entering our ward would stop at the foot of "Big
+Boy's" bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from the chart
+attached to the foot of the bed. Then they would mournfully shake their
+heads and slowly pronounce the words "Poor boy."
+
+And above all things in the world distasteful to Big Boy was that one
+expression "Poor boy" because as soon as the kindly intentioned women
+would leave the room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy"
+chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however, before leaving
+the ward the woman visitor would take from a cluster of flowers on her
+arm, one large red rose and this she would solemnly deposit on Big Boy's
+defenceless chest.
+
+Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would accept and
+interpret as one of deep, undying gratitude. The kindly-intentioned one
+surrounding herself with that benediction that is derived from a sacred
+duty well performed, would walk slowly from the room and as the door
+would close behind her, Big Boy's gruff drawling voice would sing out in
+a call for the orderly.
+
+"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would order.
+
+Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in the hospital. Big Boy
+liked to smoke, but, being paralysed, he required assistance. At regular
+intervals during the day the ward room door, which was close to Big
+Boy's bed, would open slowly and through the gap four or six inches wide
+the rest of the ward would get a glimpse of Dan standing in the opening
+with his arms piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging
+from the corner of his mouth.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEWS FROM THE STATES]
+
+[Illustration: SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS]
+
+With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert hand and arm
+through the opening in the door until it hovered above Big Boy's face.
+Then the hand would descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big
+Boy's mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion. Big Boy
+would lie back comfortably and puff away like a Mississippi steamboat
+for four or five minutes and then the door would open just a crack
+again, the mysterious hand and arm would reach in once more and the
+cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big Boy got his
+"smokes."
+
+If Big Boy's voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer voice that used
+to come from a man in the corner of the ward to the left of my bed.
+During the first four or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was
+most interested in all the voices I heard because I lay in total
+darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of my head to my upper
+lip, and I did not know whether or not I ever would see again. I would
+listen carefully to all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from
+doctors, nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from them I
+might learn whether or not there was a possibility of my regaining
+vision. But all of their remarks with regard to my condition were
+ambiguous and unsatisfactory. But from this I gained a listening habit
+and that was how I became particularly interested in the very gruff
+voice that came from the corner on my left.
+
+Other patients directing remarks into that corner would address them to
+a man whom they would call by name "Red Shannahan." I was quick to
+connect the gruff voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had lots
+of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my mind's eye a picture of
+a tall, husky, rough and ready, tough Irishman, with red hair--a man of
+whom it would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two or three
+German regiments before they got him. To find out more about this
+character, I called over to him one day.
+
+"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I'm here," came the reply, and I was immensely
+surprised because it was not the gruff voice at all. It was the mild,
+unchanged voice of a boy, a boy whose tones were still in the upper
+register. The reply seemed almost girlish in comparison with the
+gruffer tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner of
+this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be known by any such
+name as "Red Shannahan." I determined upon further investigation.
+
+"Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you became a United States
+soldier?" I asked.
+
+"Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, "I am from Baltimore. I
+drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, the canary bird and gold fish man."
+
+All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and gold fish tamer
+was that he had killed two Germans and captured three before they got
+him.
+
+Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there appeared one day a
+man I had not seen in many years. When I knew him last he had been a
+sport-loving fellow-student of mine at college and one of the fastest,
+hardest-fighting ends our 'Varsity football squad ever had. Knowing this
+disposition of the man, I was quite surprised to see on the sleeve of
+his khaki service uniform the red shield and insignia of the Knights of
+Columbus.
+
+I was well aware of the very valuable work done by this institution
+wherever American soldiers are in France, but I could not imagine this
+former college chum of mine being engaged in such work instead of being
+in the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib, do you remember
+that game with the Indians on Thanksgiving Day?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day."
+
+"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might as well call MacDougal
+inasmuch as that was not his name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me
+three years later."
+
+I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C. and I wondered what
+service he would perform in our ward in the name of his organisation. I
+soon found out. Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bedside
+of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off, who was lying in a bed
+on my right. MacDougal walked back and forth two or three times past the
+foot of Bailey's bed.
+
+"How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I walk all right?"
+
+"Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what's the matter with you?"
+
+MacDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping up and down and
+across the floor at the foot of Bailey's bed. Finishing these exercises
+breathlessly, he again addressed himself to the sufferer with one leg.
+
+"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all right?"
+
+"I don't see anything the matter with you," replied Bailey, "unless it
+is that you're in the wrong ward."
+
+Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey's bedside where the boy with one
+leg could watch him closely. MacDougal took his cane and struck his own
+right leg a resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of the blow
+that the leg he struck was wooden.
+
+In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the life of Dan Bailey new
+interest and new prospects. He proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of
+his life Dan Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump
+and skip and hop almost as well as people with two good legs. That was
+the service performed by the Knights of Columbus in our ward.
+
+There was one other organisation in that hospital that deserves mention.
+It was the most exclusive little clique and rather inclined towards
+snobbishness. I was a member of it. We used to look down on the
+ordinary wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either rightly or
+wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death comes mighty close when it
+nicks an eye out of your head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the
+no-eyed cases received attention in one certain ward, and it was to this
+ward after my release from the hospital that I used to go every day for
+fresh dressings for my wounds. Every time I entered the ward a
+delegation of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present me with a
+petition. In this petition I was asked and urged to betake myself to the
+hospital library, to probe the depths of the encyclopædias and from
+their wordy innards tear out one name for the organisation of the
+one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said, and the
+insistence was that the name above all should be a "classy" name. So it
+came to pass that after much research and debate one name was accepted
+and from that time on we became known as the Cyclops Club.
+
+A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of the work in that ward.
+Hundreds of American soldiers for long years after the war will thank
+him for seeing. I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell.
+The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day when one of the
+doctor's assistants entered carrying several flat, hard wood cases, each
+of them about a yard square. The cases opened like a book and were laid
+flat on the table. Their interiors were lined with green velvet and
+there on the shallow receptacles in the green velvet were just dozens of
+eyes, gleaming unblinkingly up at us.
+
+A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclopians gathered around the
+table. There was a grand grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a
+handful. There was some difficulty reassorting the grabs. Of course, it
+happened, that fellows that really needed blue or grey ones, managed to
+get hold of black ones or brown ones, and some confusion existed while
+they traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades and sizes.
+
+One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition to having lost one
+eye, he had received about a pound and a half of assorted hardware in
+his back, and these flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been
+sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution of the glassware.
+He apparently became alarmed with the thought that he was going to be
+left out of consideration. I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he
+shouted clear across the ward:
+
+"Hey, Doc, pass the grapes."
+
+When it became possible for me to leave that hospital, I went to another
+one three blocks away. This was a remarkable institution that had been
+maintained by wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I was
+assigned to a room on the third floor--a room adjoining a sun parlour,
+overlooking a beautiful Old World garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges,
+trees and shrubbery.
+
+In early June, when that flood of American wounded had come back from
+the Marne, it had become necessary to erect hospital ward tents in the
+garden and there a number of our wounded were cared for. I used to
+notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from one of the
+small tents a small white cot on which there lay an American soldier.
+They would place the cot on the green grass where the sunlight, finding
+its way through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine down upon
+the form of this young--this very young--fighter from the U. S. A.
+
+He was just two months over seventeen years of age. He had deliberately
+and patriotically lied one year on his age in order that he might go to
+France and fight beneath our flag.
+
+He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate how badly. There
+were no bandages about his head, arms or body. There was nothing to
+suggest the severity of his injuries--nothing save his small round spot
+on the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away the
+hair--just a small round spot that marked the place where a piece of
+German hand-grenade had touched the skull.
+
+This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could not remember--all
+had slipped his mind save for the three or four lines of one little
+song, which was the sole remaining memory that bridged the gap of four
+thousand miles between him and his home across the sea.
+
+Over and over again he would sing it all day long as he lay there on the
+cot with the sunlight streaming all over him. His sweet boyish voice
+would come up through the leafy branches to the windows of my room.
+
+I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the window listening to
+him. Then I would notice that her shoulders would shake convulsively and
+she would walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the song the
+little fellow sang was this:
+
+    "Just try to picture me
+    Back home in Tennessee,
+    Right by my mother's knee
+    She thinks the world of me.
+    She will be there to meet me
+    With a hug and kiss she'll greet me,
+    When I get back, when I get back
+    To my home in Tennessee."
+
+American doctors and American nurses, both by their skill and care and
+tenderness, nursed that little fellow back to complete recovery, made
+him remember everything and shortly afterward, well and cured, he
+started back, safe and sound, to his home in Tennessee.
+
+Nothing I can ever say will overstate my estimation of the credit that
+is deserved by our American doctors and nurses for the great work they
+are doing. I am not alone in knowing this. I call to witness any
+Canadian, Englishman or Frenchman, that, if he is wounded, when in the
+ambulance, he usually voices one request, "Take me to an American
+hospital."
+
+I knew of one man who entered that United States Military Base Hospital
+near Paris, with one bullet through the shoulder, another through an
+arm, an eye shot out and a compound fracture of the skull, and those
+American doctors and nurses by their attention and skilfulness made it
+possible for him to step back into boots and breeches and walk out of
+the hospital in ten days.
+
+It so happens that I am somewhat familiar with the details in that case
+because I am the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"JULY 18TH"--THE TURN OF THE TIDE
+
+
+Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's reserves, by the speedy
+arrival of American forces, the fourth German offensive of 1918, the
+personally directed effort launched by the Crown Prince on May 27th, had
+been brought to a standstill.
+
+The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped by the Americans at
+Château-Thierry and in the Bois de Belleau. It would be an injustice not
+to record the great part played in that fighting by the French Army
+attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify as the French
+have gallantly done, that it was the timely arrival of American strength
+that swung the balance against the enemy. For the remainder of that
+month of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was considered
+local in its character.
+
+The German offensive had succeeded in pushing forward the enemy front
+until it formed a loop extending southward from the Aisne to the Valley
+of the Marne. This salient was called the Château-Thierry pocket. The
+line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to Château-Thierry,
+where it touched the Marne, thence eastward along both sides of the
+river to the vicinity of Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and
+extended northward to points beyond Rheims.
+
+Château-Thierry was thus the peak of the German push--the apex of the
+triangle pointing toward Paris. The enemy supplied its forces in this
+peak principally by the road that ran southward from Soissons and
+touched the Marne at Château-Thierry. To the west of this road and just
+south of the city of Soissons, is the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The
+enemy occupied the northern and eastern limits of the forest and the
+remainder of it was in the hands of the French.
+
+This forest has always been considered one of the sentinels of Paris. It
+was located on the right flank of the German salient. It was a menace to
+that flank, and offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied
+counter offensive from that direction. The Germans were not unmindful of
+this.
+
+The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets it would be
+possible for Marshal Foch to mobilise his much-feared reserves by taking
+advantage of the natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch
+reserve still remained a matter for enemy consideration in spite of the
+fact that the successive German offensive since March 21st had met with
+considerable success with regard to the acquisition of territory. The
+Germans, however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch had been
+forced to bring his reserves into the fight.
+
+The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy of the possible
+use of this reserve at any time and they knew that their lines in
+Villers-Cotterets Forest offered an ever present invitation for the
+sudden application of this reserve strength. Their lines at that point
+were necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied position and, as
+a consequence, the Germans guarded this weak spot by holding in reserve
+behind the line a number of divisions of the Prussian Guard.
+
+For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant observation of the
+French position. Their planes would fly over the forest every day taking
+photographs. They sought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch
+might be preparing to strike a blow from that place. They made careful
+note of the traffic along the roads through the forest. They maintained
+a careful watch to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were being
+concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to ascertain whether
+any additional hospital arrangements had been made by the French at that
+point. Any of these things would have indicated that the French were
+preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans found nothing to
+support their suspicions.
+
+Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum strength. A belief
+existed among the German High Command that an attack might be made on
+July 4th, out of consideration to American sentiment. When the attack
+did not develop on that day, they then thought that the French might
+possibly spring the blow on July 14th, in celebration of their own
+national fête day. And again they were disappointed in their surmises.
+
+This protracted delay of an impending blow worried the enemy. The
+Germans realised full well that they were fighting against time. Their
+faith in the capacity of their submarines to prevent American strength
+from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now knew that every day
+that passed meant just that many more American soldiers arriving in
+France, and the consequent strengthening of the Allied forces during a
+season when the Germans, through their repeated offensives, were
+suffering terrible losses and were consequently growing weaker.
+
+So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive had still failed to
+materialise, the German forces, by the necessity for time, moved to a
+sudden and faulty decision. They convinced themselves that they had
+overestimated the Allied strength. They accepted the belief that the
+reason Foch had not attacked was because he did not have sufficient
+strength to attack. With this, then, as a basis for their plans, they
+immediately launched another offensive, hoping that this might be the
+one in which they could deliver the final blow.
+
+This action began on Monday morning, July 15th, and extended from
+Château-Thierry eastward along the valley of the Maine, northward to
+Rheims and thence eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of
+French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element of surprise in
+the attack. On the morning of the previous day, this patrol successfully
+raided the enemy lines to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners
+from whom it was learned that the Germans intended striking on the
+following morning. The objectives of the offensive were the French
+cities of Épernay and Châlons. The accomplishment of this effort would
+have placed the Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought the
+German lines southward to positions straddling the Marne, down the
+valley of which they would thus be able to launch another offensive on a
+straight road to Paris.
+
+The Germans needed considerable strength for this new effort. To muster
+the shock divisions necessary for the attack, they had to weaken their
+lines elsewhere. The first reserves that they drew for this offensive
+were the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding in
+readiness in back of the weak spot in their line in the
+Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were hurriedly transported
+across the base of the V-shaped salient and thrown into the attack to
+the east and the southwest of Rheims.
+
+The Germans found the Allied line prepared to receive them. Their
+attacking waves were mowed down with terrific machine gun fire from
+French and American gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery
+barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly effect in the
+massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting was particularly vicious. It
+was destined to be the Germans' last action of a grand offensive nature
+in the entire war.
+
+On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was particularly strong
+in one sector where it encountered the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow
+Division of United States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more
+different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama and New York held
+the front line. Iowa and Ohio were close in support. In the support
+positions, sturdy youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota
+manned the American artillery.
+
+The French general commanding the sector had not considered it possible
+that this comparatively small American force could withstand the first
+onslaught of the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a withdrawal
+to high ground two or three miles southward, from which he hoped to be
+able to resist the enemy to greater advantage. But all day long, through
+the 15th and the 16th and the 17th of July, those American lines held,
+and the advancing waves of German storm troops melted before our guns.
+Anticipating a renewal of the attack on the next day, General Gouraud
+issued an order on the evening of July 17th. It read:
+
+"_To the French and American Soldiers of the Army._
+
+  "We may be attacked from one moment to another. You all feel that a
+  defensive battle was never engaged in under more favourable
+  conditions. We are warned, and we are on our guard. We have
+  received strong reinforcements of infantry and artillery. You will
+  fight on ground, which, by your assiduous labour, you have
+  transformed into a formidable fortress, into a fortress which is
+  invincible if the passages are well guarded.
+
+  "The bombardment will be terrible. You will endure it without
+  weakness. The attack in a cloud of dust and gas will be fierce but
+  your positions and your armament are formidable.
+
+  "The strong and brave hearts of free men beat in your breast. None
+  will look behind, none will give way. Every man will have but one
+  thought--'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they have had
+  enough.' And therefore your General tells you it will be a glorious
+  day."
+
+And so the line held, although the French General had in preparation the
+plans for withdrawal. When, at the end of the third day, the American
+line still occupied the same position, the French General found that his
+labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been for nothing. He is
+reported to have thrown his hands up in the air and remarked, "There
+doesn't seem to be anything to do but to let the war be fought out where
+the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight it."
+
+There was one humorous incident worthy of record in that fighting. Great
+rivalry existed between the New York regiment and the Alabama regiment,
+both of which happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the New
+Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred for the German but, in
+addition to that, each of them was possessed with a mutual dislike for
+the other. There had been frequent clashes of a more or less
+sportsmanlike and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.
+
+On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had sent over low-flying
+airplanes which skimmed the tops of our trenches and sprayed them with
+machine gun fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from childhood
+with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accomplished something that had
+never been done before in the war. From his position in a trench, he
+took careful aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German
+planes. It was the first time in the history of the Western Front that a
+rifleman on the ground had done this.
+
+When the colonel of the New York regiment heard this, he was wild with
+envy and let it be known that there would be trouble brewing unless his
+regiment at least equalled the feat. So, on the following day, an
+Irishman in the ranks stood up and brought one German plane down to the
+credit of the old Sixty-ninth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the southwest of Rheims, Germans, who succeeded in breaking through
+the lines at one place on the south banks of the Marne, encountered
+American reinforcements and were annihilated to the number of five
+thousand. At no place did the enemy meet with the success desired.
+
+The Germans had launched their attack at six o'clock on the morning of
+July 15th. At Vaux their demonstration was considered a feint, but along
+the Marne to the east of Château-Thierry, between Fossy and Mezy, the
+assaulting waves advanced with fury and determination. At one place,
+twenty-five thousand of the enemy crossed the river, and the small
+American forces in front of them at that place were forced to retire on
+Conde-en-Bire. In a counter attack, we succeeded in driving fifteen
+thousand of them back to the north bank, the remaining ten thousand
+representing casualties with the exception of fifteen hundred, who were
+captured.
+
+Further eastward, the Germans established bridgehead positions on the
+south bank of the river at Dormas. The enemy enjoyed a minor success in
+an attack on the line near Bligny to the southwest of Rheims, where
+Italian troops fought with remarkable valour. Everywhere else the lines
+held solid and upon the close of that first night, Marshal Foch said, "I
+am satisfied--_Je suis content_."
+
+At dawn the following day, the enemy's futile efforts were resumed along
+the river east of Château-Thierry. The Germans suffered appalling losses
+in their efforts to place pontoon bridges at Gland and at
+Mareuil-le-Port. St. Agnan and La Chapelle Monthodon fell into the hands
+of Americans on the same day.
+
+On the 17th, the enemy's endeavours to reach Festigny on both banks of
+the river came to naught, but to the southeast of Rheims, his assaulting
+waves reached the northern limits of Montagne Forest. The Germans were
+trying to pinch out the Rheims salient. This was the condition of the
+opposing lines on the night of July 17th,--the night that preceded the
+day on which the tide of victory turned for the Allies.
+
+Foch was now ready to strike. The Allied Commander-in-Chief had decided
+to deliver his blow on the right flank of the German salient. The line
+chosen for the Allied assault was located between a point south of
+Soissons and Château-Thierry. It represented a front of some twenty-five
+miles extending southward from the valley of the Aisne to the Marne.
+Villers-Cotterets Forest was the key position for the Allies.
+
+It was from out that forest that the full strength of the blow was to
+be delivered. To make the blow effective at that most vital point,
+Marshal Foch needed a strong and dependable assaulting force. He needed
+three divisions of the hardest fighting soldiers that he could get. He
+had a considerable army to select from. As Commander-in-Chief of all the
+Allied armies, he was in command of all of the British army, all of the
+French army, all of the American army, the Italian, the Belgian,--all of
+the military forces of the Allied nations of the world. Marshal Foch's
+command numbered eleven million bayonets.
+
+The Commander-in-Chief had all of these veteran fighting men from which
+he could select the three divisions necessary to deliver this blow upon
+which the civilisation of the world depended.
+
+The first division he chose was the Foreign Legion of the French army.
+In four years of bloody fighting, the Foreign Legion, composed of
+soldiers of fortune from every country in the world, had never been
+absent in an attack. It had lived up thoroughly to its reputation as the
+most fearless unit of shock troops in the French army.
+
+And then for the other two divisions that were needed, Marshal Foch
+selected, from all the eleven million men under his command, the First
+and the Second Regular United States Army Divisions. The Second Division
+included the immortal Brigade of United States Marines, that had covered
+themselves with glory in the Bois de Belleau.
+
+It was a great distinction for those two American divisions to have thus
+been selected to play such a vital part in the entire war. It was an
+honour that every officer and man in both divisions felt keenly.
+
+I have in my map case a torn and much folded little piece of paper. I
+received it that night of July 17th in Villers-Cotterets Forest. A
+similar piece of paper was received by every officer in those two
+American divisions. To me this piece of paper represents the order which
+resulted in victory for the Allied world. It reads:
+
+ _Headquarters Third Army Corps American Expeditionary Forces_,
+
+              _France, July 17, 1918_
+
+_Memorandum_:
+
+  The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces has been
+  created and consists of the 1st. and 2nd. Divisions, two divisions
+  that are known throughout France.
+
+  Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been deemed worthy to
+  be placed beside the best veteran French troops. See that you prove
+  worthy. Remember that in what is now coming you represent the whole
+  American nation.
+
+                                              R. L. BULLARD,
+                                                 Major General,
+                                           Commanding 3rd. Corps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets Forest all day
+during the 17th, had seen nothing. The appearance of all the myriad
+roads that cross and recross the forest in all directions was normal.
+But that night things began to happen in the forest.
+
+For once at least, the elements were favourable to our cause. There was
+no moon. The night was very dark and under the trees the blackness
+seemed impenetrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although it
+turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of the forest held
+much of the moisture and offered some protection to the thousands of
+men who spent the night beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard
+it roll in France before. The sound drowned the occasional boom of
+distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes would be followed by
+blinding flashes of lightning as nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in
+the sombre sky and vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the
+forest.
+
+The immediate front was silent--comparatively silent if one considered
+the din of the belligerent elements. In the opposing front lines in the
+northern and eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen alike
+huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.
+
+Then, along every road leading through the forest to the north and to
+the east, streams of traffic began to pour. All of it was moving forward
+toward the front. No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every
+inch of available road space was vitally necessary for the forces in
+movement. The roads that usually accommodated one line of vehicles
+moving forward and one line moving to the rear, now represented two
+streams--solid streams--moving forward. In those streams were gun
+carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts and grunting tractors
+hauling large field pieces.
+
+In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of American
+infantry plodded forward through the mud and darkness. In the occasional
+flash of a light, I could see that they were equipped for heavy
+fighting. Many of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up,
+while beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown eager
+beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, in addition to their
+cumbersome packs, extra shoes and extra bandoliers of cartridges.
+
+From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and haversacks. Their
+waists were girded with loaded ammunition belts, with bayonet hanging at
+the left side. Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives.
+Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun parts slung
+across their backs as they leaned forward under their burdens and
+plunged wearily on into the mud and darkness, the thunder and lightning,
+the world destiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed
+with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled, narrow
+gauge carts loaded down with machine gun ammunition.
+
+Under the trees to either side of the road, there was more movement.
+American engineers struggled forward through the underbrush carrying, in
+addition to their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts,
+picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them marched the swarthy,
+undersized, bearded veterans of the Foreign Legion. Further still under
+the trees, French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across
+their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the giant trunks.
+
+At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters with steel plated
+sides splotched with green and brown and red paint. These were the
+French tanks that were to take part in the attack. They groaned and
+grunted on their grinding gears as they manoeuvred about for safer
+progress. In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended
+from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen
+directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the
+underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread
+of this modern Juggernaut.
+
+There was no confusion, no outward manifestations of excitement. There
+was no rattle of musketry, shouting of commands or waving of swords.
+Officers addressed their men in whispers. There was order and quiet save
+for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping of water from the wet
+leaves, punctuated now and then by the ear-splitting crashes that
+followed each nearby flash of lightning.
+
+Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty mobilisation in the
+dark. Everything was moving in one direction--forward--all with the same
+goal, all with the same urging, all with the same determination, all
+with the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their forms. It seemed
+to me that night in the damp darkness of Villers-Cotterets Forest that
+every tree gave birth to a man for France.
+
+All night long the gathering of that sinister synod continued. All night
+long those furtive forces moved through the forest. They passed by every
+road, by every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the
+whispered commands of the officers. I heard the sloshing of the mud
+under foot and the occasional muffled curse of some weary marcher who
+would slip to the ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all
+of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the morning, all hell
+would land on the German line, and these men from the trees would move
+forward with the fate of the world in their hands.
+
+There was some suspense. We knew that if the Germans had had the
+slightest advance knowledge about that mobilisation of Foch's reserves
+that night, they would have responded with a downpour of gas shells,
+which spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of the forest,
+might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men.
+
+But the enemy never knew. They never even suspected. And at the tick of
+4:35 A. M., the heavens seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot
+metal sailed over the forest, bound for the German line.
+
+That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentration of all the guns
+of all calibres of all the Allies that Foch could muster. It was a
+withering blast and where it landed in that edge of the forest occupied
+by the Germans, the quiet of the dripping black night was suddenly
+turned into a roaring inferno of death.
+
+Giant tree trunks were blown high into the air and splintered into
+match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing delayed action fuses, penetrated
+the ground to great depth before exploding and then, with the expansion
+of their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dugouts as if they were egg
+shells.
+
+Then young America--your sons and your brothers and your husbands,
+shoulder to shoulder with the French--went over the top to victory.
+
+The preliminary barrage moved forward crashing the forest down about it.
+Behind it went the tanks ambling awkwardly but irresistibly over all
+obstructions. Those Germans that had not been killed in the first
+terrific blast, came up out of their holes only to face French and
+American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began at once.
+
+Our assaulting waves moved forward, never hesitating, never faltering.
+Ahead of them were the tanks giving special attention to enemy machine
+gun nests that manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge those
+death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the Bois de Belleau. The
+tanks were there to take care of them. One of these would move toward a
+nest, flirt around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It
+would never be heard from thereafter.
+
+It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that swept the Germans in
+front of it early that morning. Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover
+over the advance and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging
+over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to locate the
+Divisional Headquarters to which they were supposed to make the reports.
+These dense clouds of vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the
+airmen, but with the rising sun the mists lifted.
+
+Being but a month out of the hospital and having spent a rather
+strenuous night, I was receiving medical attention at daybreak in front
+of a dressing station not far from the headquarters of Major General
+Harbord commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking up
+through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from the sky. Almost
+immediately I could hear the hum of its motors growing momentarily
+louder as it neared the earth. I thought the plane was out of control
+and expected to see it crash to the ground near me.
+
+Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened its wings and
+went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear seemed barely to skim the
+uppermost branches. The machine pursued a course immediately above one
+of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a metal cylinder that
+glistened in the rays of the morning sun. Attached to it was a long
+streamer of fluttering white material. It dropped easily to the ground
+nearby. I saw an American signalman, who had been following its descent,
+pick it up. He opened the metal container and extracted the message
+containing the first aerial observations of the advance of the American
+lines. It stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured and
+were bound for the rear.
+
+Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters moved forward on
+the jump. Long before noon General Harbord, close behind his advancing
+troops, opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of Verte
+Feuille, the first community centre that had been taken by our men that
+morning. Prisoners were coming back in droves.
+
+I encountered one column of disarmed Germans marching four abreast with
+the typical attitude of a "Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the
+prisoners carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters made
+from logs and blankets. A wounded American was on one litter and a
+wounded Frenchman on the other.
+
+A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate the shoulders of
+both of the wounded men so that they occupied positions half sitting and
+half reclining. Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily
+as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their captives, while
+behind them stretched a regal retinue of eight hundred more.
+
+As this column proceeded along one side of the road, the rest of the
+roadway was filled with men, guns and equipment all moving forward.
+Scottish troops in kilts swung by and returned the taunts which our men
+laughingly directed at their kilts and bare knees.
+
+Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding convoys of prisoners. They
+returned loaded with relics of the fighting. It was said that day that
+German prisoners had explained that in their opinion, the British were
+in the war because they hated Germany and that the French were in the
+war because the war was in France, but that Americans seemed to be
+fighting to collect souveniers.
+
+I saw one of these American souvenier collectors bound for the rear. In
+stature he was one of the shortest men I had ever seen in our uniform.
+He must have spent long years in the cavalry, because he was frightfully
+bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two enormous German prisoners
+who towered head and shoulders above him.
+
+He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all prisoners and things
+German. Germans were "foreigners." "Foreigners" spoke a foreign
+language. Therefore to make a German understand you, it was only
+necessary to speak with them in a foreign language. French was a foreign
+language so the bowlegged American guard made use of his limited
+knowledge.
+
+"Allay! Allay! Allay veet t'ell outer here," he urged his charges.
+
+He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that there was exposed a
+shock of black, blood-matted hair on his forehead. A white bandage ran
+around his forehead and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton
+gauze connected with another white bandage around his neck. There was a
+red stain on the white gauze over the right cheek.
+
+His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In one hand he carried a
+large chunk of the black German war bread--once the property of his two
+prisoners. With his disengaged hand he conveyed masses of the food to
+his lips which were circled with a fresco of crumbs.
+
+His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile--a smile of satisfaction
+that caused the corners of his mouth to turn upward toward his eyes. I
+also smiled when I made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with
+which he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from his right hip
+were five holsters containing as many German automatic pistols of the
+Lueger make, worth about $35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder
+by straps to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German field
+glasses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a better understanding of
+his contagious smile of property possession when I inquired his name and
+his rank. He replied:
+
+"Sergeant Harry Silverstein."
+
+Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profanity, I approached one
+of our men who was seated by the roadside. A bullet had left a red
+crease across his cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The
+hobnail sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was trying to fasten
+it back on with a combination of straps. His profane denunciations
+included the U. S. Quartermaster Department, French roads, barbed wire,
+hot weather and, occasionally, the Germans.
+
+"This sure is a hell of a mess," he said, "for a fellow to find himself
+in this fix just when I was beginning to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted
+in the army to come to France to kill Germans but I never thought for
+one minute they'd bring me over here and try to make me run 'em to
+death. What we need is greyhounds. And as usual the Q. M. fell down
+again. Why, there wasn't a lassoe in our whole company."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence Department was
+flooded. The divisional intelligence officer asked me to assist in the
+interrogation of the captives. I questioned some three hundred of them.
+
+An American sergeant who spoke excellent German, interrogated. I sat
+behind a small table in a field and the sergeant would call the
+prisoners forward one by one. In German he asked one captive what branch
+of the service he belonged to. The prisoner wishing to display his
+knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to some pride,
+replied in English.
+
+"I am of the storm troop," he said.
+
+"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do you know what we are?
+We are from Kansas. We are Cycloners."
+
+Another German student of English among the prisoners was represented in
+the person of a pompous German major, who, in spite of being a captive,
+maintained all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and held
+his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his face, as though the
+surroundings were painful. His uniform was well pressed, his linen was
+clean, his boots were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was not
+a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a man who had gone
+through the hell of battle that morning. The American sergeant asked him
+in German to place the contents of his pockets on the table.
+
+"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with a strong accent,
+as he complied with the request. I noticed, however, that he neglected
+to divest himself of one certain thing that caught my interest. It was a
+leather thong that extended around his neck and disappeared between the
+first and second buttons of his tunic. Curiosity forced me to reach
+across the table and extract the hidden terminal of that thong. I found
+suspended on it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me
+and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I thanked him.
+
+He told me that he had once been an interne in a hospital in New York
+but happening to be in Germany at the outbreak of the war, he had
+immediately entered the army and had risen to the rank of a major in the
+Medical Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it might have
+seemed.
+
+"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the American soldier?" I
+asked him.
+
+"I do not know," he replied in the accented but dignified tones of a
+superior who painfully finds himself in the hands of one considered
+inferior. "I have never seen him fight. He is persuasive--yes.
+
+"I was in a dugout with forty German wounded in the cellar under the
+Beaurepaire Farm, when the terrible bombardment landed. I presume my
+gallant comrades defending the position died at their posts, because
+soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar to the bottom of
+the stairs and looked up.
+
+"There in the little patch of white light on the level of the ground
+above me, I saw the first American soldier I have seen in the war. But
+he did not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or
+his bearing.
+
+"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he did not have his coat
+on. His collar was not buttoned; it was rolled back and his throat was
+bare. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in
+each hand.
+
+"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me--saw me standing
+there--saw me, a major--and he shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you
+big Dutch B----d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"
+
+All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines swept forward
+victoriously. The First Division fought it out on the left, the Foreign
+Legion in the centre and the Second Division with the Marines pushed
+forward on the right. Village after village fell into our hands. We
+captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.
+
+On through the night the Allied assault continued. Our men fought
+without water or food. All road space behind the lines was devoted to
+the forwarding of reserves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of
+the 19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that we had crossed
+the road running southward from Soissons to Château-Thierry, thereby
+disrupting the enemy's communications between his newly established base
+and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping movement that
+might have surrounded large numbers, there was nothing left for the
+Germans to do but to withdraw.
+
+The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans on that glorious
+day, was General Joseph Mangin. His opinion of the immortal part played
+on that day by those two American divisions may be seen in the following
+order which he caused to be published:
+
+_Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the American Army_:
+
+  Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves
+  into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it as if
+  going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the
+  enemy, and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his
+  fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your
+  great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in
+  arms.
+
+  Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, and ten
+  kilometres of reconquered territory are your share of the trophies
+  of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your
+  superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of
+  liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.
+
+  American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously
+  spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded
+  you during such splendid days and to have fought with you for the
+  deliverance of the world.
+
+The Germans began backing off the Marne. From that day on, their
+movement to date has continued backward. It began July 18th. Two
+American Divisions played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their
+day. It was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DAWN OF VICTORY
+
+
+The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of the German hordes had
+begun. Hard on their heels, the American lines started their northward
+push, backing the Boche off the Marne.
+
+On the morning of July 21st I rode into Château-Thierry with the first
+American soldiers to enter the town. The Germans had evacuated
+hurriedly. Château-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces and
+those of the French.
+
+Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, imperialistic longings for
+the great prize, Paris, ended here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of
+the world had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that America
+was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy crumpled at historic
+Château-Thierry.
+
+That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was comparatively quiet.
+Only an occasional German shell--a final parting spite shell--whined
+disconsolately overhead and landed in a cloud of dust and débris in some
+vacant ruin that had once been a home.
+
+For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupation of that part of
+the city on the north bank of the river. Now the streets were littered
+with débris. Although the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be in
+good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation.
+
+The Germans had built barricades across the streets--particularly the
+streets that led down to the river--because it was those streets that
+were swept with the terrific fire of American machine guns. At the
+intersections of those streets the Germans under cover of night had
+taken up the cobblestones and built parapets to protect them from the
+hail of lead.
+
+Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot. Along the north bank
+of the river on the Quai de la Poterne and the Promenade de la Levée,
+the invader had left his characteristic mark. Shop after shop had been
+looted of its contents and the fronts of the pretty sidewalk cafés along
+this business thoroughfare had been reduced to shells of their former
+selves.
+
+Not a single living being was in sight as we marched in. Some of the old
+townsfolk and some young children had remained but they were still under
+cover. Among these French people who had lived for seven weeks through
+the hell of battle that had raged about the town, was Madame de Prey,
+who was eighty-seven years old. To her, home meant more than life. She
+had spent the time in her cellar, caring for German wounded.
+
+The town had been systematically pillaged. The German soldiers had
+looted from the shops much material which they had made up into packages
+to be mailed back to home folks in the Fatherland. The church, strangely
+enough, was picked out as a depository for their larcenies. Nothing from
+the robes of the priests down to the copper faucet of a water pipe had
+escaped their greed.
+
+The advancing Americans did not linger in the town--save for small
+squads of engineers that busied themselves with the removal of the
+street obstructions and the supply organisations that perfected
+communication for the advancing lines. These Americans were Yankees
+all--they comprised the 26th U. S. Division, representing the National
+Guard of New England.
+
+Our lines kept pushing to the north. The Germans continued their
+withdrawal and the Allied necessity was to keep contact with them. This,
+the Yankee Division succeeded in doing. The first obstacle encountered
+to the north of Château-Thierry was the stand that the Germans made at
+the town of Epieds.
+
+On July 23rd, our infantry had proceeded up a ravine that paralleled the
+road into Epieds. German machine guns placed on the hills about the
+village, swept them with a terrible fire. Our men succeeded in reaching
+the village, but the Germans responded with such a terrific downpour of
+shell that our weakened ranks were forced to withdraw and the Germans
+re-entered the town.
+
+On the following day we renewed the attack with the advantage of
+positions which we had won during the night in the Bois de Trugny and
+the Bois de Châtelet. We advanced from three sides and forced the
+Germans to evacuate. Trugny, the small village on the edge of the woods,
+was the scene of more bloody fighting which resulted in our favour.
+
+Further north of Epieds, the Germans having entrenched themselves along
+the roadway, had fortified the same with a number of machine guns which
+commanded the flat terrain in such a way as to make a frontal attack by
+infantry waves most costly. The security of the Germans in this position
+received a severe shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting
+one or two machine guns, started up the road toward the enemy, firing as
+they sped. It was something new. The Germans wanted to surrender, but
+the speed of the cars obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled
+before our gasoline cavalry.
+
+The Germans were withdrawing across the river Ourcq, whose valley is
+parallel to that of the Marne and just to the north. The enemy's
+intentions of making a stand here were frustrated by violent attacks,
+which succeeded in carrying our forces into positions on the north side
+of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out the Allied line from
+the Ourcq on the west to Fère-en-Tardenois on the east, which had been
+taken the same day by French and American troops.
+
+By this time the German withdrawal was becoming speedier. Such strong
+pressure was maintained by our men against the enemy's rear guards that
+hundreds of tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and fell into
+our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences of a rout.
+
+The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly contested every foot
+of ground he was forced to give. The American troops engaged in those
+actions had to fight hard for every advance. The German backed out of
+the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would back out of a saloon with
+an automatic pistol in each hand.
+
+Those charges that our men made across the muddy flats of the Ourcq
+deserve a place in the martial history of America. They faced a
+veritable hell of machine gun fire. They went through barrages of
+shrapnel and high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that the
+enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific objectives were assigned.
+The principal order was "Up and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every
+man's determination to keep the enemy on the run now that they had been
+started.
+
+Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north of the river failed
+to hold back the men from New York, from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois,
+Minnesota and Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees. These
+new American organisations went up against fresh German divisions that
+had been left behind with orders to hold at all cost. But nothing the
+enemy could do could prevent our crossing of the Ourcq.
+
+On July 30th the fighting had become most intense in character. The fact
+that the town of Sergy was captured, lost and recaptured nine times
+within twenty-four hours, is some criterion of the bitterness of the
+struggle. This performance of our men can be better understood when it
+is stated that the enemy opposing them there consisted of two fresh
+divisions of the Kaiser's finest--his Prussian Guard.
+
+After that engagement with our forces, the Fourth Prussian Guard
+Division went into an enforced retirement. When our men captured Sergy
+the last time, they did so in sufficient strength to withhold it against
+repeated fierce counter attacks by a Bavarian Guard division that had
+replaced the wearied Prussians.
+
+But before the crack Guard Division was withdrawn from the line, it had
+suffered terrible losses at our hands. Several prisoners captured said
+that their company had gone into the fight one hundred and fifty strong
+and only seven had survived. That seven were captured by our men in hand
+to hand fighting.
+
+While our engineer forces repaired the roads and constructed bridges in
+the wake of our advancing lines, the enemy brought to that part of the
+front new squadrons of air fighters which were sent over our lines for
+the purpose of observation and interference with communications. They
+continually bombed our supply depots and ammunition dumps.
+
+After the crossing of the Ourcq the American advance reached the next
+German line of resistance, which rested on two terminal strongholds. One
+was in the Forêt de Nesles and the other was in the Bois de Meunière.
+
+The fighting about these two strong points was particularly fierce. In
+the Bois de Meunière and around the town of Cièrges, the German
+resistance was most determined. About three hundred Jaegers held Hill
+200, which was located in the centre of Cièrges Forest, just to the
+south of the village of the same name. They were well provided with
+machine guns and ammunition. They were under explicit orders to hold and
+they did.
+
+Our men finally captured the position at the point of the bayonet. Most
+of its defenders fought to the death. The capture of the hill was the
+signal for a renewal of our attacks against the seemingly impregnable
+Meunière woods. Six times our advancing waves reached the German
+positions in the southern edge of the woods and six times we were driven
+back.
+
+There were some American Indians in the ranks of our units attacking
+there--there were lumber jacks and farmer boys and bookkeepers, and they
+made heroic rushes against terrific barriers of hidden machine guns. But
+after a day of gallant fighting they had been unable to progress.
+
+Our efforts had by no means been exhausted. The following night our
+artillery concentrated on the southern end of the woods and literally
+turned it into an inferno with high explosive shells. Early in the
+morning we moved to the attack again. Two of the Kaiser's most reputable
+divisions, the 200th Jaegers and the 216th Reserve, occupied the wood.
+The fighting in the wood was fierce and bloody, but it was more to the
+liking of our men than the rushes across fire-swept fields. Our men
+went to work with the bayonet. And for six hours they literally carved
+their way through four kilometres of the forest. Before ten o'clock the
+next morning, our lines lay to the north of the woods.
+
+In consolidating the gains in the woods, our men surrounded in a small
+clearing some three hundred of the enemy who refused to surrender.
+American squads advanced with the bayonet from all sides. The Germans
+were fighting for their lives. Only three remained to accept the
+ignominy of capture.
+
+Our forward progress continued and by August 4th the Germans were
+withdrawing across the Vesle River. The immediate objective that
+presented itself to the Americans was the important German supply depot
+at Fismes. It was in and around Fismes that some of the bloodiest
+fighting in the second battle of the Marne took place. The capture of
+Fismes was the crowning achievement of one American division that so
+distinguished itself as to be made the subject of a special report to
+the French General Headquarters by the French army in which the
+Americans fought. In part, the report read:
+
+  "On Aug. 4th the infantry combats were localized with terrible fury.
+  The outskirts of Fismes were solidly held by the Germans, where their
+  advance groups were difficult to take. The Americans stormed them and
+  reduced them with light mortars and thirty-sevens. They succeeded,
+  though not without loss, and at the end of the day, thanks to this
+  slow but sure tenacity, they were within one kilometre of Fismes and
+  masters of Villes, Savoye and Chezelle Farm. All night long rains
+  hindered their movements and rendered their following day's task more
+  arduous. On their right the French had, by similar stages, conquered
+  a series of woods and swamps of Meunière Woods, to the east of St.
+  Gilles, and were on the plateau of Bonne Maison Farm. To the left
+  another American unit had been able to advance upon the Vesle to the
+  east of St. Thiébault.
+
+  "On Aug. 5th the artillery prepared for the attack on Fismes by a
+  bombardment, well regulated, and the final assault was launched. The
+  Americans penetrated into the village and then began the mean task of
+  clearing the last point of resistance. That evening this task was
+  almost completed. We held all the northern part of the village as far
+  as Rheims road, and patrols were sent into the northern end of the
+  village. Some even succeeded in crossing the Vesle, but were satisfied
+  with making a reconnaissance, as the Germans still occupied the right
+  bank of the river in great strength. All that was left to be
+  accomplished was to complete the mopping up of Fismes and the
+  strengthening of our positions to withstand an enemy counter attack.
+
+  "Such was the advance of one American division, which pushed the enemy
+  forward from Roncheres on July 30th a distance of eighteen kilometres
+  and crowned its successful advance with the capture of Fismes on Aug.
+  5th."
+
+The German line on the Vesle river fell shortly after the capture of
+Fismes. The enemy was forced to fall back to his next natural line of
+defence on the Aisne. Between the Vesle and the Aisne, the Americans
+assisted the French in the application of such persistent pressure that
+the enemy's stubborn resistance was overcome and in many places he was
+forced to withdraw before he had time to destroy his depots of supply.
+
+On August 9th, General Degoutte, commanding the Sixth French Army,
+issued the following order:
+
+  "Before the great offensive of July 18th, the American troops, forming
+  part of the 6th French Army, distinguished themselves by clearing the
+  'Brigade de Marine' Woods and the village of Vaux of the enemy and
+  arresting his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy.
+
+  "Since then they have taken the most glorious part in the second
+  battle of the Marne, rivalling the French troops in ardour and valour.
+
+  "During twenty days of constant fighting they have freed numerous
+  French villages and made, across a difficult country, an advance of
+  forty kilometres, which has brought them to the Vesle.
+
+  "Their glorious marches are marked by names which will shine in future
+  in the military history of the United States: Torcy, Belleau, Plateau
+  d'Etrepilly, Epieds, Le Charmel, l'Ourcq, Seringeset Nesles, Sergy, La
+  Vesle and Fismes.
+
+  "These young divisions, who saw fire for the first time, have shown
+  themselves worthy of the old war traditions of the regular army. They
+  have had the same burning desire to fight the Boche, the same
+  discipline which sees that the order given by their commander is
+  always executed, whatever the difficulties to be overcome and the
+  sacrifices to be suffered.
+
+  "The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy and the skill
+  of the commanders, to the bravery of the soldiers.
+
+  "I am proud to have commanded such troops."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the month of August and up to the first days of September, the
+Americans participated in the important operations to the north of
+Soissons, where on August 29th they played a big part in the capture of
+the Juvigny Plateau.
+
+In this fighting, which was marked by the desperate resistance of the
+enemy, the Americans were incorporated in the 10th French Army under the
+command of General Mangin. Violent counter attacks by German shock
+divisions failed to stem the persistent advances of our forces.
+
+A large hill to the north of Juvigny constituted a key and supporting
+position for the enemy. In spite of the large number of machine guns
+concealed on its slopes, the Americans succeeded in establishing a line
+between the hill and the town. At the same time the American line
+extended itself around the other side of the hill. With the consummation
+of this enveloping movement, the hill was taken by assault.
+
+On Labor Day, September 2nd, after bitterly engaging four German
+divisions for five days, the Americans advanced their lines to
+Terny-Sorny and the road running between Soissons and St. Quentin. This
+achievement, which was accomplished by driving the Germans back a depth
+of four miles on a two mile front, gave our forces a good position on
+the important plateau running to the north of the Aisne.
+
+Our observation stations now commanded a view across the valley toward
+the famous Chemin des Dames which at one time had been a part of the
+Hindenburg line. Before the invasion of the German hordes, France
+possessed no fairer countryside than the valley of the Aisne. But the
+Germans, retreating, left behind them only wreckage and ashes and ruin.
+The valley spread out before our lines was scarred with the shattered
+remains of what had once been peaceful farming communities. To the
+northwest there could be seen the spires above the city of Laon.
+
+The American units which took part in this bitter fighting that had
+continued without a day's cessation since July 18th, were mentioned
+specifically in an order issued on August 27th by General Pershing. The
+order read:
+
+  "It fills me with pride to record in general orders a tribute to the
+  service achievements of the First and Third Corps, comprising the
+  First, Second, Third, Fourth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth,
+  Thirty-second and Forty-second Divisions of the American Expeditionary
+  Forces.
+
+  "You came to the battlefield at a crucial hour for the Allied cause.
+  For almost four years the most formidable army the world has yet seen
+  had pressed its invasion of France and stood threatening its capital.
+  At no time has that army been more powerful and menacing than when, on
+  July 15th, it struck again to destroy in one great battle the brave
+  men opposed to it and to enforce its brutal will upon the world and
+  civilisation.
+
+  "Three days later in conjunction with our Allies you counter-attacked.
+  The Allied armies gained a brilliant victory that marks the turning
+  point of the war. You did more than to give the Allies the support to
+  which, as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that our
+  altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice have not
+  blunted our virility or our courage.
+
+  "You have shown that American initiative and energy are as fit for the
+  tasks of war as for the pursuits of peace. You have justly won
+  unstinted praise from our Allies and the eternal gratitude of our
+  countrymen.
+
+  "We have paid for our successes with the lives of many of our brave
+  comrades. We shall cherish their memory always and claim for our
+  history and literature their bravery, achievement and sacrifice.
+
+  "This order will be read to all organisations at the first assembly
+  formations following its receipt.
+
+                                                 "PERSHING."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+August 10th marked a milestone in the military effort of the United
+States. On that day the organisation was completed of the First American
+Field Army. I have tried to show in this record how we began the
+organisation of our forces overseas. Our first troops to reach France
+were associated in small units with the French. Soon our regiments began
+to reach the front under French Division Commanders. Then with the
+formation of American divisions, we went into the line under French
+corps commanders. Later still, American corps operated under French Army
+Commanders. Finally, our forces augmented by additional divisions and
+corps were organised into the First American Field Army.
+
+Through these various stages of development, our forces had grown until
+on August 10th they had reached the stage where they became practically
+as independent an organisation as the British armies under Field Marshal
+Sir Douglas Haig and the French armies under General Petain. From now on
+the American Army was to be on a par with the French Army and the
+British Army, all three of them under the sole direction of the Allied
+Generalissimo, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.
+
+The personnel of this, the greatest single army that ever fought beneath
+the Stars and Stripes, is reproduced in the appendix. It might not be
+amiss to point out that an American division numbers thirty thousand
+men and that an American corps consists of six divisions and auxiliary
+troops, such as air squadrons, tank sections, and heavy artillery, which
+bring the strength of an American army corps to between 225,000 and
+250,000 men. By the 1st of September, the United States of America had
+five such army corps in the field, martialling a strength of about one
+and one-half million bayonets. General Pershing was in command of this
+group of armies which comprised the First American Field Army.
+
+It was from these forces that General Pershing selected the strong units
+which he personally commanded in the first major operation of the First
+American Field Army as an independent unit in France. That operation was
+the beginning of the Pershing push toward the Rhine--it was the Battle
+of St. Mihiel.
+
+It was a great achievement. It signalised the full development of our
+forces from small emergency units that had reached the front less than a
+year before, to the now powerful group of armies, fighting under their
+own flag, their own generals, and their own staffs.
+
+The important material results of the Battle of St. Mihiel are most
+susceptible to civilian as well as military comprehension. The St.
+Mihiel salient had long constituted a pet threat of the enemy. The
+Germans called it a dagger pointed at the heart of eastern France. For
+three years the enemy occupying it had successfully resisted all efforts
+of the Allies to oust them.
+
+The salient was shaped like a triangle. The apex of the triangle--the
+point of the dagger--thrusting southward, rested on the town of St.
+Mihiel, on the river Meuse. The western flank of the triangle extended
+northward from St. Mihiel to points beyond Verdun. The eastern flank of
+the triangle extended in a northeasterly direction toward
+Pont-à-Mousson. It was the strongest position held by the Germans in
+Lorraine--if not on the entire front.
+
+The geographical formation of the salient was an invitation for the
+application of a pincers operation. The point of leverage of the
+opposing jaws of the pincers was, most naturally, the apex of the
+triangle at St. Mihiel.
+
+One claw of the pincers--a claw some eight miles thick, bit into the
+east side of the salient near Pont-à-Mousson on the west bank of the
+Moselle River. The other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick
+and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the vicinity of the
+little town of Haudiomont, on the heights of the Meuse and just a little
+distance to the east of the Meuse River.
+
+The distance across that part of the salient through which the pincer's
+claws were biting was about thirty miles, and the area which would be
+included in the bite would be almost a hundred and seventy-five square
+miles. This, indeed, was a major operation.
+
+The battle began at one o'clock on the morning of September 12th, when
+the concentrated ordnance of the heaviest American artillery in France
+opened a preparatory fire of unprecedented intensity.
+
+At five o'clock in the dim dawn of that September morning, our infantry
+waves leaped from their trenches and moved forward to the assault. The
+claw of the pincers on the eastern flank of the salient began to bite
+in.
+
+One hour later the claw of the pincers on the western flank of the
+salient began to move forward.
+
+On the east, our men went forward on the run over ground that we had
+looked upon with envious eyes from the day that the first American
+troops reached the front. Before noon we had taken the villages of
+Lahayville, St. Baussant, Vilcey and the Bois de Mortmare and we were
+still advancing. By nightfall, our lines were still on the move beyond
+Essey and we were holding the important town of Thiaucourt and claimed
+Villers sur Penny for our own.
+
+The seemingly impregnable fortress of Mont Sec had been surrounded, our
+tanks had cleared the way through Pannes, we had taken Nonsard and the
+towns of Woinville and Buxières had fallen into our hands.
+
+On the west side of the salient the day had gone equally well for us.
+The western claw of the pincers had pushed due east through the towns of
+Spada and Lavigneville. Our men had swept on in the night through
+Chaillon, we had taken St. Remy and had cleared the Forêt de Montagne.
+By midnight their advanced patrols had reached the western part of the
+town of Vigneulles. In the meantime, our forces on the eastern side of
+the salient were pushing westward toward this same town of Vigneulles.
+At three o'clock in the morning the forces from the east were occupying
+the eastern part of the town. The pincers had closed; the St. Mihiel
+salient had been pinched off.
+
+Our forces actually met at nine o'clock on the morning of September
+13th. The junction was made at the town of Heudicourt to the south of
+Vigneulles. We had pocketed all of the German forces to the south of
+that town. Our centre had moved forward at nine o'clock the night before
+and occupied St. Mihiel on the heels of the retreating Germans. But the
+withdrawal was too late. Large numbers of them found themselves
+completely surrounded in the forests between St. Mihiel on the south and
+Heudicourt on the north.
+
+We closed in during the afternoon and started to open the prize
+package. Located in the area, encircled by our troops, was the Bois de
+Versel, the Bois de Gaumont and the Bois de Woeuvre. Each one of these
+little forests gave up its quota of prisoners, while much material and
+rich booty of war fell into our hands.
+
+The principal avenue that had been opened for the Germans to make a
+possible withdrawal led through Vigneulles and before our pincers had
+completely closed, the fleeing enemy had poured out through that gap at
+the rate of several thousand an hour. The roads were blocked for miles
+with their transportation, and when the American artillery turned its
+attention to these thoroughfares, crowded with confused Germans, the
+slaughter was terrific. For days after the battle our sanitation squads
+were busy at their grewsome work.
+
+In conception and execution the entire operation had been perfect.
+Confusion had been visited upon the method-loving enemy from the
+beginning. By reason of the disruption of their intercommunications,
+faulty liaison had resulted and division had called to division in vain
+for assistance, not knowing at the time that all of them were in equally
+desperate straits. The enemy fought hard but to no purpose.
+
+One entire regiment with its commander and his staff was captured. With
+both flanks exposed, it had suddenly been confronted by Americans on
+four sides. The surrender was so complete that the German commander
+requested that his roll should be called in order to ascertain the
+extent of his losses. When this was done, every one was accounted for
+except one officer and one private.
+
+As his command was so embarrassingly complete, the German commander
+asked permission to march it off in whatever direction desired by his
+captors. The request was granted, and there followed the somewhat
+amusing spectacle of an entire German regiment, without arms, marching
+off the battlefield under their own officers. The captured regiment was
+escorted to the rear by mounted American guards, who smilingly and
+leisurely rode their horses cowboy fashion as they herded their captives
+back to the pens.
+
+Tons upon tons of ammunition fell into our hands in the woods. At one
+place twenty-two railroad cars loaded with large calibre ammunition had
+to be abandoned when an American shell had torn up the track to the
+north of them. But if the Germans had been unable to take with them
+their equipment, they had succeeded in driving ahead of them on the
+retreat almost all of the French male civilians between sixteen and
+forty-five years that had been used as German slaves for more than four
+years.
+
+The Americans were welcomed as deliverers by those French civilians that
+remained in the town. They were found to be almost entirely ignorant of
+the most commonly known historical events of the war. Secretary of War
+Baker and Generals Pershing and Petain visited the town of St. Mihiel a
+few hours after it was captured. They were honoured with a spontaneous
+demonstration by the girls and aged women, who crowded about them to
+express thanks and pay homage for deliverance.
+
+One of our bands began to play the "Marseillaise" and the old French
+civilians who, under German domination, had not heard the national
+anthem for four long years, broke down and wept. The mayor of the town
+told how the Germans had robbed it of millions of francs. First they had
+demanded and received one million five hundred thousand francs and later
+they collected five hundred thousand more in three instalments. In
+addition to these robberies, they had taken by "requisition" all the
+furniture and mattresses and civilian comforts that they could find.
+They took what they wanted and usually destroyed the rest. They had
+stripped the towns of all metal utensils, bells, statues, and water
+pipes.
+
+The St. Mihiel salient thus went out of existence. The entire point in
+the blade of the dagger that had been thrust at the heart of France had
+been bitten off. Verdun with its rows upon rows of sacred dead was now
+liberated from the threat of envelopment from the right. The Allies were
+in possession of the dominating heights of the Meuse. The railroads
+connecting Commercy with Vigneulles, Thiaucourt and St. Mihiel were in
+our hands. Our lines had advanced close to that key of victory, the
+Briey iron basin to the north, and the German fortress of Metz lay under
+American guns.
+
+The battle only lasted twenty-seven hours. In that space of time, a
+German force estimated at one hundred thousand had been vanquished, if
+not literally cut to pieces, American soldiers had wrested a hundred and
+fifty square miles of territory away from the Germans, captured fifteen
+thousand officers and men and hundreds of guns. General Pershing on
+September 14th made the following report:
+
+  "The dash and vigour of our troops, and of the valiant French
+  divisions which fought shoulder to shoulder with them, is shown by the
+  fact that the forces attacking on both faces of the salient effected a
+  junction and secured the result desired within twenty-seven hours.
+
+  "Besides liberating more than 150 square miles of territory and taking
+  15,000 prisoners, we have captured a mass of material. Over 100 guns
+  of all calibres and hundreds of machine guns and trench mortars have
+  been taken.
+
+  "In spite of the fact that the enemy during his retreat burned large
+  stores, a partial examination of the battlefield shows that great
+  quantities of ammunition, telegraph material, railroad material,
+  rolling stock, clothing, and equipment have been abandoned. Further
+  evidence of the haste with which the enemy retreated is found in the
+  uninjured bridges which he left behind.
+
+  "French pursuit, bombing and reconnaissance units, and British and
+  Italian bombing units divided with our own air service the control of
+  the air, and contributed materially to the successes of the operation."
+
+And while this great battle was in progress, the Allied lines were
+advancing everywhere. In Flanders, in Picardy, on the Marne, in
+Champagne, in Lorraine, in Alsace, and in the Balkans the frontier of
+freedom was moving forward.
+
+Surely the tide had turned. And surely it had been America's God-given
+opportunity to play the big part she did play. The German was now on the
+run. Suspicious whisperings of peace began to be heard in neutral
+countries. They had a decided German accent. Germany saw defeat staring
+her in the face and now, having failed to win in the field, she sought
+to win by a bluff at the peace table.
+
+The mailed fist having failed, Germany now resorted to cunning. The
+mailed fist was now an open palm that itched to press in brotherhood the
+hands of the Allies. But it was the same fist that struck down the peace
+of the world in 1914. It was the same Germany that had ravished and
+outraged Belgium. It was the same Germany that had tried to murder
+France. It was the same Germany that had covered America with her net of
+spies and had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and Japan.
+It was the same Germany that had ruthlessly destroyed the lives of women
+and children, American citizens, non-combatants, riding the free seas
+under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. It was the same Germany
+that had drugged Russia with her corrupting propaganda and had throttled
+the voice of Russian democracy. This Germany, this unrepentant
+Germany--this unpunished Germany, launched her drive for peace.
+
+Germany was willing to make any concessions to bring about negotiations
+that would save her from a defeat in the field. There was one thing,
+however, that Germany wanted to save from the ruin she had brought down
+upon herself. That thing was the German army and its strong auxiliary,
+the German navy. Neither one of them had been destroyed. The army was in
+general retreat and the navy was locked up in the Baltic, but both of
+them remained in existence as menaces to the future peace of the world.
+With these two forces of might, Germany could have given up her booty of
+war, offered reparation for her transgressions and drawn back behind the
+Rhine to await the coming of another _Der Tag_ when she could send them
+once more crashing across friendly borders and cruising the seven seas
+on missions of piracy.
+
+Germany was in the position of a bully, who without provocation and
+without warning had struck down from behind a man who had not been
+prepared to defend himself. The victim's movements had been impeded by a
+heavy overcoat. He had been utterly and entirely unprepared for the
+onslaught. The bully had struck him with a club and had robbed him.
+
+The unprepared man had tried to free himself from the overcoat of
+pacifism that he had worn so long in safety and in kindliness to his
+fellows. The bully, taking advantage of his handicap, had beaten him
+brutally. At last the unprepared man had freed himself from the
+overcoat and then stood ready not only to defend himself, but to
+administer deserved punishment. Then the bully had said:
+
+"Now, wait just a minute. Let's talk this thing over and see if we can't
+settle it before I get hurt."
+
+The bully's pockets bulge with the loot he has taken from the man. The
+victim's face and head are swollen and bloody and yet the bully invites
+him to sit down to a table to discuss the hold-up, the assault, and the
+terms of which the loot and the loot only will be returned. The bully
+takes it for granted that he is to go unpunished and, more important
+still, is to retain the club that he might decide to use again.
+
+The rule of common sense that deals with individuals should be the same
+rule that applies to the affairs of nations. No municipal law anywhere
+in the world gives countenance to a compromise with a criminal.
+International law could be no less moral than municipal law. Prussian
+militarism made the world unsafe for Democracy, and for that reason, on
+April 6th, 1917, the United States entered the war.
+
+We wanted a decent world in which to live. And the existence of the
+Prussian army and its conscienceless masters was incompatible with the
+free and peaceful life of the world. We entered the war for an ideal.
+That ideal was in the balance when Germany made her 1918 drive for
+peace.
+
+Our army in France knew that if peace came with an unwhipped Prussian
+army in existence, the world would be just as unsafe for Democracy as it
+had ever been. Our army in France wanted no compromise that would leave
+Germany in possession of the instruments that had made possible her
+crimes against the world. Every man that had shed blood, every man that
+had paid the final price, every woman that had shed tears, every
+cherished ideal of our one hundred and forty years of national life,
+would have been sacrificed in vain, if we had condoned Germany's high
+crimes against civilisation and had made a compromise with the criminal.
+
+Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, spokesman of the Allied
+world, sounded the true American note when, in his reply to the
+insincere German peace proposals, he referred the German Government to
+Marshal Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies. War by the sword
+was to bring peace by the sword.
+
+And as I write these lines in the last days of October, 1918,
+unconditional surrender is the song of the dove of peace perched on our
+bayonets as we march into the dawn of victory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE
+
+
+                           =1ST ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Hunter Liggett, commanding.
+
+1st and 2nd Division, Regular Army; 26th, (New England), 32d, (Michigan
+and Wisconsin), 41st, (Washington, Oregon, North and South Dakota,
+Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota), and 42d
+(_Rainbow_, troops from twenty-six States) Divisions, National Guard.
+
+1ST DIVISION--Major Gen. Charles P. Summerall, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Campbell King, Chief of Staff; Major H. K. Loughry, Adjutant General.
+
+1ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major John L. Hines; 16th and 18th Regiments; 2d
+Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+2D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. Beaumont B. Buck; 26th and 28th
+Regiments; 3d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+1ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced); 5th,
+6th, and 7th Regiments; 1st Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--1st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--2nd Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--1st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+2ND DIVISION (U. S. M. C.)--Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune, commanding;
+Brig. Gen. Preston Brown, Chief of Staff.
+
+3RD BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Hanson E. Ely; 9th and 23rd Regiments;
+5th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+4TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY (MARINES)--Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune; 5th and
+6th Regiments; 6th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+2D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig Gen. A. J. Bowley; 12th, 15th, and
+17th Regiments; 2d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--2d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--1st Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--2d Division Headquarters Troops; 4th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+26TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Cassius M. Dowell, Chief of Staff; Major Charles A. Stevens, Adjutant
+General.
+
+51ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Shelton; 101st and 102d
+Regiments; 102d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+52D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. C. H. Cole; 103d and 104th Regiments;
+103d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+51ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. D. E. Aultman; 101st Trench
+Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--101st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--101st Field Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--26th Headquarters Troop; 101st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+32ND DIVISION--Major Gen. W. G. Haan, commanding; Lieut. Col. Allen L.
+Briggs, Chief of Staff; Major John H. Howard, Adjutant General.
+
+63D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. William D. Connor; 125th and 126th
+Regiments; 120th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+64TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. E. B. Winans; 127th and 128th
+Regiments; 121st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+57TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. G. LeRoy Irwin; 119th, 120th
+and 121st Regiments; 107th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--107th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--107th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--32d Headquarters Troops; 119th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+41ST DIVISION (_Sunset_)--Major. Gen. Robert Alexander, commanding;
+Colonel Harry H. Tebbetts, Chief of Staff; Major Herbert H. White,
+Adjutant General.
+
+81ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Wilson B. Burt; 161st and 162nd
+Regiments; 147th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+82D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward Vollrath; 163rd and 164th
+Regiments; 148th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+66TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+146th, 147th, and 148th Regiments; 116th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--116th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--116th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--41st Division Headquarters Troop; 146th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+42D DIVISION (_Rainbow_)--Major Gen. C. T. Menoher, commanding; (Chief
+of Staff not announced); Major Walter E. Powers, Adjutant General.
+
+83D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. M. Lenihan; 165th and 166th Regiments;
+150th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+84TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. R. A. Brown; 167th and 168th
+Regiments; 151st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+67TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. G. C. Gatley; 149th, 150th and
+151st Regiments; 117th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--117th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--117th Field Signal Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--42d Division Headquarters Troop; 149th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =2ND ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, Commanding.
+
+4th Division, Regular Army; 28th, (Pennsylvania,) 30th, (Tennessee,
+North and South Carolina, and District of Columbia), and 36th (Missouri
+and Kansas) Divisions, National Guard; 77th (New York) and 82d (Georgia,
+Alabama, and Florida) Divisions, National Army.
+
+4TH DIVISION--Major Gen. George H. Cameron, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Christian A. Bach, Chief of Staff; Major Jesse D. Elliott, Adjutant
+General.
+
+7TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. B. A. Poore; 39th and 47th Regiments;
+11th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+8TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. E. E. Booth; 58th and 59th Regiments;
+12th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+4TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. E. B. Babbitt; 13th, 16th and
+77th Regiments; 4th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--4th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS---8th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--4th Division Headquarters Troop; 10th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+28TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. H. Muir, commanding; (Chief of Staff not
+announced); Lieut. Col. David J. Davis, Adjutant General.
+
+55TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. T. W. Darrah; 109th and 110th
+Regiments; 108th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+56TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. William Weigel; 111th and 112th
+Regiments; 109th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+53RD BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. W. G. Price, 107th, 108th,
+and 109th Regiments; 103rd Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--103d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--103d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--28th Division Headquarters Troop; 107th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+30TH DIVISION (_Wild Cat_)--Major Gen. Edward M. Lewis, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Robert B. McBride, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Francis B.
+Hinkle, Adjutant General.
+
+59TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Tyson; 117th and 118th
+Regiments; 114th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+60TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Samuel L. Faison; 119th and 120th
+Regiments; 115th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+55TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+113th, 114th and 115th Regiments; 105th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--105th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--165th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--30th Division Headquarters Troop; 113th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+35TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Peter E. Traub, commanding; Colonel Robert
+McCleave, Chief of Staff; Major J. M. Hobson, Adjutant General.
+
+69TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Nathaniel McClure; 137th and 138th
+Regiments; 129th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+70TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Charles I. Martin; 139th and 140th
+Regiments; 130th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+60TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. L. G. Berry; 128th, 129th, and
+130th Regiments; 110th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--110th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--35th Division Headquarters Troop; 128th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+77TH DIVISION (Upton)--Major Gen. George B. Duncan, commanding; (Chief
+of Staff not announced); Major W. N. Haskell, Adjutant General.
+
+153D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward Wittenmeyer; 205th and 306th
+Regiments; 305th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+154TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson; 307th and 308th
+Regiments; 306th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+152D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Reeves; 304th, 305th
+and 306th Regiments; 302d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--302d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--302d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--77th Division Headquarters Troop; 304th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+82D DIVISION--Major Gen. W. P. Burnham, commanding; Lieut. Col. Royden
+E. Beebe, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. John R. Thomas, Adjutant General.
+
+163D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Marcus D. Cronin; 325th and 326th
+Regiments; 320th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+164TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Julian R. Lindsay; 327th and 328th
+Regiments; 321st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+157TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Charles D. Rhodes; 319th,
+320th and 321st Regiments; 307th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--307th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--307th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--319th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+                           =3D ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. William M. Wright, commanding.
+
+3d and 5th Divisions, Regular Army; 27th (New York) and 33d (Illinois)
+Divisions, National Guard; 78th (Delaware and New York) and 80th (New
+Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia)
+Divisions, National Army.
+
+
+3D DIVISION--Major Gen. Joseph T. Dickman, commanding; Colonel Robert H.
+Kelton, Chief of Staff; Captain Frank L. Purndon, Adjutant General.
+
+5TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. F. W. Sladen; 4th and 7th Regiments;
+8th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+8TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 30th and 38th
+Regiments; 9th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+3D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. W. M. Cruikshank; 10th, 76th and
+18th Regiments; 3d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--6th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--5th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--3d Division Headquarters Troop; 7th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+5TH DIVISION--Major Gen. John E. McMahon, commanding; Colonel Ralph E.
+Ingram, Chief of Staff; Major David P. Wood, Adjutant General.
+
+9TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. J. C. Castner; 60th and 61st
+Regiments; 14th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+10TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. W. H. Gordon; 6th and 11th Regiments;
+15th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+5TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler; 19th, 20th,
+and 21st Regiments; 5th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--7th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--9th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--5th Division Headquarters Troop; 13th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+27TH DIVISION (New York)--Major Gen. J. F. O'Ryan, commanding; Lieut.
+Col. Stanley H. Ford, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Frank W. Ward,
+Adjutant General.
+
+53D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Bjornstad; 105th and 106th
+Regiments; 105th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+54TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Palmer E. Pierce; 107th and 108th
+Regiments; 106th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+52ND BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. George A. Wingate; 104th,
+105th and 106th Regiments; 102d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--102d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--102d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--27th Division Headquarters Troop; 104th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+33D DIVISION--Major Gen. George Bell, Jr., commanding; Colonel William
+K. Naylot, Chief of Staff; (Adjutant General not announced).
+
+65TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward L. King; 129th and 130th
+Regiments; 123d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+66TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Paul A. Wolff; 131st and 132nd
+Regiments; 124th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+58TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. James A. Shipton; 122d, 123d
+and 124th Regiments; 108th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--108th Battalion.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--108th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--33d Division Headquarters Troop; 112th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+78TH DIVISION--Major Gen. James H. McRae, commanding; Lieut. Col. Harry
+N. Cootes, Chief of Staff; Major William T. MacMill, Adjutant General.
+
+155TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Mark L. Hersey; 309th and 310th
+Regiments; 308th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+156TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. James T. Dean; 311th and 312th
+Regiments; 309th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+153D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Clint C. Hearn; 307th, 308th
+and 309th Regiments; 303d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--303d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--303d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--78th Division Headquarters Troop; 307th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+80TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Adelbert Cronkhite, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+William H. Waldron, Chief of Staff; Major Steven C. Clark, Adjutant
+General.
+
+159TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Jamerson, 317th and 318th
+Regiments; 314th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+160TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Lloyd M. Bratt; 319th and 320th
+Regiments; 315th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+155TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Gordon G. Heiner; 313th,
+314th and 315th Regiments; 305th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--305th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--305th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--80th Division Headquarters Troop; 313th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =4TH ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. George W. Read, commanding.
+
+83d (Ohio and Pennsylvania), 89th (Kansas, Missouri South Dakota,
+Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona), 90th (Texas and Oklahoma),
+and 92d (negro troops) Divisions, National Army; 37th (Ohio) and 29th
+(New Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and District of Columbia)
+Divisions, National Guard.
+
+
+29TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. G. Morton, commanding; Colonel George S.
+Goodale, Chief of Staff; Major James A. Ulio, Adjutant General.
+
+57TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Charles W. Barber; 113th and 114th
+Regiments; 111th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+58TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz; 115th and 116th
+Regiments; 112th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+54TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced) 110th,
+111th and 112th Regiments; 104th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--104th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--104th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--29th Division Headquarters Troop; 110th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+37TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. S. Farnsworth, commanding; Lieut. Col. Dana
+T. Merrill, Chief of Staff; Major Edward W. Wildrick, Adjutant General.
+
+73RD BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. C. F. Zimmerman; 145th and 146th
+Regiments; 135th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+74TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. P. Jackson; 147th and 148th
+Regiments; 136th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+62D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced); 134th,
+135th and 136th Regiments; 112th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--112th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--112th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--37th Division Headquarters Troop; 134th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+83RD DIVISION--Major Gen. E. F. Glenn, commanding; Lieut. Col. C. A.
+Trott, Chief of Staff; Major James L. Cochran, Adjutant General.
+
+165TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Ora E. Hunt; 329th and 330th
+Regiments; 323d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+166TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Malin Craig; 331st and 332d
+Regiments; 324th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+158TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Adrian S. Fleming; 322d,
+323d, and 324th Regiments; 308th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--308th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--308th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--83d Division Headquarters Troop; 322d Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+89TH DIVISION--Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn, commanding; (Acting) Colonel C.
+E. Kilbourne, Chief of Staff; Major Jerome G. Pillow, Adjutant General.
+
+177TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn; 353rd and 354th
+Regiments; 341st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+178TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Hanson; 355th and 356th
+Regiments; 342d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+164TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Edward T. Donnelly; 340th,
+341st and 342d Regiments; 314th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--314th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--314th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--89th Division Headquarters Troop; 340th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+90TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding; Colonel John J.
+Kingman, Chief of Staff; Major Wyatt P. Selkirk, Adjutant General.
+
+179TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John T. O'Neill; 357th and 358th
+Regiments; 344th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+180TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. H. Johnston; 359th and 360th
+Regiments; 345th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+165TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Francis C. Marshall; 343d,
+344th, and 345th Regiments; 315th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--315th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--315th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--90th Division Headquarters Troop; 349th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+92ND DIVISION--Major Gen. C. C. Ballou, commanding; Lieut. Col. Allen J.
+Greer, Chief of Staff; Major Sherburne Whipple, Adjutant General.
+
+183D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Malvern H. Barnum, 365th and 366th
+Regiments; 350th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+184TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. A. Hay; 367th and 368th
+Regiments; 351st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+167TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+349th, 350th and 351st Regiments; 317th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--317th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--317th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--92d Division Headquarters Troop; 349th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =5TH ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Omar Bundy, commanding.
+
+6th Division, Regular Army; 36th (Texas and Oklahoma) Division, National
+Guard; 75th (New England), 79th (Pennsylvania, Maryland and District of
+Columbia), 85th (Michigan and Wisconsin), and 91st (Washington, Oregon,
+Alaska, California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Utah),
+Divisions, National Army.
+
+
+6TH DIVISION--Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, commanding; Colonel James M.
+Pickering, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Robert S. Knox, Adjutant General.
+
+11TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. R. Dashiell; 51st and 52d
+Regiments; 17th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+12TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. J. B. Erwin; 53d and 54th Regiments;
+18th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+6TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. E. A. Millar; 3rd, 11th, and
+78th Regiments; 6th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--318th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--6th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--6th Division, Headquarters Troop; 16th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+36TH DIVISION--Major Gen. W. R. Smith, commanding; Colonel E. J.
+Williams, Chief of Staff; Major William R. Scott, Adjutant General.
+
+71ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Henry Hutchings; 141st and 142d
+Regiments; 132d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+72D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John A. Hulen; 143d and 144th
+Regiments; 133d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+61ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. John A. Stevens; 131st, 132d
+and 133d Regiments, 111th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--111th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--111th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--36th Division Headquarters Troop; 131st Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+76TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Harry F. Hodges, commanding; (Chief of Staff
+not announced); Major George M. Peek, Adjutant General.
+
+151ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frank M. Albright; 301st and 302d
+Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+152D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. F. D. Evans; 303d and 304th
+Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+151ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Major Gen. William S. McNair; 301st,
+302d, and 303d Regiments; 301st Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--301st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--301st Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--76th Division Headquarters Troop; 301st Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+79TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn, commanding; Colonel Tenny
+Ross, Chief of Staff; Major Charles B. Moore, Adjutant General.
+
+157TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. William L. Nicholson; 313th and
+314th Regiments; 311th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+158TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 315th and
+316th Regiments; 312th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+154TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Andrew Hero, Jr., 310th,
+311th and 312th Regiments; 304th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--304th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--304th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--79th Division Headquarters Troop; 310th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+85TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. W. Kennedy, commanding; Colonel Edgar T.
+Collins, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Clarence Lininger, Adjutant
+General.
+
+169TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Thomas B. Dugan; 337th and 338th
+Regiments; 329th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+170TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 339th and
+340th Regiments; 330th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+160TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Guy M. Preston; 328th, 329th
+and 330th Regiments; 310th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--310th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--310th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--85th Division Headquarters Troop; 328th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+91ST DIVISION--Brig. Gen. F. H. Foltz, commanding; Colonel Herbert J.
+Brees, Chief of Staff; Major Frederick W. Manley, Adjutant General.
+
+181ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John B. McDonald; 361st and 362d
+Regiments; 347th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+182D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frederick S. Foltz; 363d and 364th
+Regiments; 348th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+166TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Edward Burr; 346th, 347th and
+348th Regiments; 316th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--316th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--316th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--91st Division Headquarters Troop; 346th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                        =UNASSIGNED TO CORPS=
+
+81ST DIVISION--Major Gen. C. J. Bailey, commanding; Colonel Charles D.
+Roberts, Chief of Staff; Major Arthur E. Ahrends, Adjutant General.
+
+161ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George W. McIver; 321st and 322nd
+Regiments; 317th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+162D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Monroe McFarland; 323d and 324th
+Regiments; 318th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+156TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Andrew Moses; 316th, 317th
+and 318th Regiments; 306th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--306th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--306th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--81st Division Headquarters Troop; 316th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+93RD DIVISION--(Commander not announced); Major Lee S. Tillotson,
+Adjutant General.
+
+185TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 369th and
+370th Regiments; 333d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+186TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Harries; 371st and 372d
+Regiments; 334th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+168TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+332d, 333d and 334th Regiments; 318th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--318th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--318th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--332d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcribers Notes
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
+
+3. Obvious punctuation errors and omissions in original text have been
+   repaired.
+
+4. Text spelling was common at the time of its publication.
+
+5. ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT - Spelling, accent and hypenation corrections have
+   been made to conform with text.
+
+6. pg. xi (M. FLOYS GIBBONS) appears in the original text of the letter
+   and has been corrected to M. FLOYD GIBBONS.
+
+7. pg. xvii - Table of Contents - Chapter XVIII, pg. 328; the chapter
+   correctly starts on Pg. 338 - this was corrected.
+
+8. The word manoeuvre uses an oe ligatgure in the original text, and
+   has be here represented as oe.
+
+9. All possibly dialectic-phonetic phrases have been retained, including
+   the following;
+
+   pg. 31 - "stear" (steer), (we can stear with an oar), quote
+   pg. 91 - "Sourkraut" (Sauerkraut), (German as Sourkraut), remembrance
+   pg. 276 - "dimonds" (diamonds), (filled wid dimonds), quote
+   pg. 370 - "Lueger" (Luger), (of the Lueger make), remembrance
+
+10. 21 Spelling corrections: (x) shows no. of times word was already
+    correctly spelled in text.
+
+   pg. xv - "citatation" to "citation" (he received a citation)
+   pg. 38 - "tatooed" to "tattooed" (tattooed arms of the)
+   pg. 50 - "Harboard" to "Harbord" (4) (Brigadier General Harbord)
+   pg. 73 - "practise" to "practice" (9), (began to practice)
+   pg. 99 - "surpised" to "surprised" (I was not surprised)
+   pg. 107 - "dicharge" to "discharge" (signal for the discharge)
+   pg. 139 - "aves-vous" to "avez-vous" (3) (Aves-vous de chevaux?)
+   pg. 143 - "Nicholas" to "Nicolas" (2) (Saint-Nicolas-du-Port)
+   pg. 157 - "milimetre" to "millimetre" (2), (battery of 150 millimetre)
+   pg. 208 - "Ukelele" to "Ukulele" (tending the Ukulele crop)
+   pg. 222 - "perigrinations" to "peregrinations" (trace the
+             peregrinations)
+   pg. 248 - "harrassed" to "harassed" (harassed the road intersections)
+   pg. 315 - "ricochetted" to "ricocheted" (had ricocheted upward)
+   pg. 346 - "desposit" to "deposit" (would solemnly deposit)
+   pg. 349 - "McDougal" to "MacDougal" (7), (MacDougal then began)
+   pg. 365 - "turrent" to "turret" (the tank's turret)
+   pg. 367 - "blow" to "blown" (trunks were blown high)
+   pg. 376 - "barracades" to "barricades" (built barracades across)
+   pg. 382 - "distingushed" to "distinguished" (that so distinguished
+             itself)
+   pg. 383 - "reconnaisance" to "reconnaissance" (2), (making a
+             reconnaissance).
+   pg. 391 - "knowng" to "knowing" (knowing at the time)
+
+
+11. 17 hyphenation, Capitalization or diacritical accent corrections made
+    as follows:
+
+   pg. xi - "ARMEES" to "ARMÉES" (2) (DES ARMÉES DU NORD) - Fr.
+   pg. 24 - "victrola" to "Victrola" ( a cabinet Victrola) - Trademark
+   pg. 88 - "coryphees" to "coryphées" (male coryphées who hold) - Fr.
+   pg. 88 - "under-sized" to "undersized" (2), (toughest set of
+            undersized)
+   pg. 111 - "zigzagging" to "zig-zagging" (3) (through zig-zagging
+             avenues)
+   pg. 183 - "hand grenades" to "hand-grenades" (2), (post with
+             hand-grenades)
+   pg. 194 - "counter-battery" to "counter battery" (3) (casual counter
+             battery work)
+   pg. 232 - "debris" to "débris" (4) (person in the débris)
+   pg. 251 - "debris" to "débris (4) (the débris ceased falling)
+   pg. 269 - "tricolour" to "tri-colour" (2) (of the French tri-colour)
+   pg. 274 - "Americains" to "Américains" (les bons Américains) - Fr.
+   pg. 307 - "Chatel" to "Châtel" (La Voie du Châtel) - Fr.
+   pg. 367 - "dug-outs" to "dugouts" (10), (crushed the enemy dugouts)
+   pg. 370 - "t'-ell" to "t'ell" (Allay veet t'ell outer here), as on pg.
+             275.
+   pg. 373 - "dug-out" to "dugout" (24), (in a dugout with)
+   pg. 383 - "Thibault" to "Thiébault" (9) (east of St. Thiébault)
+   pg. 385 - "country-side" to "countryside" (5), (no fairer countryside)
+
+
+12. List of same word variations appearing in this text which have been
+    retained.
+
+   "cooperation" (1) and "co-operation" (1)
+   "dockside" (1) and "dock-side" (1)
+   "farmhouse" (1) and "farm-house" (1)
+   "heartbroken" (1) and "heart-break" (1)
+   "manpower" (1) and "man-power" (1)
+   "midday" (1) and "mid-day" (1)
+   "old-timer" (1), "old-timers" (2), "old timer" (3)
+   "well kept" (1) and "well-kept" (1)
+
+
+13. Printers error correction;
+
+   pg 394: - two lines of text were exchanged as follows:
+
+   original text;
+
+                                 "It was the same Germany
+   many that had covered America with her net of spies and
+   that had tried to murder France. It was the same Ger-
+   had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"
+
+   as corrected;
+
+                                  "It was the same Germany
+   that had tried to murder France. It was the same Germany
+   that had covered America with her net of spies and
+   had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by 
+Floyd Gibbons
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by Floyd Gibbons
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "And they thought we wouldn't fight"
+
+Author: Floyd Gibbons
+
+Release Date: January 26, 2010 [EBook #31086]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Christine Aldridge, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p>
+1. Minor print errors corrected. Details at the end of this text.<br />
+2. All dialect spelling has been retained.<br />
+</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;">
+<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="399" height="602" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="titleb">
+<h1>"AND THEY THOUGHT WE<br />
+WOULDN'T FIGHT"</h1>
+<br />
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>FLOYD GIBBONS</h2>
+<br />
+<h5>OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENT OF <i>THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE</i>,<br />
+ACCREDITED TO THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES</h5>
+<br />
+<br />
+<h3>NEW YORK</h3>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 65px;">
+<img src="images/publogo.png" width="65" height="66" alt="Publishers Logo" title="" />
+</div>
+<h3>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Copyright, 1918</i>,<br />
+<i>By George H. Doran Company</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>Printed in the United States of America</i><br />
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter3" style="width: 305px;">
+<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="305" height="400" alt="FLOYD GIBBONS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">FLOYD GIBBONS</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<h5>TO</h5>
+<h3>GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING</h3>
+<h5>AND</h5>
+<h3>THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES</h3>
+<h4>I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS INADEQUATE RECORD<br />
+IN REVERENT MEMORY OF<br />
+OUR SACRED DEAD<br />
+ON FIELDS IN FRANCE</h4>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>ACKNOWLEDGMENT</h3>
+<div class='center'>
+The author expresses his hearty thanks<br />
+to <i>The Chicago Tribune</i> for the opportunity<br />
+he enjoyed as a correspondent of<br />
+that paper, in the service of which he secured<br />
+the material for these papers.<br /></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>
+Personal.<br /></p>
+<div class='center'>
+AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES<br />
+OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF<br />
+</div>
+<p class='quotdate'>France, August 17, 1918.</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Floyd Gibbons,<br />
+Care Chicago Tribune,<br />
+420 Sue Saint-Honore,<br />
+Paris.<br />
+<br />
+Dear Mr. Gibbons:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>At this time, when you are returning
+to America, I wish to express to you my
+appreciation of the cordial cooperation
+and assistance you have always given us
+in your important work as correspondent
+of the Chicago Tribune in France. I
+also wish to congratulate you on the honor
+which the French government has done you
+in giving you the Croix de Guerre, which
+is but a just reward for the consistent
+devotion to your duty and personal bravery
+that you have exhibited.</p>
+
+<p>My personal regrets that you are
+leaving us at this time are lessened by
+the knowledge of the great opportunity
+you will have of giving to our people in
+America a true picture of the work of the
+American soldier in France and of impressing
+on them the necessity of carrying on
+this work to the end, which can be accomplished
+only by victory for the Allied
+arms. You have a great opportunity, and
+I am confident that you will grasp it,
+as you have grasped your past opportunities,
+with success. You have always
+played the game squarely and with
+courage, and I wish to thank you.</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+Sincerely yours,<br />
+<br />
+John J. Pershing.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p class='quotdate'>G. Q. G. A. le July 28, 1918.<br /></p>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Commandement en Chef</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">des Armées Allies</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Le Général</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Monsieur</span>,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I understand that you are going to the United States
+to give lectures on what you have seen on the French front.</p>
+
+<p>No one is more qualified than you to do this, after your
+brilliant conduct in the Bois de Belleau.</p>
+
+<p>The American Army has proved itself to be magnificent
+in spirit, in gallantry and in vigor; it has contributed largely
+to our successes. If you can thus be the echo of my opinion
+I am sure you will serve a good purpose.</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+Very sincerely yours,<br />
+(<i>Signed</i>) <span class="smcap">F. Foch.</span><br />
+<br /></p>
+<p><span class="smcap">Monsieur Floyd Gibbons</span>,<br />
+War Correspondent of the Chicago <i>Tribune</i>.<br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p class='quotdate'>G.Q.G.A. <i>Le</i> 28 Juillet 1918.</p>
+<p>
+<i>Commandement en Chef</i><br />
+<i>des Armies Allies</i><br />
+<i>Le Général</i><br />
+<br />
+Monsieur,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Je sais que vous allez donner des conférences aux
+Etats-Unis pour raconter ce que vous avez vu sur le front
+français.</p>
+
+<p>Personne n'est plus qualifié que vous pour le faire,
+après votre brillante conduite au Bois BELLEAU.</p>
+
+<p>L'Armée Américaine se montre magnifique de sentiments,
+de valeur et d'entrain, elle a contribué pour une large part
+à nos succès. Si vous pouvez être l'écho de mon opinion, je
+n'y verrai qu'avantage.</p>
+
+<p>Croyez, Monsieur, à mes meilleurs sentiments.</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+F. Foch</p>
+<p>Monsieur FLOYD GIBBONS<br />
+Correspondant de Guerre du CHICAGO TRIBUNE.<br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p>
+GRAND QUARTIER GÉNÉRAL<br />
+DES ARMÉES DU NORD ET DU NORD EST<br />
+ETAT-MAJOR<br />
+BUREAU DU PERSONNEL<br />
+(Decorations)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+<span class="smcap">Order No. 8809 D</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>The General Commander-in-Chief Cites for the <i>Croix
+de Guerre</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">M. Floyd Gibbons</span>, War Correspondent of the Chicago
+<i>Tribune</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"Has time after time given proof of his courage and
+bravery by going to the most exposed posts to gather
+information. On June 5, 1918, while accompanying a regiment
+of marines who were attacking a wood, he was severely
+wounded by three machine gun bullets in going to
+the rescue of an American officer wounded near him&mdash;demonstrating,
+by this action, the most noble devotion.
+When, a few hours later, he was lifted and transported to
+the dressing station, he begged not to be cared for until the
+wounded who had arrived before him had been attended
+to."</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+General Headquarters, August 2, 1918<br />
+<span class="smcap">The General Commander-in-Chief</span><br />
+(<i>Signed</i>) <span class="smcap">Petain</span><br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p>
+GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL<br />
+DES ARMÉES DU NORD ET DU NORD-EST<br />
+ETAT-MAJOR<br />
+BUREAU DU PERSONNEL<br />
+(Décorations)<br /></p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+ORDRE N<sup>o</sup> 8809 D</p>
+
+<p>
+Le Général Commandant en Chef Cite à l'Ordre de l'Armée:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>M. FLOYD GIBBONS</i>, Correspondant de Guerre du Chicago Tribune:</p>
+
+<p>"A donné à maintes reprises des preuves de courage et de bravoure,
+en allant recueillir des informations aux postes les plus
+exposés. Le 5 Juin 1918, accompagnant un régiment de Fusiliers marins
+qui attaquait un bois, a été très grièvement atteint de trois balles
+de mitrailleuses en se portant au secours d'un officier américain
+blessé à ses côtés, faisant ainsi preuve, en cette circonstance, du
+plus beau dévouement. Relevé plusieurs heures après et transporté au
+poste de secours, a demandé à ne pas être soigné avant les blessés
+arrivés avant lui."</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+Au Grand Quartier Général, le 2 Aout 1918.<br />
+LE GÉNÉRAL COMMANDANT EN CHEF.<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+Petain</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FOREWORD</h2>
+
+
+<p>Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayonets,
+has written that no man is more qualified than Gibbons
+to tell the true story of the Western Front. General
+Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary
+Forces, has said that it was Gibbons' great
+opportunity to give the people in America a life-like
+picture of the work of the American soldier in France.</p>
+
+<p>The key to the book is the man.</p>
+
+<p>Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came
+from Pancho Villa that any "Gringos" found in Mexico
+would be killed on sight. The American people were interested
+in the Revolution at the border. Gibbons went
+into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff.
+He did more. He fitted out a box car, attached it to the
+revolutionary bandits' train and was in the thick of three
+of Villa's biggest battles. Gibbons brought out of Mexico
+the first authoritative information on the Mexican
+situation. The following year the War Department accredited
+him to General Pershing's punitive expedition
+and he rode with the flying column led by General Pershing
+when it crossed the border.</p>
+
+<p>In 1917, the then Imperial German Government announced
+to the world that on and after February 1st its
+submarines would sink without warning any ship that
+ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of
+the North Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>Gibbons sensed the meaning of this impudent challenge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
+He saw ahead the overt act that was bound to
+come and be the cause of the United States entering the
+war. In these days the cry of "Preparedness" was echoing
+the land. England had paid dearly for her lack of
+preparedness. The inefficient volunteer system had cost
+her priceless blood. The <i>Chicago Tribune</i> sought the
+most available newspaper man to send to London and
+write the story of England's costly mistakes for the
+profit of the American people. Gibbons was picked for
+the mission and arrangement was made for him to travel
+on the steamer by which the discredited Von Bernstorff
+was to return to Germany. The ship's safe conduct
+was guaranteed. Gibbons did not like this feature of
+the trip. He wanted to ride the seas in a ship without
+guarantees. His mind was on the overt act. He wanted
+to be on the job when it happened. He cancelled the
+passage provided for him on the Von Bernstorff ship
+and took passage on the largest liner in port, a ship large
+enough to be readily seen through a submarine periscope
+and important enough to attract the special attention of
+the German Admiralty. He sailed on the <i>Laconia</i>, an
+eighteen thousand ton Cunarder.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of February 27, 1917, when the <i>Laconia</i>
+was two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, the Gibbons'
+"hunch" was fulfilled. The <i>Laconia</i> was torpedoed
+and suck. After a perilous night in a small boat
+on the open sea, Gibbons was rescued and brought into
+Queenstown. He opened the cables and flashed to America
+the most powerful call to arms to the American
+people. It shook the country. It was the testimony of an
+eye witness and it convinced the Imperial German Government,
+beyond all reasonable doubt, of the wilful and
+malicious murder of American citizens. The Gibbons
+story furnished the proof of the overt act and it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
+unofficially admitted at Washington that it was the determining
+factor in sending America into the war one
+month later.</p>
+
+<p>Gibbons greeted Pershing on the latter's landing in
+Liverpool. He accompanied the commander of the
+American Expeditionary Forces across the Channel and
+was at his side when he put foot on French soil. He was
+one of the two American correspondents to march with
+the first American troops that entered the trenches on
+the Western front. He was with the first American
+troops to cross the German frontier. He was with the
+artillery battalion that fired the first American shell
+into Germany.</p>
+
+<p>On June 6th, 1918, Gibbons went "over the top" with
+the first waves in the great battle of the Bois de Belleau.
+Gibbons was with Major John Berry, who, while leading
+the charge, fell wounded. Gibbons saw him fall. Through
+the hail of lead from a thousand spitting machine guns,
+he rushed to the assistance of the wounded Major. A
+German machine gun bullet shot away part of his left
+shoulder, but this did not stop Gibbons. Another bullet
+smashed through his arm, but still Gibbons kept on. A
+third bullet got him. It tore out his left eye and made a
+compound fracture of the skull. For three hours he lay
+conscious on the open field in the Bois de Belleau with a
+murderous machine gun fire playing a few inches over his
+head until under cover of darkness he was able to crawl
+off the field. For his gallant conduct he received a citation
+from General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the
+French Armies, and the French Government awarded him
+the Croix de Guerre with the Palm.</p>
+
+<p>On July 5th, he was out of the hospital and back at
+the front, covering the first advance of the Americans
+with the British forces before Amiens. On July 18th he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
+was the only correspondent with the American troops
+when they executed the history-making drive against the
+German armies in the Château-Thierry salient&mdash;the beginning
+of the German end. He rode with the first detachment
+of American troops that entered Château-Thierry
+upon the heels of the retreating Germans.</p>
+
+<p>Floyd Gibbons was the first to sound the alarm of the
+danger of the German peace offensive. Six weeks before
+the drive for a negotiated peace was made by the German
+Government against the home flank in America, Gibbons
+told that it was on the way. He crossed the Atlantic
+with his crippled arm in a sling and his head bandaged,
+to spend his convalescence warning American audiences
+against what he called the "Crooked Kamerad Cry."</p>
+
+<p>Gibbons has lived the war, he has been a part of it.
+"And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight" is the voice
+of our men in France.</p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+<span class="smcap">Frank Comerford</span>.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary='Contents'>
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td class='tcol3'>PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>I</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE SINKING OF THE <i>Laconia</i></td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>II</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>III</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>IV</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>V</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>VI</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>"FRONTWARD HO!"</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>VII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>INTO THE LINE&mdash;THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>VIII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>IX</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>X</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XI</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>UNDER FIRE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>BEFORE CANTIGNY</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS&mdash;"ZERO AT 2 A. M."</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIV</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>ON LEAVE IN PARIS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_266">266</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XV</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVI</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>WOUNDED&mdash;HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>"GOOD MORNING, NURSE"</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_323">323</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XVIII</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XIX</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>"JULY 18TH"&mdash;THE TURN OF THE TIDE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>XX</td>
+<td class='tcol2'>THE DAWN OF VICTORY</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_376">376</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol1'>APPENDIX</td><td></td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td></td>
+<td class='tcol2'>PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_399">399</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>FLOYD GIBBONS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_v"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td class='tcol3'>PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING,
+ MR. PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN OFFICERS
+ IN THE USE OF THE ONE POUNDER</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE THIS 155 MM.
+ GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS
+ IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, LIKE A STEAM ROLLER</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICANS KILLED IN FRANCE. TRANSLATION:
+ HERE LIE THE FIRST SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
+ FALLEN ON FRENCH SOIL FOR JUSTICE AND FOR LIBERTY, NOVEMBER 3RD, 1918</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY.
+ THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS CHARS D'ASSAUTS, ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS,
+ SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHÂTEAU-THIERRY WHERE IN THE MIDDLE
+ OF JULY THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHÂTEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED BY GERMANS
+ IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>THE NEWS FROM THE STATES</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class='tcol4'>SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS</td>
+<td class='tcol3'><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<p>(<i>Photographs Copyright by Committee on Public Information.</i>)</p></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>
+"AND THEY THOUGHT WE<br />
+WOULDN'T FIGHT"</h2>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</a></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SINKING OF THE <i>Laconia</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Between America and the firing line, there are three
+thousand miles of submarine infested water. Every American
+soldier, before encountering the dangers of the battle-front,
+must first overcome the dangers of the deep.</p>
+
+<p>Geographically, America is almost four thousand miles
+from the war zone, but in fact every American soldier
+bound for France entered the war zone one hour out of
+New York harbour. Germany made an Ally out of the
+dark depths of the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>That three-thousand-mile passage represented greater
+possibilities for the destruction of the United States overseas
+forces than any strategical operation that Germany's
+able military leaders could direct in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Germany made use of that three thousand miles of
+water, just as she developed the use of barbed wire entanglements
+along the front. Infantry advancing across
+No Man's Land were held helpless before the enemy's
+fire by barbed wire entanglements. Germany, with her
+submarine policy of ruthlessness, changed the Atlantic
+Ocean into another No Man's Land across which every
+American soldier had to pass at the mercy of the enemy
+before he could arrive at the actual battle-front.</p>
+
+<p>This was the peril of the troop ship. This was the
+tremendous advantage which the enemy held over our
+armies even before they reached the field. This was the
+unprecedented condition which the United States and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+Allied navies had to cope with in the great undertaking
+of transporting our forces overseas.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who has crossed the ocean, even in the normal
+times before shark-like Kultur skulked beneath the water,
+has experienced the feeling of human helplessness that
+comes in mid-ocean when one considers the comparative
+frailty of such man-made devices as even the most
+modern turbine liners, with the enormous power of the
+wilderness of water over which one sails.</p>
+
+<p>In such times one realises that safety rests, first upon
+the kindliness of the elements; secondly, upon the skill
+and watchfulness of those directing the voyage, and
+thirdly, upon the dependability of such human-made
+things as engines, propellers, steel plates, bolts and rivets.</p>
+
+<p>But add to the possibilities of a failure or a misalliance
+of any or all of the above functions, the greater
+danger of a diabolical human, yet inhuman, interference,
+directed against the seafarer with the purpose and intention
+of his destruction. This last represents the greatest
+odds against those who go to sea during the years of the
+great war.</p>
+
+<p>A sinking at sea is a nightmare. I have been through
+one. I have been on a ship torpedoed in mid-ocean. I
+have stood on the slanting decks of a doomed liner; I
+have listened to the lowering of the life-boats, heard the
+hiss of escaping steam and the roar of ascending rockets
+as they tore lurid rents in the black sky and cast their
+red glare o'er the roaring sea.</p>
+
+<p>I have spent a night in an open boat on the tossing
+swells. I have been through, in reality, the mad dream
+of drifting and darkness and bailing and pulling on the
+oars and straining aching eyes toward an empty, meaningless
+horizon in search of help. I shall try to tell you
+how it feels.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had been assigned by <i>The Chicago Tribune</i> to go to
+London as their correspondent. Almost the same day I
+received that assignment, the "Imperial" Government of
+Germany had invoked its ruthless submarine policy, had
+drawn a blockade zone about the waters of the British
+Isles and the coasts of France, and had announced to
+the world that its U-boats would sink without warning
+any ship, of any kind, under any flag, that tried to sail
+the waters that Germany declared prohibitory.</p>
+
+<p>In consideration of my personal safety and, possibly,
+of my future usefulness, the <i>Tribune</i> was desirous of
+arranging for me a safe passage across the Atlantic.
+Such an opportunity presented itself in the ordered return
+of the disgraced and discredited German Ambassador
+to the United States, Count von Bernstorff.</p>
+
+<p>Under the rules of International courtesy, a ship had
+been provided for the use of von Bernstorff and his diplomatic
+staff. That ship was to sail under absolute guarantees
+of safe conduct from all of the nations at war with
+Germany and, of course, it would also have been safe
+from attack by German submarines. That ship was the
+<i>Frederick VIII</i>. At considerable expense the <i>Tribune</i>
+managed to obtain for me a cabin passage on that ship.</p>
+
+<p>I can't say that I was over-impressed with the prospect
+of travel in such company. I disliked the thought
+that I, an American citizen, with rights as such to sail
+the sea, should have to resort to subterfuge and scheming
+to enjoy those rights. There arose in me a feeling of
+challenge against Germany's order which forbade American
+ships to sail the ocean. I cancelled my sailing on
+the <i>Frederick VIII</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In New York, I sought passage on the first American
+ship sailing for England. I made the rounds of the
+steamship offices and learned that the Cunard liner <i>Laconia</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+was the first available boat and was about to sail.
+She carried a large cargo of munitions and other materials
+of war. I booked passage aboard her. It was
+on Saturday, February 17th, 1917, that we steamed away
+from the dock at New York and moved slowly down the
+East River. We were bound for Liverpool, England.
+My cabin accommodations were good. The <i>Laconia</i> was
+listed at 18,000 tons and was one of the largest Cunarders
+in the Atlantic service. The next morning we were
+out of sight of land.</p>
+
+<p>Sailors were stationed along the decks of the ship
+and in the look-outs at the mast heads. They maintained
+a watch over the surface of the sea in all directions.
+On the stern of the ship, there was mounted a
+six-inch cannon and a crew of gunners stood by it night
+and day.</p>
+
+<p>Submarines had been recently reported in the waters
+through which we were sailing, but we saw none of them
+and apparently they saw none of us. They had sunk
+many ships, but all of the sinkings had been in the day
+time. Consequently, there was a feeling of greater
+safety at night. The <i>Laconia</i> sailed on a constantly zig-zagging
+course. All of our life-boats were swinging out
+over the side of the ship, so that if we were hit they
+could be lowered in a hurry. Every other day the passengers
+and the crew would be called up on the decks
+to stand by the life-boats that had been assigned to them.</p>
+
+<p>The officers of the ship instructed us in the life-boat
+drill. They showed us how to strap the life-preservers
+about our bodies; they showed us how to seat ourselves
+in the life-boats; they showed us a small keg of water
+and some tin cans of biscuits, a lantern and some flares
+that were stored in the boat, and so we sailed along day
+after day without meeting any danger. At night, all of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+the lights were put out and the ship slipped along through
+the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday, after we had been sailing for eight days,
+we entered the zone that had been prohibited by the
+Kaiser. We sailed into it full steam ahead and nothing
+happened. That day was February the twenty-fifth. In
+the afternoon, I was seated in the lounge with two
+friends. One was an American whose name was Kirby;
+the other was a Canadian and his name was Dugan. The
+latter was an aviator in the British army. In fights with
+German aeroplanes high over the Western Front he had
+been wounded and brought down twice and the army
+had sent him to his home in Canada to get well. He
+was returning once more to the battle front "to stop another
+bullet," as he said.</p>
+
+<p>As we talked, I passed around my cigarette case and
+Dugan held a lighted match while the three of us lighted
+our cigarettes from it. As Dugan blew out the match
+and placed the burnt end in an ash tray, he laughed and
+said,</p>
+
+<p>"They say it is bad luck to light three cigarettes with
+the same match, but I think it is good luck for me. I
+used to do it frequently with my flying partners in France
+and four of them have been killed, but I am still alive."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes it all right for you," said Kirby, "but it
+makes it look bad for Gibbons and myself. But nothing
+is going to happen. I don't believe in superstitions."</p>
+
+<p>That night after dinner Dugan and I took a brisk walk
+around the darkened promenade deck of the <i>Laconia</i>.
+The night was very dark, a stiff wind was blowing and
+the <i>Laconia</i> was rolling slightly in the trough of the
+waves. Wet from spray, we returned within and in one
+of the corridors met the Captain of the ship. I told him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+that I would like very much to have a look at his chart
+and learn our exact location on the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me and laughed because that was a very
+secret matter. But he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you would, would you?" and his voice carried
+that particular British intonation that seemed to say,
+"Well it is jolly well none of your business."</p>
+
+<p>Then I asked him when he thought we would land in
+Liverpool.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know," said the ship's commander, and
+then, with a wink, he added, "but my steward told me
+that we would get in Tuesday evening."</p>
+
+<p>Kirby and I went to the smoke room on the boat deck
+well to the stern of the ship. We joined a circle of
+Britishers who were seated in front of a coal fire in an
+open hearth. Nearly every one in the lighted smoke
+room was playing cards, so that the conversation was
+practically confined to the mentioning of bids and the orders
+of drinks from the stewards.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think are our chances of being torpedoed?"
+was the question I put before the circle in front
+of the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>The deliberative Mr. Henry Chetham, a London solicitor,
+was the first to answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he drawled, "I should say about four thousand
+to one."</p>
+
+<p>Lucien J. Jerome of the British Diplomatic Service,
+returning with an Ecuadorian valet from South America,
+advanced his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>I was much impressed with his opinion because the
+speaker himself had impressed me deeply. He was the
+best monocle juggler I had ever met. In his right eye
+he carried a monocle without a rim and without a ribbon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+or thread to save it, should it ever have fallen from his
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>Repeatedly during the trip, I had seen Mr. Jerome
+standing on the hurrideck of the <i>Laconia</i> facing
+the wind but holding the glass disk in his eye with a
+muscular grip that must have been vise-like. I had even
+followed him around the deck several times in a desire
+to be present when the monocle blew out, but the British
+diplomatist never for once lost his grip on it. I had
+come to the opinion that the piece of glass was fixed to
+his eye and that he slept with it. After the fashion of the
+British Diplomatic Service, he expressed his opinion most
+affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," he said with reference to Mr. Chetham's
+estimate. "Utter nonsense. Considering the zone that
+we are in and the class of the ship, I should put the
+chances down at two hundred and fifty to one that we
+don't meet a 'sub.'"</p>
+
+<p>At that minute the torpedo hit us.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever stood on the deck of a ferry boat as it
+arrived in the slip? And have you ever experienced the
+slight sideward shove when the boat rubs against the piling
+and comes to a stop? That was the unmistakable
+lurch we felt, but no one expects to run into pilings in
+mid-ocean, so every one knew what it was.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, there came a muffled noise&mdash;not extremely
+loud nor yet very sharp&mdash;just a noise like the
+slamming of some large oaken door a good distance
+away. Realising that we had been torpedoed, my imagination
+was rather disappointed at the slightness of the
+shock and the meekness of the report. One or two chairs
+tipped over, a few glasses crashed from table to floor
+and in an instant every man in the room was on his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"We're hit," shouted Mr. Chetham.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's what we've been waiting for," said Mr. Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>"What a lousy torpedo!" said Mr. Kirby. "It must
+have been a fizzer."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch; it was 10:30.</p>
+
+<p>Five sharp blasts sounded on the <i>Laconia's</i> whistle.
+Since that night, I have often marvelled at the quick coordination
+of mind and hand that belonged to the man
+on the bridge who pulled that whistle rope. Those five
+blasts constituted the signal to abandon the ship. Every
+one recognised them.</p>
+
+<p>We walked hurriedly down the corridor leading from
+the smoke room in the stern to the lounge which was
+amidships. We moved fast but there was no crowding
+and no panic. Passing the open door of the gymnasium,
+I became aware of the list of the vessel. The floor
+of the gymnasium slanted down on the starboard side
+and a medicine ball and dozens of dumb bells and Indian
+clubs were rolling in that direction.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the lounge&mdash;a large drawing room furnished
+with green upholstered chairs and divans and
+small tables on which the after-dinner liqueur glasses
+still rested. In one corner was a grand piano with the
+top elevated. In the centre of the slanting floor of the
+saloon was a cabinet Victrola and from its mahogany
+bowels there poured the last and dying strains of "Poor
+Butterfly."</p>
+
+<p>The women and several men who had been in the
+lounge were hurriedly leaving by the forward door as
+we entered. We followed them through. The twin
+winding stairs leading below decks by the forward hatch
+were dark and I brought into play a pocket flashlight
+shaped like a fountain pen. I had purchased it before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+sailing in view of such an emergency and I had always
+carried it fastened with a clip in an upper vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>My stateroom was B 19 on the promenade deck, one
+deck below the deck on which was located the smoke
+room, the lounge and the life-boats. The corridor was
+dimly lighted and the floor had a more perceptible slant
+as I darted into my stateroom, which was on the starboard
+and sinking side of the ship. I hurriedly put on a
+light non-sink garment constructed like a vest, which I
+had come provided with, and then donned an overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>Responding to the list of the ship, the wardrobe door
+swung open and crashed against the wall. My typewriter
+slid off the dressing table and a shower of toilet
+articles pitched from their places on the washstand. I
+grabbed the ship's life-preserver in my left hand and,
+with the flashlight in my right hand, started up the hatchway
+to the upper deck.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness of the boat deck hatchway, the rays of
+my flashlight revealed the chief steward opening the
+door of a switch closet in the panel wall. He pushed on
+a number of switches and instantly the decks of the <i>Laconia</i>
+became bright. From sudden darkness, the exterior
+of the ship burst into a blaze of light and it was
+that illumination that saved many lives.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Laconia's</i> engines and dynamos had not yet been
+damaged. The torpedo had hit us well astern on the
+starboard side and the bulkheads seemed to be holding
+back from the engine room the flood of water that
+rushed in through the gaping hole in the ship's side. I
+proceeded down the boat deck to my station opposite
+boat No. 10. I looked over the side and down upon the
+water sixty feet below.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden flashing of the lights on the upper deck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+made the dark seething waters seem blacker and angrier.
+They rose and fell in troubled swells.</p>
+
+<p>Steam began to hiss from some of the pipes leading
+up from the engine well. It seemed like a dying groan
+from the very vitals of the stricken ship. Clouds of
+white and black smoke rolled up from the giant grey
+funnels that towered above us.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was a roaring swish as a rocket soared
+upward from the Captain's bridge, leaving a comet's
+tail of fire. I watched it as it described a graceful arc
+and then with an audible pop it burst in a flare of brilliant
+colour. Its ascent had torn a lurid rent in the black
+sky and had cast a red glare over the roaring sea.</p>
+
+<p>Already boat No. 10 was loading up and men and boys
+were busy with the ropes. I started to help near a davit
+that seemed to be giving trouble but was sternly ordered
+to get out of the way and to get into the boat.</p>
+
+<p>Other passengers and members of the crew and officers
+of the ship were rushing to and fro along the deck
+strapping their life-preservers to them as they rushed.
+There was some shouting of orders but little or no confusion.
+One woman, a blonde French actress, became
+hysterical on the deck, but two men lifted her bodily off
+her feet and placed her in the life-boat.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the port side of the ship, the higher side.
+To reach the boats, we had to climb up the slanting deck
+to the edge of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>On the starboard side, it was different. On that side,
+the decks slanted down toward the water. The ship
+careened in that direction and the life-boats suspended
+from the davits swung clear of the ship's side.</p>
+
+<p>The list of the ship increased. On the port side, we
+looked down the slanting side of the ship and noticed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+that her water line on that side was a number of feet
+above the waves. The slant was so pronounced that the
+life-boats, instead of swinging clear from the davits,
+rested against the side of the ship. From my position
+in the life-boat I could see that we were going to have
+difficulty in the descent to the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Lower away," some one gave the order and we started
+downward with a jerk toward the seemingly hungry,
+rising and falling swells. Then we stopped with another
+jerk and remained suspended in mid-air while the men
+at the bow and the stern swore and tusseled with the
+ropes.</p>
+
+<p>The stern of the boat was down; the bow up, leaving
+us at an angle of about forty-five degrees. We clung
+to the seats to save ourselves from falling out.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's got a knife? A knife! A knife!" shouted
+a fireman in the bow. He was bare to the waist and
+perspiration stood out in drops on his face and chest and
+made streaks through the coal dust with which his skin
+was grimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Gawd! Give him a knife," bawled a half-dressed
+jibbering negro stoker who wrung his hands in
+the stern.</p>
+
+<p>A hatchet was thrust into my hands and I forwarded it
+to the bow. There was a flash of sparks as it was
+brought down with a clang on the holding pulley. One
+strand of the rope parted.</p>
+
+<p>Down plunged the bow of the boat too quickly for the
+men in the stern. We came to a jerky stop, this time
+with the stern in the air and the bow down, the dangerous
+angle reversed.</p>
+
+<p>One man in the stern let the rope race through his blistered
+fingers. With hands burnt to the quick, he grabbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+the rope and stopped the precipitous descent just in time
+to bring the stern level with the bow.</p>
+
+<p>Then bow and stern tried to lower away together. The
+slant of the ship's side had increased, so that our boat
+instead of sliding down it like a toboggan was held up
+on one side when the taffrail caught on one of the condenser
+exhaust pipes projecting slightly from the ship's
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the starboard side of the life-boat stuck fast and
+high while the port side dropped down and once more
+we found ourselves clinging on at a new angle and looking
+straight down into the water.</p>
+
+<p>A hand slipped into mine and a voice sounded huskily
+close to my ear. It was the little old Jewish travelling
+man who was disliked in the smoke room because he
+used to speak too certainly of things about which he
+was uncertain. His slightly Teutonic dialect had made
+him as popular as the smallpox with the British passengers.</p>
+
+<p>"My poy, I can't see nutting," he said. "My glasses
+slipped and I am falling. Hold me, please."</p>
+
+<p>I managed to reach out and join hands with another
+man on the other side of the old man and together we
+held him in. He hung heavily over our arms, grotesquely
+grasping all he had saved from his stateroom&mdash;a
+gold-headed cane and an extra hat.</p>
+
+<p>Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side
+of the ship and we renewed our sagging, scraping, sliding,
+jerking descent. It ended as the bottom of the life-boat
+smacked squarely on the pillowy top of a rising
+swell. It felt more solid than mid-air at least.</p>
+
+<p>But we were far from being off. The pulleys twice
+stuck in their fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe
+was passed forward and back (and with it my flashlight)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+as the entangling mesh of ropes that held us to the
+sinking <i>Laconia</i> was cut away.</p>
+
+<p>Some shout from that confusion of sound caused me
+to look up. I believe I really did so in the fear that
+one of the nearby boats was being lowered upon us.</p>
+
+<p>Tin funnels enamelled white and containing clusters
+of electric bulbs hung over the side from one of the upper
+decks. I looked up into the cone of one of these lights
+and a bulky object shot suddenly out of the darkness
+into the scope of the electric rays.</p>
+
+<p>It was a man. His arms were bent up at the elbows;
+his legs at the knees. He was jumping, with the intention,
+I feared, of landing in our boat, and I prepared to
+avoid the impact. But he had judged his distance well.</p>
+
+<p>He plunged beyond us and into the water three feet
+from the edge of the boat. He sank from sight, leaving
+a white patch of bubbles and foam on the black
+water. He bobbed to the surface almost immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Dugan," shouted a man next to me.</p>
+
+<p>I flashed a light on the ruddy, smiling face and water
+plastered hair of the little Canadian aviator, our fellow
+saloon passenger. We pulled him over the side and into
+the boat. He spluttered out a mouthful of water.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if there is anything to that lighting three
+matches off the same match," he said. "I was trying to
+loosen the bow rope in this boat. I loosened it and then
+got tangled up in it. When the boat descended, I was
+jerked up back on the deck. Then I jumped for it. Holy
+Moses, but this water is cold."</p>
+
+<p>As we pulled away from the side of the ship, its receding
+terraces of glowing port holes and deck lights
+towered above us. The ship was slowly turning over.</p>
+
+<p>We were directly opposite the engine room section of
+the <i>Laconia</i>. There was a tangle of oars, spars and rigging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+on the seats in our boat, and considerable confusion
+resulted before we could manage to place in operation
+some of the big oars on either side.</p>
+
+<p>The jibbering, bullet-headed negro was pulling a
+sweep directly behind me and I turned to quiet him as his
+frantic reaches with the oar were jabbing me in the back.</p>
+
+<p>In the dull light from the upper decks, I looked into
+his slanting face&mdash;his eyes all whites and his lips moving
+convulsively. He shivered with fright, but in addition
+to that he was freezing in the thin cotton shirt that composed
+his entire upper covering. He worked feverishly
+at the oar to warm himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Get away from her. My Gawd, get away from her,"
+he kept repeating. "When the water hits her hot boilers
+she'll blow up the whole ocean and there's just tons
+and tons of shrapnel in her hold."</p>
+
+<p>His excitement spread to other members of the crew
+in our boat. The ship's baker, designated by his pantry
+headgear of white linen, became a competing alarmist
+and a white fireman, whose blasphemy was nothing short
+of profound, added to the confusion by cursing every
+one.</p>
+
+<p>It was the tension of the minute&mdash;it was the give way
+of overwrought nerves&mdash;it was bedlam and nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>I sought to establish some authority in our boat which
+was about to break out into full mutiny. I made my way
+to the stern. There, huddled up in a great overcoat and
+almost muffled in a ship's life-preserver, I came upon an
+old white-haired man and I remembered him.</p>
+
+<p>He was a sea-captain of the old sailing days. He had
+been a second cabin passenger with whom I had talked
+before. Earlier in the year he had sailed out of Nova
+Scotia with a cargo of codfish. His schooner, the <i>Secret</i>,
+had broken in two in mid-ocean, but he and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+crew had been picked up by a tramp and taken back to
+New York.</p>
+
+<p>From there he had sailed on another ship bound for
+Europe, but this ship, a Holland-American Liner, the
+<i>Ryndam</i>, had never reached the other side. In mid-Atlantic
+her captain had lost courage over the U-boat
+threats. He had turned the ship about and returned to
+America. Thus, the <i>Laconia</i> represented the third unsuccessful
+attempt of this grey-haired mariner to get
+back to his home in England. His name was Captain
+Dear.</p>
+
+<p>"Our boat's rudder is gone, but we can stear with an
+oar," he said, in a weak-quavering voice&mdash;the thin high-pitched
+treble of age. "I will take charge, if you want
+me to, but my voice is gone. I can tell you what to do,
+but you will have to shout the orders. They won't listen
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>There was only one way to get the attention of the
+crew, and that was by an overpowering blast of profanity.
+I called to my assistance every ear-splitting,
+soul-sizzling oath that I could think of.</p>
+
+<p>I recited the lurid litany of the army mule skinner
+to his gentle charges and embellished it with excerpts
+from the remarks of a Chicago taxi chauffeur while he
+changed tires on the road with the temperature ten
+below.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be an effective combination, this brim-stoned
+oration of mine, because it was rewarded by silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a ship's officer in this boat?" I shouted.
+There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a sailor or a seaman on board?" I inquired,
+and again there was silence from our group of passengers,
+firemen, stokers and deck swabs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They appeared to be listening to me and I wished to
+keep my hold on them. I racked my mind for some
+other query to make or some order to direct. Before the
+spell was broken I found one.</p>
+
+<p>"We will now find out how many of us there are in
+this boat," I announced in the best tones of authority
+that I could assume. "The first man in the bow will
+count one and the next man to him will count two. We
+will count from the bow back to the stern, each man
+taking a number. Begin."</p>
+
+<p>"One," came the quick response from a passenger who
+happened to be the first man in the bow. The enumeration
+continued sharply toward the stern. I spoke the last
+number.</p>
+
+<p>"There are twenty-three of us here," I repeated,
+"there's not a ship's officer or seaman among us, but we
+are extremely fortunate to have with us an old sea-captain
+who has consented to take charge of the boat and
+save our lives. His voice is weak, but I will repeat the
+orders for him, so that all of you can hear. Are you
+ready to obey his orders?"</p>
+
+<p>There was an almost unanimous acknowledgment of
+assent and order was restored.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing to be done," I announced upon Captain
+Dear's instructions, "is to get the same number of
+oars pulling on each side of the boat; to seat ourselves
+so as to keep on an even keel and then to keep the boat's
+head up into the wind so that we won't be swamped by
+the waves."</p>
+
+<p>With some little difficulty, this rearrangement was accomplished
+and then we rested on our oars with all eyes
+turned on the still lighted <i>Laconia</i>. The torpedo had hit
+at about 10:30 P. M. according to our ship's time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+Though listing far over on one side, the <i>Laconia</i> was
+still afloat.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been twenty minutes after that first shot
+that we heard another dull thud, which was accompanied
+by a noticeable drop in the hulk. The German submarine
+had despatched a second torpedo through the engine
+room and the boat's vitals from a distance of two hundred
+yards.</p>
+
+<p>We watched silently during the next minute as the
+tiers of lights dimmed slowly from white to yellow, then
+to red and then nothing was left but the murky mourning
+of the night which hung over all like a pall.</p>
+
+<p>A mean, cheese-coloured crescent of a moon revealed
+one horn above a rag bundle of clouds low in the distance.
+A rim of blackness settled around our little
+world, relieved only by a few leering stars in the zenith,
+and, where the <i>Laconia's</i> lights had shown, there remained
+only the dim outlines of a blacker hulk standing
+out above the water like a jagged headland, silhouetted
+against the overcast sky.</p>
+
+<p>The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose
+rose out of the water, and stood straight up in the air.
+Then it slid silently down and out of sight like a piece of
+scenery in a panorama spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Boat No. 3 stood closest to the place where the ship
+had gone down. As a result of the after suction, the
+small life-boat rocked about in a perilous sea of clashing
+spars and wreckage.</p>
+
+<p>As the boat's crew steadied its head into the wind, a
+black hulk, glistening wet and standing about eight feet
+above the surface of the water, approached slowly. It
+came to a stop opposite the boat and not ten feet from
+the side of it. It was the submarine.</p>
+
+<p>"Vot ship vass dot?" were the first words of throaty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+guttural English that came from a figure which projected
+from the conning tower.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Laconia</i>," answered the Chief Steward Ballyn,
+who commanded the life-boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Vot?"</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Laconia</i>, Cunard Line," responded the steward.</p>
+
+<p>"Vot did she weigh?" was the next question from the
+submarine.</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen thousand tons."</p>
+
+<p>"Any passengers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "many of them
+women and children&mdash;some of them in this boat. She
+had over two hundred in the crew."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she carry cargo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Iss der Captain in dot boat?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," Ballyn answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess you'll be all right. A patrol will pick
+you up some time soon." Without further sound save
+for the almost silent fixing of the conning tower lid, the
+submarine moved off.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it best to make my answers sharp and satisfactory,
+sir," said Ballyn, when he repeated the conversation
+to me word for word. "I was thinking of the
+women and children in the boat. I feared every minute
+that somebody in our boat might make a hostile move,
+fire a revolver, or throw something at the submarine. I
+feared the consequence of such an act."</p>
+
+<p>There was no assurance of an early pickup so we made
+preparations for a siege with the elements. The weather
+was a great factor. That black rim of clouds looked
+ominous. There was a good promise of rain. February
+has a reputation for nasty weather in the north Atlantic.
+The wind was cold and seemed to be rising. Our boat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+bobbed about like a cork on the swells, which fortunately
+were not choppy.</p>
+
+<p>How much rougher seas could the boat weather?
+This question and conditions were debated pro and con.</p>
+
+<p>Had our rockets been seen? Did the first torpedo put
+the wireless out of commission? If it had been able to
+operate, had anybody heard our S. O. S.? Was there
+enough food and drinking water in the boat to last?</p>
+
+<p>This brought us to an inventory of our small craft.
+After considerable difficulty, we found the lamp, a can
+of powder flares, the tin of ship's biscuit, matches and
+spare oil.</p>
+
+<p>The lamp was lighted. Other lights were now visible.
+As we drifted in the darkness, we could see them every
+time we mounted the crest of the swells. The boats
+carrying these lights remained quite close together at
+first.</p>
+
+<p>One boat came within sound and I recognised the
+Harry Lauder-like voice of the second assistant purser
+whom I had last heard on Wednesday at the ship's concert.
+Now he was singing&mdash;"I Want to Marry 'arry,"
+and "I Love to be a Sailor."</p>
+
+<p>There were an American woman and her husband in
+that boat. She told me later that an attempt had been
+made to sing "Tipperary," and "Rule Britannia," but
+the thought of that slinking dark hull of destruction
+that might have been a part of the immediate darkness
+resulted in the abandonment of the effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the officer in that boat?" came a cheery hail
+from the nearby light.</p>
+
+<p>"What the hell is it to you?" our half frozen negro
+yelled out for no reason apparent to me other than possibly
+the relief of his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"Will somebody brain that skunk with a pin?" was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+the inquiry of our profound oathsman, who also expressed
+regret that he happened to be sitting too far away
+from the negro to reach him. He accompanied the announcement
+with a warmth of language that must have
+relieved the negro of his chill.</p>
+
+<p>The fear of the boats crashing together produced a
+general inclination toward maximum separation on the
+part of all the little units of survivors, with the result
+that soon the small crafts stretched out for several miles,
+their occupants all endeavoring to hold the heads of the
+boats into the wind.</p>
+
+<p>Hours passed. The swells slopped over the sides of
+our boat and filled the bottom with water. We bailed it
+continually. Most of us were wet to the knees and
+shivering from the weakening effects of the icy water.
+Our hands were blistered from pulling at the oars. Our
+boat, bobbing about like a cork, produced terrific nausea,
+and our stomachs ached from vain wrenching.</p>
+
+<p>And then we saw the first light&mdash;the first sign of help
+coming&mdash;the first searching glow of white radiance deep
+down the sombre sides of the black pot of night that
+hung over us. I don't know what direction it came
+from&mdash;none of us knew north from south&mdash;there was
+nothing but water and sky. But the light&mdash;it just came
+from over there where we pointed. We nudged dumb, sick
+boat mates and directed their gaze and aroused them to
+an appreciation of the sight that gave us new life.</p>
+
+<p>It was 'way over there&mdash;first a trembling quiver of
+silver against the blackness, then drawing closer, it defined
+itself as a beckoning finger, although still too far
+away to see our feeble efforts to attract it.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, we wasted valuable flares and the ship's
+baker, self-ordained custodian of the biscuit, did the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+honours handsomely to the extent of a biscuit apiece to
+each of the twenty-three occupants of the boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull starboard, sonnies," sang out old Captain Dear,
+his grey chin whiskers bristling with joy in the light of
+the round lantern which he held aloft.</p>
+
+<p>We pulled&mdash;pulled lustily, forgetting the strain and
+pain of innards torn and racked with violent vomiting, and
+oblivious of blistered palms and wet, half-frozen feet.</p>
+
+<p>Then a nodding of that finger of light,&mdash;a happy, snapping,
+crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come
+on, you men," like a dice player wooing the bones&mdash;led us
+to believe that our lights had been seen.</p>
+
+<p>This was the fact, for immediately the oncoming vessel
+flashed on its green and red sidelights and we saw it
+was headed for our position. We floated off its stern
+for a while as it man&oelig;uvred for the best position in which
+it could take us on with a sea that was running higher
+and higher.</p>
+
+<p>The risk of that rescuing ship was great, because there
+was every reason to believe that the submarine that had
+destroyed the <i>Laconia</i> still lurked in the darkness nearby,
+but those on board took the risk and stood by for the
+work of rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along side port!" was megaphoned to us. As
+fast as we could, we swung under the stern and felt our
+way broadside toward the ship's side.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the darkness above, a dozen small pocket flashlights
+blinked down on us and orders began to be shouted
+fast and thick.</p>
+
+<p>When I look back on the night, I don't know which
+was the more hazardous, going down the slanting side
+of the sinking <i>Laconia</i> or going up the side of the rescuing
+vessel.</p>
+
+<p>One minute the swells would lift us almost level with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+the rail of the low-built patrol boat and mine sweeper,
+but the next receding wave would swirl us down into a
+darksome gulf over which the ship's side glowered like
+a slimy, dripping cliff.</p>
+
+<p>A score of hands reached out and we were suspended
+in the husky, tattooed arms of those doughty British Jack
+Tars, looking up into their weather-beaten youthful
+faces, mumbling our thankfulness and reading in the
+gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend, "H. M.
+S. <i>Laburnum</i>." We had been six hours in the open boat.</p>
+
+<p>The others began coming alongside one by one. Wet
+and bedraggled survivors were lifted aboard. Women
+and children first was the rule.</p>
+
+<p>The scenes of reunion were heart-gripping. Men who
+had remained strangers to one another aboard the <i>Laconia</i>,
+now wrung each other by the hand or embraced
+without shame the frail little wife of a Canadian chaplain
+who had found one of her missing children delivered
+up from another boat. She smothered the child with
+ravenous mother kisses while tears of gladness streamed
+down her face.</p>
+
+<p>Boat after boat came alongside. The water-logged
+craft containing the Captain came last.</p>
+
+<p>A rousing cheer went up as he stepped on the deck, one
+mangled hand hanging limp at his side.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors divested themselves of outer clothing and
+passed the garments over to the shivering members of the
+<i>Laconia's</i> crew.</p>
+
+<p>The cramped officers' quarters down under the quarter
+deck were turned over to the women and children.
+Two of the <i>Laconia's</i> stewardesses passed boiling basins
+of navy cocoa and aided in the disentangling of wet and
+matted tresses.</p>
+
+<p>The men grouped themselves near steam-pipes in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+petty officers' quarters or over the grating of the engine
+rooms, where new life was to be had from the upward
+blasts of heated air that brought with them the smell of
+bilge water and oil and sulphur from the bowels of the
+vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The injured&mdash;all minor cases, sprained backs, wrenched
+legs or mashed hands&mdash;were put away in bunks under
+the care of the ship's doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was melting the eastern ocean grey to pink when
+the task was finished. In the officers' quarters, which
+had now been invaded by the men, the roll of the vessel
+was most perceptible. Each time the floor of the room
+slanted, bottles and cups and plates rolled and slid back
+and forth.</p>
+
+<p>On the tables and chairs and benches the women rested.
+Sea-sick mothers, trembling from the after-effects of the
+terrifying experience of the night, sought to soothe their
+crying children.</p>
+
+<p>Then somebody happened to touch a key on the small
+wooden organ that stood against one wall. This was
+enough to send some callous seafaring fingers over the
+ivory keys in a rhythm unquestionably religious and so
+irresistible under the circumstances that, although no one
+seemed to know the words, the air was taken up in a
+reverent, humming chant by all in the room.</p>
+
+<p>At the last note of the Amen, little Father Warring,
+his black garb snaggled in places and badly soiled, stood
+before the centre table and lifted back his head until the
+morning light, filtering through the opened hatch above
+him, shown down on his kindly, weary face. He recited
+the Lord's prayer and all present joined. The simple, impressive
+service of thanksgiving ended as simply as it had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes later I saw the old Jewish travelling man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+limping about on one lame leg with a little boy in his
+arms. He was collecting big, round British pennies for
+the youngster.</p>
+
+<p>A survey and cruise of the nearby waters revealed no
+more occupied boats and our mine sweeper, with its load
+of survivors numbering two hundred and sixty-seven,
+steamed away to the east. A half an hour steaming and
+the vessel stopped within hailing distance of two sister
+ships, toward one of which an open boat manned by
+jackies was being pulled.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the hysterical French actress, her blonde hair
+wet and bedraggled, lifted out of the boat and carried
+up the companionway. Then a little boy, his fresh pink
+face and golden hair shining in the morning sun, was
+passed upward, followed by some other survivors, numbering
+fourteen in all, who had been found half-drowned
+and almost dead from exposure in a partially wrecked
+boat that was picked up just as it was sinking. It was
+in that boat that one American woman and her daughter
+died. One of the survivors of the boat told me the
+story. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Our boat was No. 8. It was smashed in the lowering.
+I was in the bow. Mrs. Hoy and her daughter were sitting
+toward the stern. The boat filled with water rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was no use trying to bail it out. There was a
+big hole in the side and it came in too fast. The boat's
+edge sank to the level of the water and only the air-tanks
+kept it afloat.</p>
+
+<p>"It was completely awash. Every swell rode clear
+over our heads and we had to hold our breath until we
+came to the surface again. The cold water just takes
+the life out of you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We saw the other boats showing their lights and
+drifting further and further away from us. We had no
+lights. And then, towards morning, we saw the rescuing
+ship come up into the cluster of other life-boats that had
+drifted so far away from us. One by one we saw their
+lights disappear as they were taken on board.</p>
+
+<p>"We shouted and screamed and shrieked at the tops of
+our voices, but could not attract the attention of any of
+the other boats or the rescuing ship, and soon we saw
+its lights blink out. We were left there in the darkness
+with the wind howling and the sea rolling higher every
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>"The women got weaker and weaker. Maybe they had
+been dead for some time. I don't know, but a wave came
+and washed both Mrs. Hoy and her daughter out of the
+boat. There were life-belts around their bodies and they
+drifted away with their arms locked about one another."</p>
+
+<p>With such stories ringing in our ears, with exchanges
+of experiences pathetic and humorous, we steamed into
+Queenstown harbour shortly after ten o'clock that night.
+We had been attacked at a point two hundred miles off
+the Irish coast and of our passengers and crew, thirteen
+had been lost.</p>
+
+<p>As I stepped ashore, a Britisher, a fellow-passenger
+aboard the <i>Laconia</i>, who knew me as an American,
+stepped up to me. During the voyage we had had many
+conversations concerning the possibility of America entering
+the war. Now he slapped me on the back with
+this question,</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old Casus Belli," he said, "is this your blooming
+overt act?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer him, but thirty minutes afterward
+I was pounding out on a typewriter the introduction to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+four thousand word newspaper article which I cabled
+that night and which put the question up to the American
+public for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>Five weeks later the United States entered the war.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lean, clean, keen&mdash;that's the way they looked&mdash;that
+first trim little band of American fighting men who
+made their historic landing on the shores of England,
+June 8th, 1917.</p>
+
+<p>I went down from London to meet them at the port
+of arrival. In my despatches of that date, I, nor none of
+the other correspondents, was permitted to mention the
+name of the port. This was supposed to be the secret
+that was to be religiously kept and the British censor
+was on the job religiously.</p>
+
+<p>The name of the port was excluded from all American
+despatches but the British censor saw no reason to
+withhold transmission of the following sentence&mdash;"Pershing
+landed to-day at an English port and was given
+a hearty welcome by the Mayor of Liverpool."</p>
+
+<p>So I am presuming at this late date of writing that
+it would serve no further purpose to refrain from announcing
+flatly that General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief
+of the American Expeditionary Forces
+overseas, and his staff, landed on the date above mentioned,
+at Liverpool, England.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was shining brightly on the Mersey when the
+giant ocean liner, the <i>Baltic</i>, came slowly up the harbour
+in the tow of numerous puffing tugs. The great grey
+vessel that had safely completed the crossing of the submarine
+zone, was warped to the dock-side.</p>
+
+<p>On the quay there were a full brass band and an honourary
+escort of British soldiers. While the moorings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+were being fastened, General Pershing, with his staff,
+appeared on the promenade deck on the shore side of
+the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>His appearance was the signal for a crash of cymbals
+and drums as the band blared out the "Star Spangled
+Banner." The American commander and the officers
+ranged in line on either side of him, stood stiffly at attention,
+with right hands raised in salute to the visors
+of their caps.</p>
+
+<p>On the shore the lines of British soldiery brought their
+arms to the present with a snap. Civilian witnesses of
+the ceremony bared their heads. The first anthem was
+followed by the playing of "God Save the King." All
+present remained at the salute.</p>
+
+<p>As the gangplank was lashed in place, a delegation
+of British military and civilian officials boarded the ship
+and were presented to the General. Below, on the dock,
+every newspaper correspondent and photographer in the
+British Isles, I think, stood waiting in a group that far
+outnumbered the other spectators.</p>
+
+<p>There was reason for this seeming lack of proportion.
+The fact was that but very few people in all of England,
+as well as in all of the United States, had known that
+General Pershing was to land that day.</p>
+
+<p>Few had known that he was on the water. The British
+Admiralty, then in complete control of the ocean lines
+between America and the British Isles, had guarded well
+the secret. England lost Kitchener on the sea and now
+with the sea peril increased a hundredfold, England took
+pains to guard well the passage of this standard-bearer
+of the American millions that were to come.</p>
+
+<p>Pershing and his staff stepped ashore. Lean, clean,
+keen&mdash;those are the words that described their appearance.
+That was the way they impressed their critical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+brothers in arms, the all-observing military dignities that
+presented Britain's hearty, unreserved welcome at the
+water's edge. That was the way they appeared to the
+proud American citizens, residents of those islands, who
+gathered to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>The British soldiers admired the height and shoulders
+of our first military samples. The British soldier approves
+of a greyhound trimness in the belt zone. He
+likes to look on carriage and poise. He appreciates a
+steady eye and stiff jaw. He is attracted by a voice
+that rings sharp and firm. The British soldier calls such
+a combination, "a real soldier."</p>
+
+<p>He saw one, and more than one, that morning shortly
+after nine o'clock when Pershing and his staff committed
+the date to history by setting foot on British soil.
+Behind the American commander walked a staff of American
+officers whose soldierly bearing and general appearance
+brought forth sincere expressions of commendation
+from the assemblage on the quay.</p>
+
+<p>At attention on the dock, facing the sea-stained flanks
+of the liner <i>Baltic</i>, a company of Royal Welsh Fusiliers
+Stood like a frieze of clay models in stainless khaki, polished
+brass and shining leather.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing inspected the guard of honour with
+keen interest. Walking beside the American commander
+was the considerably stouter and somewhat shorter Lieutenant
+General Sir William Pitcairn Campbell, K.C.B.,
+Chief of the Western Command of the British Home
+Forces.</p>
+
+<p>Pershing's inspection of that guard was not the cursory
+one that these honourary affairs usually are. Not a
+detail of uniform or equipment on any of the men in the
+guard was overlooked. The American commander's attention
+was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+he had been a captain preparing the small command for
+a strenuous inspection at the hands of some exacting
+superior.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen
+blue eyes taking in each one of the men from head to
+foot, he stopped suddenly in front of one man in the
+ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of
+fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his
+sleeves there was displayed two slender gold bars, placed
+on the forearm.</p>
+
+<p>The decoration was no larger than two matches in a
+row and on that day it had been in use hardly more than
+a year, yet neither its minuteness nor its meaning escaped<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">the eyes of the American commander.</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three,
+his face pointed stiffly ahead. File Three, even now
+under twenty-one years of age, had received his wounds
+in the early fighting that is called the battle of Loos.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder
+of the American commander, who accompanied
+his remark with a straightforward look into the eyes of
+File Three.</p>
+
+<p>Completing the inspection without further incident,
+General Pershing and his staff faced the honour guard
+and stood at the salute, while once more the thunderous
+military band played the national anthems of America
+and Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony was followed by a reception in the
+cabin of the <i>Baltic</i>, where General Pershing received the
+Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady Mayoress, and a delegation<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">of civil authorities. The reception ended when</span><br />
+General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the assembled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+representatives of the British and American
+Press.</p>
+
+<p>"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest
+remarks. Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side
+station, where a special train of the type labelled
+Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run to London.</p>
+
+<p>The reception at the dock had had none of the features
+of a demonstration by reason of the necessity for the
+ship's arrival being secret, but as soon as the <i>Baltic</i> had
+landed, the word of the American commander's arrival
+spread through Liverpool like wildfire.</p>
+
+<p>The railroad from the station lay through an industrial
+section of the city. Through the railroad warehouses
+the news had preceded the train. Warehouse-men,
+porters and draymen crowded the tops of the cotton bales
+and oil barrels on both sides of the track as the
+train passed through.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the sheds, the news had spread through the
+many floors of the flour mills and when the Pershing
+train passed, handkerchiefs and caps fluttered from every
+crowded door and window in the whitened walls. Most
+of the waving was done by a new kind of flour-girl, one
+who did not wave an apron because none of them were
+dressed that way.</p>
+
+<p>From his car window, General Pershing returned the
+greetings of the trousered girls and women who were
+making England's bread while their husbands, fathers,
+brothers, sweethearts and sons were making German
+cemeteries.</p>
+
+<p>In London, General Pershing and his staff occupied
+suites at the Savoy Hotel, and during the four or five
+days of the American commander's sojourn in the capital
+of the British Empire, a seemingly endless line of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+visitors of all the Allied nationalities called to present
+their compliments.</p>
+
+<p>The enlisted men of the General's staff occupied quarters
+in the old stone barracks of the Tower of London,
+where they were the guests of the men of that artillery
+organisation which prefixes an "Honourable" to its name
+and has been assigned for centuries to garrison duty in
+the Tower of London.</p>
+
+<p>Our soldiers manifested naïve interest in some of
+England's most revered traditions and particularly in
+connection with historical events related to the Tower
+of London. On the second day of their occupation of
+this old fortress, one of the warders, a "Beef-eater" in
+full mediæval regalia, was escorting a party of the Yanks
+through the dungeons.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped in one dungeon and lined the party up in
+front of a stone block in the centre of the floor. After
+a silence of a full minute to produce a proper degree of
+impressiveness for the occasion, the warder announced,
+in a respectful whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"This is where Anne Boleyn was executed."</p>
+
+<p>The lined-up Yanks took a long look at the stone block.
+A silence followed during the inspection. And then one
+regular, desiring further information, but not wishing
+to be led into any traps of British wit, said:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'll bite; what did Annie do?"</p>
+
+<p>Current with the arrival of our men and their reception
+by the honour guard of the Welsh Fusiliers there
+was a widespread revival of an old story which the
+Americans liked to tell in the barrack rooms at night.</p>
+
+<p>When the Welsh Fusiliers received our men at the
+dock of Liverpool, they had with them their historical
+mascot, a large white goat with horns encased in inscribed
+silver. The animal wore suspended from its neck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+a large silver plate, on which was inscribed a partial history
+of the Welsh Fusiliers.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these Fusiliers told our men the story.</p>
+
+<p>"It was our regiment&mdash;the Welsh Fusiliers," one of
+them said, "that fought you Yanks at Bunker Hill. And
+it was at Bunker Hill that our regiment captured the
+great-great-granddaddy of this same white goat, and his
+descendants are ever destined to be the mascot of our
+regiment. You see, we have still got your goat."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will notice," replied one of the Yanks, "we've
+got the hill."</p>
+
+<p>During the four days in London, General Pershing
+was received by King George and Queen Mary at Buckingham
+Palace. The American commander engaged in
+several long conferences at the British War Office, and
+then with an exclusion of entertainment that was painful
+to the Europeans, he made arrangements to leave for
+his new post in France.</p>
+
+<p>A specially written permission from General Pershing
+made it possible for me to accompany him on that historic
+crossing between England and France. Secret orders
+for the departure were given on the afternoon and
+evening of June 12th. Before four o'clock of the next
+morning, June 13th, I breakfasted in the otherwise deserted
+dining-room of the Savoy with the General and
+his staff.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few sleepy-eyed attendants were in the halls
+and lower rooms of the Savoy. In closed automobiles
+we were whisked away to Charing Cross Station. We
+boarded a special train whose destination was unknown.
+The entire party was again in the hands of the Intelligence
+Section of the British Admiralty, and every possible
+means was taken to suppress all definite information
+concerning the departure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The special train containing General Pershing and his
+staff reached Folkstone at about seven o'clock in the
+morning. We left the train at the dockside and boarded
+the swift Channel steamer moored there. A small vociferous
+contingent of English Tommies returning to the
+front from leave in "Blighty" were crowded on all decks
+in the stern.</p>
+
+<p>With life-boats swinging out over the side and every
+one wearing life-preservers, we steamed out of Folkstone
+harbour to challenge the submarine dangers of the
+Channel.</p>
+
+<p>The American commander occupied a forward cabin
+suite on the upper deck. His aides and secretaries had
+already transformed it into a business-like apartment.
+In the General's mind there was no place or time for any
+consideration of the dangers of the Channel crossing.
+Although the very waters through which we dashed were
+known to be infested with submarines which would have
+looked upon him as capital prey, I don't believe the General
+ever gave them as much as a thought.</p>
+
+<p>Every time I looked through the open door of his
+cabin, he was busy dictating letters to his secretaries or
+orders or instructions to his aides or conferring with his
+Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Harbord. To the
+American commander, the hours necessary for the dash
+across the Channel simply represented a little more time
+which he could devote to the plans for the great work
+ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>Our ship was guarded on all sides and above. Swift
+torpedo destroyers dashed to and fro under our bow and
+stern and circled us continually. In the air above hydro-airplanes
+and dirigible balloons hovered over the waters
+surrounding us, keeping sharp watch for the first appearance
+of the dark sub-sea hulks of destruction.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, MR. PAGE,
+FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY,
+AND ADMIRAL SIMS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, MR. PAGE,
+FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY,
+AND ADMIRAL SIMS</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="500" height="314" alt="GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p><p>We did not learn until the next day that while we were
+making that Channel crossing, the German air forces had
+crossed the Channel in a daring daylight raid and were
+at that very hour dropping bombs on London around the
+very hotel which General Pershing had just vacated.
+Some day, after the war, I hope to ascertain whether the
+commander of that flight of bombing Gothas started on
+his expedition over London with a special purpose in
+view and whether that purpose concerned the supposed
+presence there of the commander-in-chief of the American
+millions that were later to change the entire complexion
+of the war against Germany.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful sunlight day. It was not long before
+the coast line of France began to push itself up
+through the distant Channel mists and make itself visible
+on the horizon. I stood in the bow of the ship looking
+toward the coast line and silent with thoughts concerning
+the momentousness of the approaching historical
+event.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that I looked back amidships and saw a
+solitary figure standing on the bridge of the vessel. It
+was General Pershing. He seemed rapt in deep thought.
+He wore his cap straight on his head, the visor shading
+his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his hands behind him,
+his feet planted slightly apart to accommodate the gentle
+roll of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>He faced due east and his eyes were directed toward
+the shores of that foreign land which we were approaching.
+It seemed to me as I watched him that his mind
+must have been travelling back more than a century to
+that day in history when another soldier had stood on
+the bridge of another vessel, crossing those same waters,
+but in an almost opposite direction.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that he must have been thinking of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+that historical character who made just such a journey
+more than a hundred years before,&mdash;a great soldier who
+left his homeland to sail to other foreign shores halfway
+around the world and there to lend his sword in the fight
+for the sacred principles of Democracy. It seemed to
+me that day that Pershing thought of Lafayette.</p>
+
+<p>As we drew close to the shore, I noticed an enormous
+concrete breakwater extending out from the harbour entrance.
+It was surmounted by a wooden railing and on
+the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a small French
+boy. His legs were bare and his feet were encased in
+heavy wooden shoes. On his head he wore a red stocking
+cap of the liberty type. As we came within hailing
+distance, he gave to us the first greeting that came from
+the shores of France to these first arriving American
+soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Vive l'Amérique!</i>" he shouted, cupping his hands to
+his mouth and sending his shrill voice across the water
+to us. Pershing on the bridge heard the salutation. He
+smiled, touched his hand to his hat and waved to the lad
+on the railing.</p>
+
+<p>We landed that day at Boulogne, June 13th, 1917.
+Military bands massed on the quay, blared out the American
+National Anthem as the ship was warped alongside
+the dock. Other ships in the busy harbour began blowing
+whistles and ringing bells, loaded troop and hospital
+ships lying nearby burst forth into cheering. The news
+spread like contagion along the harbour front.</p>
+
+<p>As the gangplank was lowered, French military dignitaries
+in dress uniforms resplendent with gold braid, buttons
+and medals, advanced to that part of the deck amidships
+where the General stood. They saluted respectfully
+and pronounced elaborate addresses in their native tongue.
+They were followed by numerous French Government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+officials in civilian dress attire. The city, the department
+and the nation were represented in the populous
+delegations who presented their compliments, and conveyed
+to the American commander the of the entire people of France.</p>
+
+<p>Under the train sheds on the dock, long stiff, standing
+ranks of French poilus wearing helmets and their light
+blue overcoats pinned back at the knees, presented arms
+as the General walked down the lines inspecting them.
+At one end of the line, rank upon rank of French marines,
+and sailors with their flat hats with red tassels, stood
+at attention awaiting inspection.</p>
+
+<p>The docks and train sheds were decorated with French
+and American flags and yards and yards of the mutually-owned
+red, white and blue. Thousands of spectators
+began to gather in the streets near the station, and their
+continuous cheers sufficed to rapidly augment their own
+numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by a veteran French colonel, one of
+whose uniform sleeves was empty, General Pershing, as
+a guest of the city of Boulogne, took a motor ride through
+the streets of this busy port city. He was quickly returned
+to the station, where he and his staff boarded a
+special train for Paris. I went with them.</p>
+
+<p>That train to Paris was, of necessity, slow. It proceeded
+slowly under orders and with a purpose. No one
+in France, with the exception of a select official circle,
+had been aware that General Pershing was arriving that
+day until about thirty minutes before his ship was warped
+into the dock at Boulogne. It has always been a mystery
+to me how the French managed to decorate the station
+at Boulogne upon such short notice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that the train crawled slowly toward
+Paris for the purpose of giving the French capital time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+to throw off the coat of war weariness that it had worn
+for three and a half years and don gala attire for this
+occasion. Paris made full use of every minute of that
+time, as we found when the train arrived at the French
+capital late in the afternoon. The evening papers in
+Paris had carried the news of the American commander's
+landing on the shores of France, and Paris was
+ready to receive him as Paris had never before received
+a world's notable.</p>
+
+<p>The sooty girders of the Gare du Nord shook with
+cheers when the special train pulled in. The aisles of the
+great terminal were carpeted with red plush. A battalion
+of bearded poilus of the Two Hundred and Thirty-seventh
+Colonial Regiment was lined up on the platform like
+a wall of silent grey, bristling with bayonets and shiny
+trench helmets.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing stepped from his private car. Flashlights
+boomed and batteries of camera men man&oelig;uvred
+into positions for the lens barrage. The band of the
+Garde Républicaine blared forth the strains of the "Star
+Spangled Banner," bringing all the military to a halt and
+a long standing salute. It was followed by the "Marseillaise."</p>
+
+<p>At the conclusion of the train-side greetings and introductions,
+Marshal Joffre and General Pershing walked
+down the platform together. The tops of the cars of
+every train in the station were crowded with workmen.
+As the tall, slender American commander stepped into
+view, the privileged observers on the car-tops began to
+cheer.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later, there was a terrific roar from beyond
+the walls of the station. The crowds outside had heard
+the cheering within. They took it up with thousands of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+throats. They made their welcome a ringing one. Paris
+took Pershing by storm.</p>
+
+<p>The General was ushered into the specially decorated
+reception chamber, which was hung and carpeted with
+brilliant red velvet and draped with the Allied flags.
+After a brief formal exchange of greetings in this large
+chamber, he and his staff were escorted to the line of
+waiting automobiles at the side of the station in the Rue
+de Roubaix.</p>
+
+<p>Pershing's appearance in the open was the cue for
+wild, unstinted applause and cheering from the crowds
+which packed the streets and jammed the windows of the
+tall buildings opposite.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing and M. Painlevé, Minister of War,
+took seats in a large automobile. They were preceded
+by a motor containing United States Ambassador Sharp
+and former Premier Viviani. The procession started to
+the accompaniment of martial music by massed military
+bands in the courtyard of the station. It passed through
+the Rue de Compiègne, the Rue de Lafayette, the Place
+de l'Opéra, the Boulevard des Capucines, the Place de la
+Madeleine, the Rue Royale, to the Place de la Concorde.</p>
+
+<p>There were some fifty automobiles in the line, the rear
+of which was brought up by an enormous motor-bus
+load of the first American soldiers from the ranks to
+pass through the streets of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The crowds overflowed the sidewalks. They extended
+from the building walls out beyond the curbs and into
+the streets, leaving but a narrow lane through which the
+motors pressed their way slowly and with the exercise of
+much care. From the crowded balconies and windows
+overlooking the route, women and children tossed down
+showers of flowers and bits of coloured paper.</p>
+
+<p>The crowds were so dense that other street traffic became<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+marooned in the dense sea of joyously excited and
+gesticulating French people. Vehicles thus marooned immediately
+became islands of vantage. They were soon
+covered with men and women and children, who climbed
+on top of them and clung to the sides to get a better look
+at the khaki-clad occupants of the autos.</p>
+
+<p>Old grey-haired fathers of French fighting men bared
+their heads and with tears streaming down their cheeks
+shouted greetings to the tall, thin, grey-moustached
+American commander who was leading new armies to
+the support of their sons. Women heaped armfuls of
+roses into the General's car and into the cars of other
+American officers that followed him. Paris street gamins
+climbed the lamp-posts and waved their caps and wooden
+shoes and shouted shrilly.</p>
+
+<p>American flags and red, white and blue bunting waved
+wherever the eye rested. English-speaking Frenchmen
+proudly explained to the uninformed that "Pershing"
+was pronounced "Peur-chigne" and not "Pair-shang."</p>
+
+<p>Paris was not backward in displaying its knowledge of
+English. Gay Parisiennes were eager to make use of all
+the English at their command, that they might welcome
+the new arrivals in their native tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these women shouted "Hello," "Heep, heep,
+hourrah," "Good morning," "How are you, keed?" and
+"Cock-tails for two." Some of the expressions were not
+so inappropriate as they sounded.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally there came from the crowds a good old
+genuine American whoop-em-up yell. This happened
+when the procession passed groups of American ambulance
+workers and other sons of Uncle Sam, wearing the
+uniforms of the French, Canadian and English Corps.</p>
+
+<p>They joined with Australians and South African soldiers
+on leave to cheer on the new-coming Americans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+with such spontaneous expressions as "Come on, you
+Yanks," "Now let's get 'em," and "Eat 'em up, Uncle
+Sam."</p>
+
+<p>The frequent stopping of the procession by the crowds
+made it happen quite frequently that the automobiles
+were completely surrounded by enthusiasts, who reached
+up and tried to shake hands with the occupants. Pretty
+girls kissed their hands and blew the invisible confection
+toward the men in khaki.</p>
+
+<p>The bus-load of enlisted men bringing up the rear
+received dozens of bouquets from the girls. The flowers
+were hurled at them from all directions. Every two
+hundred feet the French would organise a rousing shout,
+"<i>Vive l'Amérique!</i>" for them.</p>
+
+<p>Being the passive recipients of this unusual adulation
+produced only embarrassment on the part of the regulars
+who simply had to sit there, smiling and taking it. Just
+to break the one-sided nature of the demonstrations, one
+of the enlisted men stood up in his seat and, addressing
+himself to his mates, shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, fellows, let's give 'em a 'veever' ourselves.
+Now all together."</p>
+
+<p>The bus-load rose to its feet like one man and shouted
+"Veever for France." Their "France" rhymed with
+"pants," so that none of the French understood it, but
+they did understand the sentiment behind the husky
+American lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Through such scenes as these, the procession reached
+the great Place de la Concorde. In this wide, paved, open
+space an enormous crowd had assembled. As the autos
+appeared the cheering, the flower throwing, the tumultuous
+kiss-blowing began. It increased in intensity as the
+motors stopped in front of the Hôtel Crillon into which
+General Pershing disappeared, followed by his staff.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Immediately the cheering changed to a tremendous
+clamorous demand for the General's appearance on the
+balcony in front of his apartments.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Au balcon, au balcon</i>," were the cries that filled the
+Place. The crowd would not be denied.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing stepped forth on the balcony. He
+stood behind the low marble railing, and between two
+enormous white-stoned columns. A cluster of the Allied
+flags was affixed to each column. The American commander
+surveyed the scene in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>There are no trees or shrubbery in the vast Place de
+la Concorde. Its broad paved surface is interrupted only
+by artistically placed groups of statuary and fountains.</p>
+
+<p>To the General's right, as he faced the Place, were the
+trees and greenery of the broad Champs Elysées. On
+his left were the fountains and the gardens of the Tuilleries.
+At the further end of the Place, five hundred feet
+straight in front of him, were the banks and the ornamental
+bridges of the Seine, beyond which could be seen
+the columned façade of the Chambre des Deputies, and
+above and beyond that, against the blue sky of a late
+June afternoon, rose the majestic golden dome of the
+Invalides, over the tomb of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing looked down upon the sea of faces
+turned up toward him, and then it seemed that nature
+desired to play a part in the ceremony of that great day.
+A soft breeze from the Champs Elysées touched the cluster
+of flags on the General's right and from all the Allied
+emblems fastened there it selected one flag.</p>
+
+<p>The breeze tenderly caught the folds of this flag and
+wafted them across the balcony on which the General
+bowed. He saw and recognised that flag. He extended
+his hand, caught the flag in his fingers and pressed it to
+his lips. All France and all America represented in that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+vast throng that day cheered to the mighty echo when
+Pershing kissed the tri-colour of France.</p>
+
+<p>It was a tremendous, unforgettable incident. It was
+exceeded by no other incident during those days of receptions
+and ceremonies, except one. That was an incident
+which occurred not in the presence of thousands,
+but in a lonely old burial ground on the outskirts of
+Paris. This happened several days after the demonstration
+in the Place de la Concorde.</p>
+
+<p>On that day of bright sunshine, General Pershing and
+a small party of officers, French and American, walked
+through the gravel paths of Picpus Cemetery in the suburbs
+of Paris, where the bodies of hundreds of those
+who made the history of France are buried.</p>
+
+<p>Several French women in deep mourning courtesied as
+General Pershing passed. His party stopped in front of
+two marble slabs that lay side by side at the foot of a
+granite monument. From the General's party a Frenchman
+stepped forward and, removing his high silk hat, he
+addressed the small group in quiet, simple tones and well-chosen
+English words. He was the Marquis de Chambrun.
+He said:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"On this spot one can say that the historic ties between
+our nations are not the result of the able schemes
+of skilful diplomacy. No, the principles of liberty, justice
+and independence are the glorious links between our
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>"These principles have enlisted the hearts of our democracies.
+They have made the strength of their union
+and have brought about the triumph of their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day, when, after nearly a century and a half,
+America and France are engaged in a conflict for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+same cause upon which their early friendship was based,
+we are filled with hope and confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"We know that our great nations are together with
+our Allies invincible, and we rejoice to think that the
+United States and France are reunited in the fight for
+liberty, and will reconsecrate, in a new victory, their everlasting
+friendship of which your presence to-day at this
+grave is an exquisite and touching token."</p></div>
+
+<p>General Pershing advanced to the tomb and placed
+upon the marble slab an enormous wreath of pink and
+white roses. Then he stepped back. He removed his
+cap and held it in both hands in front of him. The
+bright sunlight shone down on his silvery grey hair.
+Looking down at the grave, he spoke in a quiet, impressive
+tone four simple, all-meaning words:</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>"Lafayette, we are here."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first executive work of the American Expeditionary
+Forces overseas was performed in a second floor
+suite of the Crillon Hotel on the Place de la Concorde in
+Paris. This suite was the first temporary headquarters
+of the American commander.</p>
+
+<p>The tall windows of the rooms looked down on the
+historic Place which was the scene of so many momentous
+events in French history. The windows were hardly a
+hundred yards from the very spot where the guillotine
+dripped red in the days of the Terror. It was here that
+the heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette dropped
+into the basket.</p>
+
+<p>During General Pershing's comparatively brief occupancy
+of these headquarters, the reception rooms were
+constantly banked with fresh-cut flowers, the daily gifts
+of the French people,&mdash;flowers that were replenished
+every twenty-four hours. The room was called the
+"Salon des Batailles."</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the room, near a window overlooking
+the Place, was General Pershing's table. It was adorned
+with a statuette of General Joffre and a cluster of miniatures
+of captured German standards. Extending from
+the floor to the ceiling on one of the walls were two enormous
+oil copies of "La Bataille de Fontenoy" and the
+"Passage du Rhin." A large flag-draped photograph of
+President Wilson occupied a place of honour on an easel
+at one end of the room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During the first week that General Pershing stopped
+at the hotel, the sidewalk and street beneath his windows
+were constantly crowded with people. The crowds
+waited there all day long, just in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of the American commander if he should happen
+to be leaving or returning to his quarters. It seemed
+as if every Parisienne and Parisian had taken upon herself
+and himself the special duty of personally observing
+General Pershing, of waving him an enthusiastic "vive"
+and possibly being within the scope of his returning salute.</p>
+
+<p>But the American commander would not permit demonstrations
+and celebrations to interfere with the important
+duties that he faced. Two days are all that were devoted
+to these social ceremonies which the enthusiastic
+and hospitable French would have made almost endless.
+Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased
+from the working day calendar. The American commander
+sounded the order "To work" with the same
+martial precision as though the command had been a
+sudden call "To arms."</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the third day after General Pershing's
+arrival in Paris, the typewriters began clicking
+incessantly and the telephones began ringing busily in the
+large building which was occupied on that day as the
+headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in
+France.</p>
+
+<p>This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constantine.
+It faced the trees and shrubbery bordering the
+approach to the Seine front of the Invalides. The building
+was two stories high with grey-white walls and a
+mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately
+identified as the one in front of which stood a line of
+American motor cars, as the one where trim United<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors
+through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages.</p>
+
+<p>Ten days before, the building had been the residence of
+a Marquis and had contained furniture and art valued
+at millions of francs. All of those home-like characteristics
+had been removed so effectively that even the name
+of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure
+that he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could
+not have recognised his converted salons where the elaborate
+ornamentation had been changed to the severe simplicity
+typical of a United States Army barracks.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing's office was located on the second
+floor of the house and in one corner. In those early
+days it was carpetless and contained almost a monkish
+minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair,
+and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal standard
+for one of those one-piece telephone sets with which
+Americans are familiar only in French stage settings. A
+book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's table and
+chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors,
+comprised the furniture inventory of the room.</p>
+
+<p>One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with
+a large mirror with a gilt frame, and in the other wall
+was a plain fireplace. There were tall windows in the
+two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de Constantine
+and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de
+Grenelle windows there was a small, deeply shaded park
+where children rolled hoops during the heat of the day
+and where convalescent French soldiers sat and watched
+the children at play or perhaps discussed the war and
+other things with the nurse-maids.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first workshop in France of the American
+commander-in-chief. Adjoining rooms to the left
+and right were occupied by the General's staff and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+aides. And it was in these rooms that the overseas plans
+for the landing of the first American armed contingent
+in France were formulated.</p>
+
+<p>It is safe now to mention that St. Nazaire on the west
+coast of France was the port at which our first armed
+forces disembarked. I was in Paris when the information
+of their coming was whispered to a few chosen
+correspondents who were to be privileged to witness this
+historical landing.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time in the history of our nation
+that a large force of armed Americans was to cross the
+seas to Europe. For five and a half months prior to the
+date of their landing, the ruthless submarine policy of
+the Imperial German Government had been in effect, and
+our troop ships with those initial thousands of American
+soldiers represented the first large Armada to dare the
+ocean crossing since Germany had instituted her sub-sea
+blockade zone in February of that same year.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that any conversation concerning the fact
+that our men were on the seas and at the mercy of the
+U-boats was conducted with the greatest of care behind
+closed doors. In spite of the efforts of the French agents
+of contra espionage, Paris and all France, for that matter,
+housed numerous spies. There were some anxious
+moments while that first contingent was on the water.</p>
+
+<p>Our little group of correspondents was informed that
+we should be conducted by American officers to the port
+of landing, but the name of that port was withheld from
+us. By appointment we met at a Paris railroad station
+where we were provided with railroad tickets. We took
+our places in compartments and rode for some ten or
+twelve hours, arriving early the next morning at St.
+Nazaire.</p>
+
+<p>This little village on the coast of Brittany was tucked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+away there in the golden sands of the seashore. Its
+houses had walls of white stucco and gabled roofs of
+red tile. In the small rolling hills behind it were green
+orchards and fields of yellow wheat. The villagers, old
+women in their starched white head-dresses and old men
+wearing faded blue smocks and wooden shoes, were unmindful
+of the great event for which history had destined
+their village.</p>
+
+<p>On the night before the landing the townspeople had
+retired with no knowledge of what was to happen on
+the following day. In the morning they awoke to find
+strange ships that had come in the night, riding safely
+at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began
+to pop open with bangs as excited heads, encased in
+peaked flannel nightcaps, protruded themselves from bedroom
+windows and directed anxious queries to those who
+happened to be abroad at that early hour.</p>
+
+<p>St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning
+than ever before in its history. The Mayor of the town
+was one of the busiest figures on the street. In high hat
+and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to assemble
+the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute
+players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The
+townspeople neglected their <i>café au lait</i> to rush down to
+the quay to look at the new ships.</p>
+
+<p>The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morning
+sunlight. The dawn had been grey and misty, but
+now nature seemed to smile. The strange ships from
+the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now
+there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States warships,
+units of that remarkable fighting organisation
+which in the year that was to immediately follow that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+very day were to escort safely across three thousand
+miles of submarine-infested water more than a million
+and a half American soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of these first warships of ours was
+novel to the French townspeople. Our ships had peculiar
+looking masts, masts which the townspeople compared to
+the baskets which the French peasants carry on their
+backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from
+the shore were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed
+toward the menace of the outer deep.</p>
+
+<p>Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship
+toward the quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American
+sailors and soldiers, who had been previously landed by
+launch to assist in the disembarkation, were handling the
+lines on the dock.</p>
+
+<p>When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the successive
+decks of the first troop ship took on the appearance
+of mud-coloured layers from the khaki uniforms of the
+stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band on the
+forward deck was playing the national anthems of France
+and America and every hand was being held at the salute.</p>
+
+<p>As the final bars of the "Star Spangled Banner"
+crashed out and every saluting hand came snappily down,
+one American soldier on an upper deck leaned over the
+rail and shouted to a comrade on the shore his part of
+the first exchange of greetings between our fighting
+men upon this historic occasion. Holding one hand to
+his lips, he seriously enquired:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, do they let the enlisted men in the saloons
+here?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs04.jpg" width="500" height="380" alt="THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs05.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Another soldier standing near the stern rail had a different
+and more serious interrogation to make. He appeared
+rather blasé about it as he leaned over the rail<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+and, directing his voice toward a soldier on the dock,
+casually demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Say, where the Hell is all this trouble, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>These two opening sorties produced a flood of others.
+The most common enquiry was: "What's the name of
+this place?" and "Is this France or England?" When
+answers were made to these questions, the recipients of
+the information, particularly if they happened to be "old-timers
+in the army," would respond by remarking, "Well,
+it's a damn sight better than the Mexican border."</p>
+
+<p>As our men came over the ship's side and down the
+runways, there was no great reception committee awaiting
+them. Among the most interested spectators of the
+event were a group of stolid German prisoners of war
+and the two French soldiers guarding them. The two
+Frenchmen talked volubly with a wealth of gesticulation,
+while the Germans maintained their characteristic glumness.</p>
+
+<p>The German prisoners appeared to be anything but
+discouraged at the sight. Some of them even wore a
+smile that approached the supercilious. With some of
+them that smile seemed to say: "You can't fool us. We
+know these troops are not Americans. They are either
+Canadians or Australians coming from England. Our
+German U-boats won't let Americans cross the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>Some of those German prisoners happened to have
+been in America before the war. They spoke English
+and recognised the uniforms of our men. Their silent
+smiles seemed to say: "Well, they don't look so good at
+that. We have seen better soldiers. And, besides, there
+is only a handful of them. Not enough can come to
+make any difference. Anyhow, it is too late now. The
+war will be over before any appreciable number can get
+here."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the
+ship's side. Company after company of our men, loaded
+down with packs and full field equipment, lined up on
+the dock and marched past the group of German prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>"We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible
+from our ranks shouted, as the marching line
+passed within touching distance of the prisoner group.
+The Germans responded only with quizzical little smiles
+and silence.</p>
+
+<p>Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments
+marched through the main street of the village. The
+bands played "Dixie"&mdash;a new air to France. The regiments
+as a whole did not present the snappy, marching
+appearance that they might have presented. There was
+a good reason for this. Sixty per cent. of them were recruits.
+It had been wisely decided to replace many of
+the old regular army men in the ranks with newly enlisted
+men, so that these old veterans could remain in
+America and train the new drafts.</p>
+
+<p>However, that which impressed the French people was
+the individual appearance of these samples of American
+manhood. Our men were tall and broad and brawny.
+They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen
+and snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from
+the swarthy sun-tanned cheeks of border veterans to the
+clear pink skins of city youngsters. But most noticeable
+of all to the French people were the even white rows of
+teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good
+dentistry and clean mouths are essentially American.</p>
+
+<p>The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women,
+girls and school children, lined the curbs as our men
+marched through the town. The line of march was over
+a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground
+back of the town. The road here was bordered on either
+side with ancient stone walls covered with vines and
+over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden
+branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red lusciousness.
+As they marched through the heat and dust of
+that June day, many succumbed to the temptations and
+paid for their appetites with inordinately violent colics
+that night.</p>
+
+<p>A camp site had been partially prepared for their reception.
+It was located close to a French barracks. The
+French soldiers and gangs of German prisoners, who had
+been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of the
+fact that they were building the first American cantonment
+in France. They thought they were constructing
+simply an extension of the French encampment.</p>
+
+<p>That first contingent, composed of United States Infantrymen
+and Marines, made its first camp in France
+with the smallest amount of confusion, considering the
+fact that almost three-quarters of them hadn't been in
+uniform a month. It was but several hours after arriving
+at the camp that the smoke was rising from the
+busy camp stoves and the aroma of American coffee,
+baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of that first day some of the men
+were given permission to visit the town. They began to
+take their first lessons in French as they went from café
+to café in futile efforts to connect up with such unknown
+commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches.
+Upon meeting one another in the streets, our men would
+invariably ask: "Have you come across any of these
+<span class="smcap">FROGS</span> that talk American?"</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs
+or Froggies as applied to their French comrades in arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+American officers hastened to explain to French officers
+that the one piece of information concerning France most
+popularly known in America was that it was the place
+where people first learned to eat frog legs and snails.</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat
+inclined to believe that these first Americans didn't live
+up to the European expectations of Americans. Those
+European expectations had been founded almost entirely
+upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture
+thrillers of the Wild West and comedy variety.</p>
+
+<p>Although our men wore the high, broad-brimmed felt
+hats, they didn't seem sufficiently cowboyish. Although
+the French people waited expectantly, none of these
+Americans dashed through the main street of the village
+on bucking bronchos, holding their reins in their teeth
+and at the same time firing revolvers from either hand.
+Moreover, none of our men seemed to conclude their
+dinners in the expected American fashion of slapping
+one another in the face with custard pies.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be seen on the streets of St. Nazaire that
+day some representative black Americans, who had also
+landed in that historical first contingent. There was a
+strange thing about these negroes.</p>
+
+<p>It will be remembered that in the early stages of our
+participation in the war it had been found that there
+was hardly sufficient khaki cloth to provide uniforms for
+all of our soldiers. That had been the case with these
+American negro soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>But somewhere down in Washington, somehow or
+other, some one resurrected an old, large, heavy iron key
+and this, inserted into an ancient rusty lock, had opened
+some long forgotten doors in one of the Government
+arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles
+wrapped up in newspapers, yellow with age, and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+these wrappings of the past were removed, there were
+seen the uniforms of old Union blue that had been laid
+away back in '65&mdash;uniforms that had been worn by men
+who fought and bled and died to free the first black
+American citizens.</p>
+
+<p>And here on this foreign shore, on this day in June
+more than half a century later, the sons and the grandsons
+of those same freed slaves wore those same uniforms
+of Union blue as they landed in France to fight
+for a newer freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower
+Mississippi levees. They sang as they worked in their
+white army undershirts, across the chest of which they
+had penciled in blue and red, strange mystic devices, religious
+phrases and hoodoo signs, calculated to contribute
+the charm of safety to the running of the submarine
+blockade.</p>
+
+<p>Two of these American negroes, walking up the main
+street of St. Nazaire, saw on the other side of the thoroughfare
+a brother of colour wearing the lighter blue
+uniform of a French soldier. This French negro was
+a Colonial black from the north of Africa and of course
+had spoken nothing but French from the day he was born.</p>
+
+<p>One of the American negroes crossed the street and
+accosted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Looka here, boy," he enquired good-naturedly, "what
+can you all tell me about this here wah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Comment, monsieur?" responded the non-understanding
+French black, and followed the rejoinder with a torrent
+of excited French.</p>
+
+<p>The American negro's mouth fell open. For a minute
+he looked startled, and then he bulged one large round
+white eye suspiciously at the French black, while he inwardly
+debated on the possibility that he had become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, however,
+that his vision was not at fault, he made a sudden
+decision and started on a new tack.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, never mind that high-faluting language," he
+said. "You all just tell me what you know about this
+here wah and quit you' putting on aihs."</p>
+
+<p>The puzzled French negro could only reply with another
+explosion of French interrogations, coupled with
+vigorous gesticulations. The American negro tried to
+talk at the same time and both of them endeavouring
+to make the other understand, increased the volumes of
+their tones until they were standing there waving their
+arms and shouting into one another's faces. The American
+negro gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed
+the street and joined his comrades, "this is shore some
+funny country. They got the mos' ignorantest niggers
+I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>Still, those American blacks were not alone in their
+difficulties over the difference in languages. I discussed
+the matter with one of our white regulars who professed
+great experience, having spent almost one entire day on
+mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of baggage.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies
+ever will learn to speak English."</p>
+
+<p>Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns
+found that their smattering of Spanish did not help them
+much. But still every one seemed to manage to get along
+all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers in those
+early days couldn't understand each other's languages,
+but they could understand each other.</p>
+
+<p>This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young
+American Lieutenant who said he had made a twelve-hour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+study of the remarkable camaraderie that had immediately
+sprung up between the fighting men of France
+and the fighting men of America. In explaining this relationship,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, we think the French are crazy," he said,
+"and the French know damn well we are."</p>
+
+<p>Those of our men who had not brought small French
+and English dictionaries with them, made hurried purchases
+of such handy articles and forthwith began to
+practice. The French people did likewise.</p>
+
+<p>I saw one young American infantryman seated at a
+table in front of one of the sidewalk cafés on the village
+square. He was dividing his attention between a fervent
+admiration of the pretty French waitress, who stood
+smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the
+pages of his small hand dictionary.</p>
+
+<p>She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for
+it, but there seemed to be a mutual urge for further conversation.
+The American would look first at her and
+then he would look through the pages of the book again.
+Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the following
+request:</p>
+
+<p>"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost
+immediately, and she replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed
+the book with a snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors
+ashore before us."</p>
+
+<p>From the very first day of the landing we began to
+learn things from the French and they began to learn
+things from us. Some of our men learned that it was
+quite possible to sip an occasional glass of beer or light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+wine without feeling a sudden inclination to buy and
+consume all there remained in the café.</p>
+
+<p>The French soldiers were intensely interested in the
+equipment of our land forces and in the uniforms of
+both our soldiers and sailors. They sought by questions
+to get an understanding of the various insignia by which
+the Americans designated their rank.</p>
+
+<p>One thing that they noticed was a small, round white
+pasteboard tag suspended on a yellow cord from the
+upper left hand breast pocket of either the blue jackets
+of our sailors or the khaki shirts of our soldiers. So
+prevalent was this tag, which in reality marked the
+wearer as the owner of a package of popular tobacco,
+that the French almost accepted it as uniform equipment.</p>
+
+<p>The attitude of our first arriving American soldiers
+toward the German prisoners who worked in gangs on
+construction work in the camps and rough labour along
+the docks was a curious one. Not having yet encountered
+in battle the brothers of these same docile appearing
+captives, our men were even inclined to treat the
+prisoners with deference almost approaching admiration.</p>
+
+<p>In a measure, the Germans returned this feeling. The
+arrival of the Americans was really cheering to them.
+The prisoners disliked the French because they had been
+taught to do so from childhood. They hated the English
+because that was the hate with which they went into
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>It sounds incongruous now but, nevertheless, it was
+a fact then that the German prisoners confined at that first
+American sea-base really seemed to like the American
+soldiers. Maybe it was because any change of masters
+or guards was a relief in the uneventful existence which
+had been theirs since the day of their capture. Perhaps
+the feeling was one of distinct kindred, based on a familiarity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+with Americans and American customs&mdash;a familiarity
+which had been produced by thousands of letters
+which Germans in America had written to their
+friends in Germany before the war. On the other hand,
+it may simply have been by reason of America's official
+disavowal of any animosity toward the German people.</p>
+
+<p>One day I watched some of those prisoners unloading
+supplies at one of the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less
+under the eyes of an American sentry who stood nearby.
+One group of four Germans were engaged in carrying
+what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Casually,
+and as if by accident, the case was dropped to the
+ground and cracked.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly one of the prisoners' hands began to furtively
+investigate the packages revealed by the break.
+The other prisoners busied themselves as if preparing to
+lift the box again. The first German pulled a spoon from
+his bootleg, plunged it into the crevice in the broken box
+and withdrew it heaped with granulated sugar. With
+a quick movement he conveyed the stolen sweet to his
+mouth and that gapping orifice closed quickly on the
+sugar, while his stoical face immediately assumed its
+characteristic downcast look. He didn't dare move his
+lips or jaws for fear of detection.</p>
+
+<p>Of course these Germans had been receiving but a
+scant ration of sugar, but their lot had been no worse
+than that of the French soldiers guarding them previously,
+who got no sugar either. American soldiers
+then guarding those prisoners reported only a few of
+them for confinement for these human thefts.</p>
+
+<p>Surreptitiously, the American guards would sometimes
+leave cigarettes where the prisoners could get them, and
+even though the action did violate the rules of discipline,
+it helped to develop further the human side of the giver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+and the recipient and at the same time had the result of
+making the prisoners do more work for their new
+guards.</p>
+
+<p>It should be specially stated that lenience could not
+and was not extended to the point of fraternisation. But
+the relationship that seemed to exist between the German
+prisoners and American soldiers at that early date
+revealed undeniably the absence of any mutual hate.</p>
+
+<p>Around one packing case on the dock I saw, one day,
+a number of German prisoners who were engaged in unpacking
+bundles from America, and passing them down
+a line of waiting hands that relayed them to a freight car.
+One of the Germans leaning over the case straightened
+up with a rumpled newspaper in his hand. He had removed
+it from a package. A look of indescribable joy
+came across his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Deutscher, Deutscher," he cried, pointing to the
+Gothic type. The paper was a copy of the New York
+<i>Staats-Zeitung</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The lot of those prisoners was not an unhappy one.
+To me it seemed very doubtful whether even a small
+percentage of them would have accepted liberty if it
+carried with it the necessity of returning to German
+trenches.</p>
+
+<p>Those men knew what war was. They had crossed
+No Man's Land. Now they were far back from the
+blazing front in a comparatively peaceful country beyond
+the sound of the guns. If their lot at that time was
+to be characterised as "war," then in the opinion of
+those Germans, war was not what Sherman said it was.</p>
+
+<p>Their attitude more resembled that of the unkissed
+spinster who was taken captive when the invading army
+captured the town. She flung herself into the arms of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+the surprised commander of the invaders and smilingly
+whispered, "War is war."</p>
+
+<p>The German prison camps at St. Nazaire were inspected
+by General Pershing on the third day of the
+American landing when he, with his staff, arrived from
+Paris. The General and his party arrived early in the
+morning in a pouring rain. The American commander-in-chief
+then held the rank of a Major General. In the
+harbour was the flagship of Rear Admiral Gleaves.</p>
+
+<p>There was no delay over the niceties of etiquette when
+the question arose as to whether the Rear Admiral should
+call on the Major General or the Major General should
+call on the Rear Admiral.</p>
+
+<p>The Major General settled the subject with a sentence.
+He said, "The point is that I want to see him," and with
+no further ado about it General Pershing and his staff
+visited the Admiral on his flagship. After his inspection
+of our first contingent, General Pershing said:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"This is the happiest day of the busy days which I
+have spent in France preparing for the arrival of the
+first contingent. To-day I have seen our troops safe on
+French soil, landing from transports that were guarded
+in their passage overseas by the resourceful vigilance of
+our Navy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, our task as soldiers lies before us. We hope,
+with the aid of the French leaders and experts who have
+placed all the results of their experience at our disposal,
+to make our forces worthy in skill and in determination,
+to fight side by side in arms with the armies of France."</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Clip the skyline from the Blue Ridge, arch it over with
+arboreal vistas from the forests of the Oregon, reflect
+the two in the placid waters of the Wisconsin&mdash;and you
+will have some conception of the perfect Eden of beauty
+in which the first contingent of the American Expeditionary
+Forces trained in France.</p>
+
+<p>Beckoning white roads curl through the rolling hills
+like ribbons of dental cream squeezed out evenly on rich
+green velour. Châteaux, pearl white centres in settings
+of emerald green, push their turrets and bastions above
+the mossy plush of the mountain side. Lazy little
+streams silver the valleys with their aimless wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>It was a peaceful looking garden of pastoral delight
+that United States soldiers had picked out for their martial
+training ground. It was a section whose physical
+appearance was untouched by the three years of red riot
+and roar that still rumbled away just a few miles to the
+north.</p>
+
+<p>The training area was located in the Vosges, in east
+central France. By train, it was a nine-hour day trip
+from Paris. It was located about an hour's motor ride
+behind the front lines, which at that time were close to
+the north of the cities of Nancy and Toul.</p>
+
+<p>The troops were billeted in a string of small villages
+that comprised one side of the letter V. French troops
+and instructing officers occupied the other converging
+line of the letter. Between the two lines was the area in
+which our men trained. Where the two lines converged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+was the town of Gondercourt, the headquarters of Major
+General Seibert, the Commander of the first American
+division in France.</p>
+
+<p>The area had long since been stripped of male civilian
+population that could be utilised for the French ranks.
+The war had taken the men and the boys, but had left
+the old people and children to till the fields, tend the
+cattle, prune the hedges and trim the roads.</p>
+
+<p>With the advent of our troops, the restful scene began
+to change. Treeless ridges carpeted with just enough
+green to veil the rocky formation of the ground began to
+break out with a superficial rash of the colour of fresh
+earth. In rows and circles, by angles and zigzags, the
+training trenches began to take form daily under the pick
+and shovel exercises of French and Americans working
+side by side.</p>
+
+<p>Along the white roads, clay-coloured rectangles that
+moved evenly, like brown caravans, represented the
+marching units of United States troops. The columns
+of bluish-grey that passed them with shorter, quicker
+steps, were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who
+after almost three years of the front line real thing, now
+played at a mimic war of make-believe, with taller and
+heavier novitiates.</p>
+
+<p>Those French troops were Alpine Chasseurs&mdash;the famous
+Blue Devils. They wore dark blue caps, which
+resemble tam o'shanters, but are not. They were proud
+of the distinction which their uniform gave them. They
+were proud of their great fighting records. One single
+battalion of them boasted that of the twenty-six officers
+who led it into the first fight at the opening of the war,
+only four of them existed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great advantage for our men to train under
+such instructors. Correspondents who had been along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+the fronts before America's entry into the war, had a
+great respect for the soldierly capacity of these same fighting
+Frenchmen; not only these sturdy young sons of
+France who wore the uniform, but the older French soldiers&mdash;ranging
+in age from forty to fifty-five years&mdash;who
+had been away to the fronts since the very beginning
+of the war.</p>
+
+<p>We had seen them many, many times. Miles upon
+miles of them, in the motor trucks along the roads.
+Twenty of them rode in each truck. They sat on two
+side benches facing the centre of the trucks. They were
+men actually bent forward from the weight of the martial
+equipment strapped to their bodies. They seemed to
+carry inordinate loads&mdash;knapsacks, blanket roll, spare
+shoes, haversacks, gas masks, water bottles, ammunition
+belts, grenade aprons, rifle, bayonet and helmet.</p>
+
+<p>Many of them were very old men. They had thick
+black eyebrows and wore long black beards. They were
+tired, weary men. We had seen them in the camions,
+each man resting his head on the shoulder of the man
+seated beside him. The dust of the journey turned their
+black beards grey. On the front seat of the camion a
+sleepless one handled the wheel, while beside him the
+relief driver slept on the seat.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they had been seen, mile upon mile of them,
+thousand upon thousand of them, moving ever up and
+down those roads that paralleled the six hundred and
+fifty miles of front from Flanders to the Alps&mdash;moving
+always. Thus they had been seen night and day, winter
+and summer, for more than three long years, always
+trying to be at the place where the enemy struck. The
+world knows and the world is thankful that they always
+were there.</p>
+
+<p>It was under such veteran instructors as these that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+our first Americans in France trained, there, in the
+Vosges, in a garden spot of beauty, in the province that
+boasts the birthplace of Jeanne d'Arc. On the few leave
+days, many of our men, with permission, would absent
+themselves from camp, and make short pilgrimages over
+the hills to the little town of Domremy to visit the house
+in which the Maid of Orleans was born.</p>
+
+<p>Our men were eager to learn. I observed them daily
+at their training tasks. One day when they had progressed
+as far as the use of the New French automatic
+rifles, I visited one of the ranges to witness the firing.</p>
+
+<p>Just under the crest of the hill was a row of rifle pits,
+four feet deep in the slaty white rock. On the opposite
+hill, across the marshy hollow, at a distance of two hundred
+yards, was a line of wooden targets, painted white
+with black circles. Poised at intervals on the forward
+edge of the pits were a number of automatic rifles of the
+type used by the French army. An American soldier
+and a French soldier attended each one, the former in
+the firing position and the latter instructing.</p>
+
+<p>The rear bank of the pits was lined with French and
+American officers. The order, "Commence firing," was
+given, and white spurts of rock dust began dancing on
+the opposite hill, while splinters began to fly from some
+of the wooden targets.</p>
+
+<p>At one end of the firing trench a raw American recruit,
+who admitted that he had never handled an automatic
+rifle before, flushed to his hat-brim and gritted his
+teeth viciously as his shots, registering ten feet above
+the targets, brought forth laughter and exclamations
+from the French soldiers nearby. He rested on his gun
+long enough to ask an interpreter what the Frenchmen
+were talking about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They say," the interpreter replied, "that you belong
+to the anti-aircraft service."</p>
+
+<p>The recruit tightened his grip on his rifle and lowered
+his aim with better results. At the end of his first fifty
+shots he was placing one in three on the target and the
+others were registering close in.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" came from a group of French officers at the
+other end of the trench, where another American, older
+in the service, had signalised his first experiences with the
+new firearm by landing thirty targets out of thirty-four
+shots, and four of the targets were bull's-eyes. The
+French instructors complimented him on the excellence
+of his marksmanship, considering his acknowledged unfamiliarity
+with the weapon.</p>
+
+<p>Further along the depression, in another set of opposing
+trenches and targets, a row of French machine
+guns manned by young Americans, sprayed lead with
+ear-splitting abandon, sometimes reaching the rate of five
+hundred shots a minute. Even with such rapidity, the
+Americans encountered no difficulties with the new pieces.</p>
+
+<p>French veterans, who for three years had been using
+those same guns against German targets, hovered over
+each piece, explaining in half French and half English,
+and answering in the same mixture questions on ways
+and means of getting the best results from the weapons.</p>
+
+<p>Here a chasseur of the ranks would stop the firing of
+one American squad, with a peremptory, "Regardez."
+He would proceed with pantomime and more or less connected
+words, carrying the warning that firing in such a
+manner would result in jamming the guns, a condition
+which would be fatal in case the targets in the other
+trenches were charging upon the guns.</p>
+
+<p>Then he showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks,
+watchfully alert to his every move, changed their method<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+and signified their pleasure with the expression of "Trays
+beans," and "Mercy's."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it would have resulted in a quicker and
+possibly more understanding training if these Americans
+were instructed by British veterans instead of French?"
+I asked an American Staff Officer, who was observing
+the demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>"I may have thought so at first," the officer replied,
+"but not now. The explanations which our men in the
+ranks are receiving from the French soldiers in the ranks
+are more than word instructions. They are object lessons
+in which gesticulation and pantomime are used to
+act out the movement or subject under discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"The French are great actors, and I find that American
+soldiers unacquainted with the French language are
+able to understand the French soldiers who are unacquainted
+with the English language much better than
+the American officers, similarly handicapped, can understand
+the French officers.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say that some time would be lost if all of
+our troops were to be trained by French soldiers, but I
+believe that this division under French tutelage will be
+better able to teach the new tactics to the new divisions
+that are to follow than it would be if it had speedily
+passed through training camps like the British system,
+for instance, where it must be taken for granted that
+verbal, instead of actual, instruction is the means of producing
+a speeding up of training."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that our first American contingent in
+France was in training for something more than service
+on the line. It rapidly qualified into an expert corps
+from which large numbers of capable American instructors
+were later withdrawn and used for the training
+of our millions of men that followed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This achievement was only accomplished by the exercise
+of strict disciplinarian measures by every American
+officer in the then small expedition. One day, in the early
+part of August, 1917, a whirlwind swept through the
+string of French villages where the first contingent was
+training.</p>
+
+<p>The whirlwind came down the main road in a cloud of
+dust. It sped on the fleeting tires of a high-powered
+motor which flew from its dust-grey hood a red flag
+with two white stars. It blew into the villages and out,
+through the billets and cook tents, mess halls, and picket
+lines. The whirlwind was John J. Pershing.</p>
+
+<p>The commander-in-chief "hit" the training area early
+in the morning and his coming was unannounced. Before
+evening he had completed a stern inspection which
+had left only one impression in the minds of the inspected,
+and that impression was to the effect that more
+snap and pep, more sharpness and keenness were needed.</p>
+
+<p>At the conclusion of the inspection all of the officers
+of the contingent were agreeing that the whirlwind visitation
+was just what had been needed to arouse the mettle
+and spirit in an organisation comprised of over fifty per
+cent. raw recruits. Many of the officers themselves had
+been included in the pointed criticisms which the commander
+directed against the persons and things that met
+disfavour in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The night following that inspection or "raid," as it
+was called, it would have been safe to say that nowhere
+in the area was there a recruit who did not know, in a
+manner that he would not forget, the correct position of
+a soldier&mdash;the precise, stiff, snappy attitude to be presented
+when called to attention. The enlisted men whose
+heels did not click when they met, whose shoulders
+slouched, whose chins missed the proper angle, whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+eyes were not "front" during the inspection, underwent
+embarrassing penalties, calculated to make them remember.</p>
+
+<p>"Have this man fall out," General Pershing directed,
+as he stood before a recruit whose attitude appeared
+sloppy; "teach him the position of a soldier and have
+him stand at attention for five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>One company which had prided itself upon having
+some of the best embryonic bomb-throwers in the contingent,
+contributed a number of victims to the above
+penalties, and as the General's train of automobiles
+swirled out of the village, the main street seemed to be
+dotted with silent khaki-clad statues doing their five minute
+sentences of rigidity.</p>
+
+<p>"What about your men's shoes?" General Pershing
+asked a captain sharply, while he directed his eyes along
+a company line of feet whose casings seemed to be approaching
+the shabby.</p>
+
+<p>"We need hobnails, sir," replied the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Get them"&mdash;the words snapped out from beneath
+Pershing's close-cropped grey moustache. "Requisition
+hobnails. Your men need them. Get them from the
+quartermaster."</p>
+
+<p>The American commander stepped into the darkness
+of a large stone-walled stable, which represented the
+billeting accommodations for ten American soldiers. A
+dog curled in the doorway growled and showed its teeth.
+The General stepped past the menacing animal, and without
+heeding its snarls close to his heels, started questioning
+the sergeants in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Are any cattle kept in here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," replied the sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>"Detail more men with brooms and have it aired thoroughly
+every day."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Observed from a distance, when he was speaking with
+battalion and regimental commanders, the commander
+manifested no change of attitude from that which marked
+his whole inspection. He frequently employed his characteristic
+gesture of emphasis&mdash;the wadding of his left
+palm with his right fist or the energetic opening and
+closing of the right hand. When the Pershing whirlwind
+sped out of the training area that night, after the first
+American inspection in France, it left behind it a thorough
+realisation of the sternness of the work which was
+ahead of our army.</p>
+
+<p>The development of a rigid discipline was the American
+commander's first objective in the training schedules
+which he ordered his staff to devise. After this schedule
+had been in operation not ten days, I happened to witness
+a demonstration of American discipline which might be
+compared to an improved incident of Damocles dining
+under the suspended sword at the feast of Dionysius.</p>
+
+<p>A battalion of American Infantry was at practice on
+one of the training fields. The grenade-throwing exercises
+had been concluded and the order had been given to
+"fall in" preparatory to the march back to the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the formation of the long company lines, end
+on end down the side of the hill, the order, "attention,"
+was sharply shouted bringing the men to the rigid pose
+which permits the eyes to wander neither to the right nor
+to the left, above nor below, but straightforward.</p>
+
+<p>As the thousand men stood there, rigid and silent, a
+sudden disturbance took place in the sky above them.
+Shells began exploding up there. At the same time the
+men in the ranks could distinctly hear the whirr and the
+hum of aeroplane motors above them.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every day reports had been received that German
+planes had evaded the Allied aerial patrols along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+the front and had made long flights behind our lines for
+the dual purposes of observing and bombing.</p>
+
+<p>As the American battalion stood stiff and motionless,
+I knew that the thought was passing through the minds
+of every man there that here, at last, was the expected
+visitation of the German flyers and that a terrific bomb
+from above would be the next event on the programme.
+The men recognised the reports of the anti-aircraft guns
+blazing away, and the sound of the motors suggested a
+close range target.</p>
+
+<p>The sound seemed to indicate that the planes were
+flying low. The American ranks knew that something
+was going on immediately above them. They did not
+know what it was, but it seems needless to state that they
+wanted to know. Still the ranks stood as stiff as rows
+of clay-coloured statues.</p>
+
+<p>An almost irresistible impulse to look upward, a strong
+instinctive urging to see the danger that impended, and
+the stern regulations of "eyes front" that goes with the
+command "attention," comprised the elements of conflict
+that went on in each of the thousand heads in that
+battalion line.</p>
+
+<p>In front of each platoon, the lieutenants and captains
+stood with the same rigid eyes front facing the men. If
+one of the company officers had relaxed to the extent
+of taking one fleeting upward glance, it is doubtful
+whether the men could have further resisted the same
+inclination, but not a man shifted his gaze from the
+direction prescribed by the last command.</p>
+
+<p>One plane passed closely overhead and nothing happened.
+Three more followed and still no bombs fell, and
+then the tense incident was closed by the calling out of
+the order of the march and, in squads of four, the battalion
+wheeled into the road and marched back to billets.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As one company went by singing (talking was permitted
+upon the freedom of routstep), I heard one of
+the men say that he had thought all along that the officers
+would not have made them stand there at attention if
+the danger had not been over.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as I knew, it was over," a comrade added.
+"It was right over my head." And in this light manner
+the men forgot the incident as they resumed their
+marching song.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. W. Hollenzollern of Potsdam put singing
+lessons in the curriculum of his soldiers' training, a
+tremor of military giggling was heard around the world.
+But in August, 1914, when Mars smiled at the sight of
+those same soldiers, marching across the frontiers east,
+south and west, under their throaty barrage of "Deutschland,
+Deutschland, Über Alles," the derisive giggles completely
+died out. It immediately became a case of he
+who laughs first, lives to yodel.</p>
+
+<p>The American forces then in training took advantage
+of this. They not only began to sing as they trained,
+but they actually began to be trained to sing. Numerous
+company commanders who had held strong opinions
+against this vocal soldiering, changed their minds and
+expressed the new found conviction that the day was
+past when singing armies could be compared solely with
+male coryphées who hold positions well down stage and
+clink empty flagons of brown October ale.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a great idea," a company commander told me.
+"We learned it from the Blue Devils. They are the
+toughest set of undersized gentry that I have run into
+in France. They have forearms as big as three-inch
+shells, and as hard. Their favourite pastime is juggling
+hand-grenades that can't possibly explode unless they
+just lightly touch one another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday we watched them, bared to the waist, as
+they went through three hours of grenade and bombing
+practice that was the last word in strenuosity. Keeping
+up with their exercises was hard work for our men,
+whose arms soon began to ache from the unaccustomed,
+overhand heaving.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we watched them as their commander assembled
+them for the march back to the village. At the command,
+'attention,' their heels clicked, their heads went
+back, their chins up and their right hands were pasted
+rigidly against their right trouser leg.</p>
+
+<p>"At the command 'march' all of them started off,
+punctuating their first step with the first word of their
+marching song. It was not any sickly chorus either.
+There was plenty of beef and lung power behind every
+note. My men lined up opposite were not missing a bit
+of it. Most of them seemed to know what was expected
+when I said:</p>
+
+<p>"'On the command of "march," the company will begin
+to sing, keeping step with the song. The first sergeant
+will announce the song.'</p>
+
+<p>"My first sergeant responded without a change of
+colour as if the command to sing had been an old regulation.
+I knew that he was puzzled, but he did it well.
+The name of the song chosen was passed down the line
+from man to man.</p>
+
+<p>"When I gave the command to march, the company,
+almost half of them new recruits, wheeled in squads of
+fours, and started off down the road singing, 'Hail, Hail,
+the Gang's All Here.' There were some who were kind
+of weak on the effort, but there was a noticeable crescendo
+when the sergeant passed the word down the squad
+that the company would be kept marching until everybody
+had joined in the singing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We swung into camp that night with every voice
+raising lustily on 'One Grasshopper Hopped Right Over
+Another Grasshopper's Back,' and after dinner the billets
+just sprouted melody, everything from ragtime to Christmas
+carols and baby lullabies."</p>
+
+<p>One noticeable characteristic about our soldiers during
+that training period before they had come in contact with
+the enemy, was a total absence of violent antipathy toward
+all persons and things Teutonic.</p>
+
+<p>On the march the men then sang "We'll Hang the
+Damned Old Kaiser to a Sour Apple Tree," but at that
+time I never heard any parodies on the "Gott Straffe
+Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many different
+nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown
+together for so short a time, that as yet no especial hatred
+of the enemy had developed.</p>
+
+<p>An illustration of this very subject and also the manner
+in which our boys got along with the civilian populations
+of the towns they occupied came to my notice.</p>
+
+<p>A driving rain which filled the valley with mist and
+made the hills look like mountain tops projecting above
+the clouds, had resulted in the abandonment of the usual
+daily drills. The men had spent the day in billets writing
+letters home, hearing indoor lectures from instructors,
+playing with the French children in the cottage doorways,
+or taking lessons in French from the peasant girls,
+whose eyes were inspirations to the dullest pupils.</p>
+
+<p>I spent several hours in a company commander's quarters
+while he censored letters which the men had submitted
+for transmission back home. The Captain looked
+long at a letter in his hand, smiled and called for his
+orderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Private Blank I want to see him here right
+away," were the Captain's instructions. Blank's name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+was not quite so German as Sourkraut, but it had a
+"berger" ending that was reminiscent of beer, pretzels
+and wooden shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a letter written in German," said the Captain
+to me, referring to the open missive. "It's addressed to
+somebody by the same name as Blank, and I presume
+it is to some one in his family. Blank is one of the
+best men in my company, and I know that the letter is
+harmless, but it is impossible for me to pass it when
+written in an enemy language."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened and a tall, blonde enlisted man
+stepped in, shaking the rain from his hat. He stood at
+respectful attention, saluted and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Did the Captain wish to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Blank, it is about this letter written in German,"
+the Captain replied. "Who is it addressed to?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father, in Cincinnati, sir," Blank replied.</p>
+
+<p>"I am unfamiliar with German," the Captain said. "I
+notice the letter is brief. Is there anything in it which
+the company has been ordered to omit mentioning?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," Blank replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you translate it for me?" the Captain asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Blank, with just a bare suggestion of a
+blush. Then he read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'><p>"Dear Father: I am in good health. Food is good
+and we are learning much. I am becoming an expert
+grenadier. In this village where we are billeted there
+is a French girl named Germain. Before the war she
+lived in northern France, near the German frontier, and
+she speaks German. So it is possible for us to talk
+together. She fled before the German troops reached
+her village. She lives here now with her aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"I carry water from a well for her and she has given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+me each day a roll of fresh made butter for our mess.
+In the evening we sit on the front seat of her uncle's
+small carriage, which is in the front yard, and we imagine
+we are taking a drive, but of course there are no horses.
+Her uncle's horses were taken by the army a long time
+ago. She is very anxious to know all about America,
+and I have told her all about you and mother and our
+home in Cincinnati.</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me what I am going to do after the war,
+and I told her that I would return to Cincinnati to help
+you at the store. She cried because she said she did not
+know where she was going after the war. Her father
+and two brothers have been killed and her aunt and
+uncle are very old.</p>
+
+<p>"I have some more to write to you about Germain
+later. But must stop here because the Sergeants are assembling
+the men for indoor instruction. Love to all.
+It is raining very hard. Your son, &mdash;&mdash;"</p></div>
+
+<p>Blank's face seemed to redden as he hesitated over a
+postscript line at the bottom of the page.</p>
+
+<p>"This is nothing," he said. "I just asked father to
+ask mother to send me one of the photographs I had
+taken on the day I enlisted."</p>
+
+<p>"For Germain?" the Captain enquired, smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Blank.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you write this in English?" the Captain
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"My father reads only German," Blank replied.</p>
+
+<p>Blank was instructed to rewrite his letter in English
+and address it to some friend who could translate it into
+German for his father. As the door closed on this
+American soldier of German extraction, I asked the Captain,
+"Do you think Germain could stand for Blank's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+German name, after all she has lost at the hands of the
+Germans?"</p>
+
+<p>"She'll probably be wearing it proudly around Cincinnati
+within a year after the war is over," the Captain
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>It might be reassuring at this point to remark that
+girls in America really have no occasion to fear that
+many of our soldiers will leave their hearts in France.
+The French women are kind to them, help them in their
+French lessons, and frequently feed them with home
+delicacies unknown to the company mess stoves, but
+every American soldier overseas seems to have that perfectly
+natural hankering to come back to the girls he
+left behind.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier mail addressed daily to mothers and sweethearts
+back in the States ran far into the tons. The
+men were really homesick for their American women
+folks. I was aware of this even before I witnessed the
+reception given by our men to the first American nurses
+to reach the other side.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital unit to which they belonged had been
+transported into that training area so quickly and so
+secretly that its presence there was unknown for some
+time. I happened to locate it by chance.</p>
+
+<p>Several of us correspondents seeking a change of diet
+from the monotonous menu provided by the hard-working
+madam of our modest hostelry, motored in a new direction,
+over roads that opened new vistas in this picture
+book of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Long straight avenues of towering trees whose foliage
+roofed the roadways were sufficient to reanimate recollections
+of old masters of brush realism. Ploughed fields
+veiled with the low-hanging mist of evening time, and
+distant steeples of homely simplicity faintly glazed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+the last rays of the setting sun, reproduced the tones of
+"The Angelus" with the over-generous hugeness of nature.</p>
+
+<p>And there in that prettiest of French watering places&mdash;Vittel&mdash;we
+came upon those first American nurses attached
+to the American Expeditionary Forces. They
+told us that all they knew was the name of the place
+they were in, that they were without maps and were
+not even aware of what part of France they were located
+in.</p>
+
+<p>It developed that the unit's motor transportation had
+not arrived and, other automobiles being as scarce as
+German flags, communication with the nearby camps had
+been almost non-existent. Orders had been received
+from field headquarters and acknowledged, but its relation
+in distance or direction to their whereabouts were
+shrouded in mystery. But not for long.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the word spread through the training area that
+American nurses had a hospital in the same zone and
+some of the homesick Yanks began to make threats of
+self-mutilation in order that they might be sent to that
+hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The hospital unit was soon followed by the arrival of
+numerous American auxiliary organisations and the
+kindly activities of the workers as well as their numbers
+became such as to cause the men to wonder what kind
+of a war they were in.</p>
+
+<p>I happened to meet an old top sergeant of the regular
+army, a man I had known in Mexico, with the American
+Punitive Expedition. He had just received a large bundle
+of newspapers from home and he was bringing himself
+up-to-date on the news. I asked him what was
+happening back home.</p>
+
+<p>"Great things are going on in the States," he said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+looking up from his papers. "Here's one story in the
+newspaper that says the Y. M. C. A. is sending over five
+hundred secretaries to tell us jokes and funny stories.
+And here's another account about the Red Cross donating
+half a million dollars to build recreation booths for us
+along the front. And here's a story about a New York
+actor getting a committee of entertainers together to
+come over and sing and dance for us. And down in
+Philadelphia they're talking about collecting a million
+dollars to build tabernacles along the front so's Billy
+Sunday can preach to us. What I'm wondering about
+is, when in hell they're going to send the army over."</p>
+
+<p>But that was in the early fall of 1917, and as I write
+these lines now, in the last days of 1918, I am aware
+and so is the world, that in all of France nobody will
+ever ask that question again.</p>
+
+<p>That army got there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS</h3>
+
+
+<p>While our infantry perfected their training in the
+Vosges, the first American artillery in France undertook
+a schedule of studies in an old French artillery post located
+near the Swiss frontier. This place is called Valdahon,
+and for scores of years had been one of the training
+places for French artillery. But during the third
+and fourth years of the war nearly all of the French artillery
+units being on the front, all subsequent drafts of
+French artillerymen received their training under actual
+war conditions.</p>
+
+<p>So it was that the French war department turned over
+to the Americans this artillery training ground which
+had been long vacant. Three American artillery regiments,
+the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, comprising the first
+U. S. Artillery Brigade, began training at this post.</p>
+
+<p>The barracks had been long unoccupied and much
+preparatory work was necessary before our artillerymen
+could move in. Much of this work devolved upon the
+shoulders of the Brigade Quartermaster.</p>
+
+<p>The first difficulty that he encountered was the matter
+of illumination for the barracks, mess halls and
+lecture rooms. All of the buildings were wired, but
+there was no current. The Quartermaster began an investigation
+and this was what he found:</p>
+
+<p>The post had been supplied with electricity from a
+generating plant located on a river about ten miles away.
+This plant had supplied electrical energy for fifteen
+small French towns located in the vicinity. The plant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+was owned and operated by a Frenchman, who was
+about forty years old. The French Government, realising
+the necessity for illumination, had exempted this
+man from military service, so that he remained at his
+plant and kept the same in operation for the benefit of
+the camp at Valdahon and the fifteen small towns nearby.</p>
+
+<p>Then the gossips of the countryside got busy. These
+people began to say that Monsieur X, the operator of the
+plant, was not patriotic, in other words, that he was a
+slacker for not being at the front when all of their
+menfolk had been sent away to the war.</p>
+
+<p>Now it so happened that Monsieur X was not a
+slacker, and his inclination had always been to get into
+the fight with the Germans, but the Government had represented
+to him that it was his greater duty to remain
+and keep his plant in operation to provide light for the
+countryside.</p>
+
+<p>When the talk of the countryside reached Monsieur
+X's ears, he being a country-loving Frenchman was infuriated.
+He denounced the gossips as being unappreciative
+of the great sacrifice he had been making for their
+benefit, and, to make them realise it, he decided on penalising
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur X simply closed down his plant, locked and
+barred the doors and windows, donned his French uniform
+and went away to the front to join his old regiment.
+That night those villagers in the fifteen nearby
+towns, who had been using electrical illumination, went
+to bed in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>It required considerable research on the part of the
+Artillery Quartermaster to reveal all these facts. The
+electric lights had been unused for fifteen months when
+he arrived there, and he started to see what he could
+do to put the plant back to work. It required nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+less finally than a special action by the French Minister
+of War whereby orders were received by Monsieur X
+commanding him to leave his regiment at the front and
+go back to his plant by the riverside and start making
+electricity again.</p>
+
+<p>With the lights on and water piped in for bathing
+facilities, and extensive arrangements made for the instalment
+of stoves and other heating apparatus, the purchase
+of wood fuel and fodder for the animals, the
+Brigade moved in and occupied the camp.</p>
+
+<p>The American officer in command of that post went
+there as a Brigadier General. As I observed him at his
+work in those early days, I seemed to see in his appearance
+and disposition some of the characteristics of a
+Grant. He wore a stubby-pointed beard and he clamped
+his teeth tight on the butt end of a cigar. I saw him
+frequently wearing the $11.50 regulation issue uniform
+of the enlisted men. I saw him frequently in rubber
+boots standing hip deep in the mud of the gun pits,
+talking to the men like a father&mdash;a kindly, yet stern
+father who knew how to produce discipline and results.</p>
+
+<p>While at the post, he won promotion to a Major
+General's rank, and in less than six months he was elevated
+to the grade of a full General and was given the
+highest ranking military post in the United States. That
+man who trained our first artillerymen in France was
+General Peyton C. March, Chief of Staff of the United
+States Army.</p>
+
+<p>Finding the right man for the right place was one of
+General March's hobbies. He believed in military mobilisation
+based on occupational qualifications. In other
+words, he believed that a man who had been a telephone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+operator in civilian life would make a better telephone
+operator in the army than he would make a gunner.</p>
+
+<p>I was not surprised to find that this same worthy idea
+had permeated in a more or less similar form down to
+the lowest ranks in General March's command at that
+time. I encountered it one cold night in October, when
+I was sitting in one of the barrack rooms talking with
+a man in the ranks.</p>
+
+<p>That man's name was Budd English. I met him
+first in Mexico on the American Punitive Expedition,
+where he had driven an automobile for Damon Runyon,
+a fellow correspondent. English, with his quaint Southwestern
+wit, had become in Mexico a welcome occupant
+of the large pyramidal tent which housed the correspondents
+attached to the Expedition. We would sit for
+hours hearing him tell his stories of the plains and the
+deserts of Chihuahua.</p>
+
+<p>English and I were sitting on his bed at one corner
+of the barrack room, rows of cots ranged each side of
+the wall and on these were the snoring men of the battery.
+The room was dimly illuminated by a candle on
+a shelf over English's head and another candle located
+on another shelf in the opposite corner of the room.
+There was a man in bed in a corner reading a newspaper
+by the feeble rays of the candle.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly we heard him growl and tear the page of
+the newspaper in half. His exclamation attracted my
+attention and I looked his way. His hair was closely
+cropped and his head, particularly his ears and forehead,
+and jaw, stamped him as a rough and ready fighter.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Kid Ferguson, the pug," English whispered
+to me, and then in louder tones, he enquired, "What's
+eating on you, kid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, this bunk in the paper," replied Ferguson. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+he glared at me and enquired, "Did you write this stuff?"</p>
+
+<p>"What stuff?" I replied. "Read it out."</p>
+
+<p>Ferguson picked up the paper and began to read in
+mocking tones something that went as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it beautiful in the cold early dawn in France, to
+see our dear American soldiers get up from their bunks
+and go whistling down to the stables to take care of
+their beloved animals."</p>
+
+<p>English laughed uproariously.</p>
+
+<p>"The Kid don't like horses no more than I do," he
+said. "Neither one of us have got any use for them
+at all. And here, that's all they keep us doing, is tending
+horses. I went down there the other morning with a
+lantern and one of them long-eared babies just kicked it
+clean out of my hand. The other morning one of them
+planted two hoofs right on Ferguson's chest and knocked
+him clear out of the stable. It broke his watch and
+his girl's picture.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Mr. Gibbons, I never did have any use
+for horses. When I was about eight years old a horse
+bit me. When I was about fifteen years old I got run
+over by an ice-wagon. Horses is just been the ruination
+of me.</p>
+
+<p>"If it hadn't been for them I might have gone through
+college and been an officer in this here army. You remember
+that great big dairy out on the edge of the
+town in El Paso? Well, my dad owned that and he lost
+all of it on the ponies in Juarez. I just hate horses.</p>
+
+<p>"I know everything there is to know about an automobile.
+I have driven cross country automobile races
+and after we come out of Mexico, after we didn't get
+Villa, I went to work in the army machine shops at
+Fort Bliss and took down all them motor trucks and
+built them all over again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When Uncle Sam got into the war against Germany,
+this here Artillery Battalion was stationed out at Fort
+Bliss, and I went to see the Major about enlisting, but
+I told him I didn't want to have nothing to do with no
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>"And he says, 'English, don't you bother about that.
+You join up with this here battalion, because when we
+leave for France we're going to kiss good-bye to them
+horses forever. This here battalion is going to be motorised.'</p>
+
+<p>"And now here we are in France, and we still got
+horses, and they don't like me and I don't like them, and
+yet I got to mill around with 'em every day. The Germans
+ain't never going to kill me. They ain't going to
+get a chance. They just going to find me trampled to
+death some morning down in that stable."</p>
+
+<p>Two or three of the occupants of nearby beds had
+arisen and taken seats on English's bed. They joined
+the conversation. One red-headed youngster, wearing
+heavy flannel underwear in lieu of pajamas, made the
+first contribution to the discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I'm beefing about," he said. "Here
+I've been in this army two months now and I'm still a
+private. There ain't no chance here for a guy that's got
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Experience? Where do you get that experience
+talk?" demanded English. "What do you know about
+artillery?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I mean, experience," the red-headed
+one replied with fire. "I got experience. Mr. Gibbons
+knows me. I'm from Chicago, the same as he is. I
+worked in Chicago at Riverview Park. I'm the guy that
+fired the gattling gun in the Monitor and Merrimac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+show&mdash;we had two shows a day and two shows in the
+evening and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Kin you beat that," demanded English. "You know,
+if this here red-headed guy don't get promotion pretty
+quick, he's just simply going to quit this army and
+leave us flat here in France facing the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you about this gattling gun expert. When
+they landed us off of them boats down on the coast, the
+battalion commander turned us all loose for a swim in
+the bay, and this here bird almost drowned. He went
+down three times before we could pull him out.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if they don't make him a Brigadier General
+pretty quick, he's going to get sore and put in for a
+transfer to the Navy on the grounds of having submarine
+experience. But he's right in one thing&mdash;experience
+don't count for what it should in the army.</p>
+
+<p>"Right here in our battery we got a lot of plough
+boys from Kansas that have been sitting on a plough and
+looking at a horse's back all their lives, and they got
+them handling the machinery on these here guns. And
+me, who knows everything there is to know about machinery,
+they won't let me even find out which end of
+the cannon you put the shell in and which end it comes
+out of. All I do all day long is to prod around a couple
+of fat-hipped hayburners. My God, I hate horses."</p>
+
+<p>But regardless of these inconveniences those first
+American artillerymen in our overseas forces applied
+themselves strenuously to their studies. They were there
+primarily to learn. It became necessary for them at first
+to make themselves forget a lot of things that they had
+previously learned by artillery and adapt themselves to
+new methods and instruments of war.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever hear of "Swansant, Kansas"? You
+probably won't find it on any train schedule in the Sunflower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+State; in fact, it isn't a place at all. It is the
+name of the light field cannon that France provided our
+men for use against the German line.</p>
+
+<p>"Swansant, Kansas" is phonetic spelling of the name
+as pronounced by American gunners. The French got
+the same effect in pronunciation by spelling the singular
+"soixante quinze," but a Yankee cannoneer trying to pronounce
+it from that orthography was forced to call it a
+"quince," and that was something which it distinctly
+was not.</p>
+
+<p>One way or the other it meant the "Seventy-fives"&mdash;the
+"Admirable Seventy-five"&mdash;the seventy-five millimetre
+field pieces that stopped the Germans' Paris drive
+at the Marne&mdash;the same that gave Little Willie a headache
+at Verdun,&mdash;the inimitable, rapid firing, target
+hugging, hell raising, shell spitting engine of destruction
+whose secret of recoil remained a secret after almost
+twenty years and whose dependability was a French proverb.</p>
+
+<p>At Valdahon where American artillery became acquainted
+with the Seventy-five, the khaki-clad gun crews
+called her "some cannon." At seven o'clock every morning,
+the glass windows in my room at the post would
+rattle with her opening barks, and from that minute on
+until noon the Seventy-fives, battery upon battery of
+them, would snap and bark away until their seemingly
+ceaseless fire becomes a volley of sharp cracks which
+sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark recesses
+of the forests that conceal them.</p>
+
+<p>The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation,
+deflection, all came to the battery over the signal wires
+that connected the firing position with some observation
+point also unseen but located in a position commanding
+the terrain under fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of
+each battery. He received the firing directions from the
+transmitter clamped to his ears and conveyed them to
+the firing executive who stood beside him. They were
+then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections.</p>
+
+<p>The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instruments
+at the side of each gun, "laid the piece" for range
+and deflection. Number one man of the crew opened
+the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by
+number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter,
+and cut the fuses. Numbers four and five screwed the
+fuses in the shells and kept the fuse-setter loaded.</p>
+
+<p>The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing command
+to the gun crews, and number one of each piece
+jerked the firing lanyard at ten second intervals or whatever
+interval the command might call for. The four
+guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over
+the damp wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of
+trenches, theoretical cross-roads, or designated sections
+where the enemy was supposed to be massing for attack.
+Round after round would follow, while telephoned corrections
+perfected the range, and burst. The course of
+each shell was closely observed as well as its bursting
+effect, but no stupendous records were kept of the individual
+shots. That was "peace time stuff."</p>
+
+<p>These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery
+and no scarcity of shells was permitted to interfere with
+their education. One officer told me that it was his
+opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling post
+during a course of six weeks, had expended more ammunition
+than all of the field artillery of the United
+States Army has fired during the entire period since the
+Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost approximately
+ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being
+wasted. They said cannon firing could not be learned
+entirely out of a book.</p>
+
+<p>I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate,
+who had been two years with the guns at the front, and
+I had asked him what in his opinion was the most disconcerting
+thing that could happen to effect the morale
+of new gunners under actual fire. I wanted some idea
+of what might be expected of American artillerymen
+when they made their initial appearance on the line.</p>
+
+<p>We discussed the effect of counter battery fire, the
+effect on gun crews of asphyxiating gas, either that carried
+on the wind from the enemy trenches or that sent
+over in gas shells. We considered the demoralising influences
+of aerial attacks on gun positions behind the line.</p>
+
+<p>"They are all bad," my informant concluded. "But
+they are expected. Men can stand without complaint and
+without qualm any danger that is directed at them by the
+foe they are fighting. The thing that really bothers,
+though, is the danger of death or injury from their own
+weapons or ammunition. You see, many times there
+is such a thing as a faulty shell, although careful inspection
+in the munitions plants has reduced this danger
+to a percentage of about one in ten thousand.</p>
+
+<p>"At the beginning of the war when every little tin
+shop all over the world was converted into a munitions
+factory to supply the great need of shells, much faulty
+ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the shells
+would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. They
+are called shorts. The English, who had the same trouble,
+call them 'muzzle bursts.'</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes the shell would explode in the bore of the
+cannon, in which case the cannoneers were usually killed
+either by pieces of the shell itself or bits of the cannon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+The gunners have to sit beside the cannon when it is
+fired, and the rest of the gun crew are all within eight
+feet of it. If there is an explosion in the breech of the
+gun, it usually wipes out most of the crew. A muzzle
+burst, or a breech explosion, is one of the most disconcerting
+things that could happen in a battery.</p>
+
+<p>"The other men in the battery know of course that a
+faulty shell caused the explosion. They also know that
+they are firing ammunition from the same lot. After
+that, as they pull the trigger on each shot, they don't
+know whether the shell is going out of the gun all right
+or whether it is going to explode in the breech and kill
+all of them. That thought in a man's mind when he
+pulls the firing lanyard, that thought in the minds of the
+whole crew as they stand there waiting for the crash, is
+positively demoralising.</p>
+
+<p>"When it happens in our French artillery the cannoneers
+lose confidence in their pieces. They build small
+individual dugouts a safe ways back from the gun and
+extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all the
+gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally
+removes them from their regular firing positions beside
+the pieces, reduces the accuracy and slows up the entire
+action of the battery. The men's suspicions of the shells
+combined with the fear of death by their own weapons,
+which is greater than any fear of death at the hands of
+the enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews."</p>
+
+<p>Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunition
+had reached the post. The caissons were filled with it.
+Early the following morning when the guns rumbled
+out of camp to the practice grounds, Battery X was firing
+in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece number
+two exploded prematurely thirty yards from the muzzle.
+Pieces three and four fired ten and twenty seconds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+later with every man standing on his toes in his prescribed
+position.</p>
+
+<p>Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun exploded
+thirty feet after leaving the bore. Shell particles
+buried themselves in the ground near the battery. Piece
+number four, right next to it, was due to fire in ten
+seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot.
+The gun crews knew what they were up against. They
+were firing faulty ammunition. They passed whispered
+remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition
+and with military precision on the immediate command.
+Every man stuck to his position. As each gun was fired
+the immediate possibilities were not difficult to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>Then it happened.</p>
+
+<p>"Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive.
+The section chief of number one piece dropped his right
+hand as the signal for the discharge. The corporal gunner
+was sitting on the metal seat in front of his instruments
+and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Cannoneer
+number one of the gun crew occupied his prescribed
+position in the same location to the immediate
+right of the breech. Gunner number two was standing
+six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready
+to receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number
+three was kneeling over the fuse setter behind the caisson
+which stood wheel to wheel with the gun carriage. Gunners
+four and five were rigid statues three feet back of
+him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts
+of dangerous ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the
+section chief. He pulled the lanyard.</p>
+
+<p>There was an eruption of orange coloured flame, a
+deafening roar, a crash of rendered steel, a cloud of
+smoke blue green, and yellow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A black chunk of the gun cradle hurtled backward
+through the air with a vicious swish. A piece of the
+bore splintered the wheels and buried itself in the ammunition
+caisson. Thick hunks of gun metal crumbling
+like dry cake filled the air. The ground shook.</p>
+
+<p>The corporal gunner pitched backward from his seat
+and collapsed on the ground. His mate with fists buried
+in his steel seared eyes staggered out of the choking
+fumes. The rest of the crew picked themselves up in a
+dazed condition. Fifty yards away a horse was struggling
+to regain his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Every man in the three other gun crews knew what
+had happened. None of them moved from their posts.
+They knew their guns were loaded with shells from the
+same lot and possibly with the same faults. No man
+knew what would happen when the next firing pin went
+home. The evidence was before them. Their eyes were
+on the exploded gun but not for long.</p>
+
+<p>"Crash," the ten second firing interval had expired.
+The section chief of piece number two had dropped his
+hand. The second gun in the battery had fired.</p>
+
+<p>"Number two on the way," sang out the signalman
+over the telephone wire to the hidden observation station.</p>
+
+<p>Ten seconds more for another gun crew to cogitate on
+whether disaster hung on the dart of a firing pin.</p>
+
+<p>"Crash."</p>
+
+<p>"Number three on the way."</p>
+
+<p>Another ten seconds for the last section to wonder
+whether death would come with the lanyard jerk.</p>
+
+<p>"Crash."</p>
+
+<p>"Number four on the way." Round complete. The
+signalman finished his telephone report.</p>
+
+<p>Four horses drawing an army ambulance galloped up
+from the ravine that sheltered them. The corporal gunner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+unconscious and with one leg pulverised was lifted
+in. Two other dazed members of the crew were helped
+into the vehicle. One was bleeding from the shoulder.
+The lead horses swung about; the ambulance rattled
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Battery ready to fire. Piece number one out of action."
+It was the signalman reporting over the wire to
+the observer.</p>
+
+<p>Battery X fired the rest of the morning and they used
+ammunition from the same lot and every man knew
+what might happen any minute and every man was in
+his exact position for every shot and nobody happened
+to think about hiding in a dugout and putting a long
+string on the firing lanyard.</p>
+
+<p>It had been an unstaged, unconscious demonstration
+of nerve and grit and it proved beyond all question the
+capacity of American artillerymen to stand by the guns.</p>
+
+<p>The gunner corporal told the nurse at his bedside how
+it all happened, but he was still under the effects of the
+anesthetic. He did not refer to the morale of his battery
+mates because it had not occurred to him that there was
+anything unusual in what they did. But he did think
+that he could wiggle the toes on his right leg. The doctor
+told me that this was a common delusion before the
+patient had been informed of the amputation.</p>
+
+<p>Incidents such as the one related had no effect whatever
+upon the progress of the work. From early dawn
+to late at night the men followed their strenuous duties
+six days a week and then obtained the necessary relief on
+the seventh day by trips down to the ancient town of
+Besançon.</p>
+
+<p>In this picturesque country where countless thousands
+fought and died, down through the bloody centuries since
+and before the Christian era, where Julius Cæsar paused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+in his far flung raids to dictate new inserts to his commentaries,
+where kings and queens and dukes and pretenders
+left undying traces of ambition's stormy urgings,
+there it was that American soldiers, in training for the
+war of wars, spent week-end holidays and mixed the
+breath of romance with the drag of their cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>The extender of Roman borders divided that region
+into three parts, according to the testimony of the first
+Latin class, but he neglected to mention that of these
+three parts the one decreed for American occupation was
+the most romantic of them all.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It is late on a Saturday afternoon and I accept the
+major's offer of a seat in his mud-bespattered "Hunka
+Tin." The field guns have ceased their roar for the
+day and their bores will be allowed to cool over Sunday.
+Five per cent. of the men at the post have received the
+coveted town leave.</p>
+
+<p>They form a khaki fresco on the cab and sides of the
+giant commissary trucks that raise the dust along the
+winding white road over the hills. Snorting motorcycles
+with two men over the motor and an officer in
+the side car skim over the ground, passing all others. A
+lukewarm sun disappears in a slot in the mountains and
+a blue grey mist forms in the valleys. A chill comes
+over the air and a cold new moon looks down and laughs.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long ride to the ancient town, but speed laws
+and motor traps are unknown and the hood of the Detroit
+Dilemma shakes like a wet dog as her sizzling hot
+cylinders suck juice from a full throttle. We cross one
+divide through a winding road bordered by bushy trees
+and as orderly as a national park. We coast through
+a hillside hamlet of barking dogs and saluting children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+who stand at smiling attention and greet our passage
+with a shrill "Veev La Mereek" (Vive l'Amérique).</p>
+
+<p>We scud across a broad, level road built well above
+the lowland, and climb through zig-zagging avenues of
+stately poplars to the tunnel that pierces the backbone of
+the next ridge.</p>
+
+<p>While the solid rock walls of the black bore reverberate
+with the echoes from our exhaust, we emerge on a
+road that turns sharply to the left and hugs a cliff. Below
+winds a broad river that looks like mother of pearl
+in the moonlight. The mountain walls on either side
+rise at angles approximating 45 degrees, and in the light
+their orderly vineyards look like the squares on a sloping
+checkerboard. In front of us and to the right the flanking
+ridges converge to a narrow gorge through which
+the river Doub runs to loop the town.</p>
+
+<p>Commanding this gorge from the crests of the two
+rocky heights are sinister sentinels whose smooth, grey
+walls and towers rise sheer from the brink of the cliffs.
+The moonlight now catching the ramparts of the em-battlements
+splashes them with strokes of white that
+seem ever brighter in contrast with the darker shadows
+made by projecting portions of the walls. Spaniard
+and Moor knew well those walls, and all the kingly
+glory that hurried France to the reign of terror has slept
+within their shadows.</p>
+
+<p>Our way down the cliff side is hewn out of the beetling
+rock. To our left, a jagged wall of rock rises to the sky.
+To our right, a step, rock-tumbled declivity drops to
+the river's edge.</p>
+
+<p>The moonlight brings funny fancies, and our yellow
+headlights, wavering in concentric arcs with each turn
+of the course, almost seem to glint on the helmets and
+shields of the spear-bearing legionaries that marched that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+very way to force a southern culture on the Gauls. We
+slow down to pass through the rock-hewn gate that once
+was the Roman aqueduct bringing water down from
+mountain springs to the town.</p>
+
+<p>Through the gate, a turn to the left and we reach the
+black bottom of the gorge untouched by the rising moon.
+We face a blast of wind that slows our speed and brings
+with it the first big drops of rain. We stop at the
+"Octroi" and assure the customs collector that we are
+military, and that we carry no dutiable wine, or beans
+or wood into the town.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another gate, built across the narrow road between
+the cliff and the river, and we enter the town. It has
+been raining and the cobblestones are slippery. They
+shine in the gleams of pale light that come from the top-heavy
+street lamps. Gargoyle water spouts drip drainage
+from the gables of moss-speckled tiles.</p>
+
+<p>We pass a fountain that the Romans left, and rounded
+arches further on show where the hooded Moor wrote
+his name in masonry. Barred windows and stone balconies
+projecting over the street take one's mind off the
+rattling motor and cause it to wander back to times when
+serenading lovers twanged guitars beneath their ladies'
+windows and were satisfied with the flower that dropped
+from the balcony.</p>
+
+<p>The streets are wet and dark now and through their
+narrow windings our headlights reveal tall figures in
+slickers or khaki overcoats topped by peaked felt hats
+with the red cords of American artillerymen. Their
+identification is a surprise to the dreamer, because one
+rather expects these figures to sulk in the deeper shadows
+and screen their dark, bearded faces with the broad brims
+of black felt hats or muffle themselves to the chin in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+long, flowing black cloaks that hide rapiers and stilettos
+and other properties of mediæval charm.</p>
+
+<p>We dine in a room three hundred years old. The presence
+of our automobile within the inner quadrangle of the
+ancient building jars on the sense of fitness. It is an old
+convent, now occupied by irreligious tenants on the
+upper three floors, restaurants and estaminets on the
+lower floor. These shops open on a broad gallery, level
+with the courtyard, and separated from it only by the
+rows of pillars that support the arches. It extends
+around the four sides of the court.</p>
+
+<p>Centuries ago shrouded nuns, clasping beads or books
+of office, walked in uncommunicative pairs and mumbled
+their daily prayers beneath these time-worn arches,
+and to-night it affords a promenade for officers waiting
+for their meals to be served at madame's well laid
+tables within.</p>
+
+<p>Madame's tables are not too many. There is not the
+space economy of an American café, where elbows interlock
+and waiters are forced to navigate fearsome cargoes
+above the diners' heads. Neither is there the unwholesome,
+dust-filled carpet of London's roast beef palaces.</p>
+
+<p>Madame's floor is bare, but the wood has stood the
+scrubbings of years, and is as spotless as grass-dried
+linen. The high ceiling and the walls are of white
+stucco. In bas-relief are clusters of heraldic signs, of
+bishops' crooks and cathedral keys, of mounted chargers
+and dying dragoons, of miter and crown, and trumpet
+and shield, and cross.</p>
+
+<p>Large mirrors, circled with wreaths of gilded leaves,
+adorn both end walls, and beneath one of them remains
+an ornate fireplace and mantelpiece of bologna coloured
+marble, surmounted with a gilt cock of wondrous design.
+Beneath the other mirror madame has placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+her buffet, on which the boy who explores the dusty
+caves below places the cobwebbed bottles of red wine
+for the last cork pulling. Large gold chandeliers, dangling
+with glass prisms, are suspended from high ceiling
+and flood the room with light, against which the inner
+shutters of the tall windows must be shut because of
+danger from the sky.</p>
+
+<p>There is colour in that room. The Roman conquerors
+would have found it interesting. If former armed occupants
+of the old town could have paraded in their
+ancient habiliments through the room like a procession
+from the martial past, they would have found much for
+their attention in this scene of the martial present.
+American khaki seems to predominate, although at several
+tables are Canadian officers in uniforms of the
+same colour but of different tailoring.</p>
+
+<p>The tables are flecked with all varieties of French
+uniforms, from scarlet pants with solitary black stripes
+down the leg, to tunics of horizon blue. In one corner
+there are two turbaned Algerians with heads bent close
+over their black coffee, and one horn of the hall rack
+shows a red fez with a gold crescent on the crown.</p>
+
+<p>Consider the company. That freckle-faced youth
+with the fluffed reddish hair of a bandmaster is a French
+aviator, and among the row of decorations on his dark
+blue coat is one that he received by reason of a well
+known adventure over the German lines, which cannot
+be mentioned here. That American colonel whose short
+grey hair blends into the white wall behind him is a
+former member of the United States war college and
+one of the most important factors in the legislation
+that shaped the present military status of his country.
+That other Frenchman with the unusual gold shoulder
+straps is not a member of the French army. He is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+naval officer, and the daring with which he carried his
+mapping chart along exposed portions of the line at Verdun
+and evolved the mathematical data on which the
+French fired their guns against the German waves has
+been the pride of both the navy and the army.</p>
+
+<p>Over there is a young captain who this time last year
+was a "shavetail" second in command at a small post
+along the line of communications in Chihuahua. Next
+to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride
+his first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar.
+He carted human wreckage to the hospitals on the
+French front for two years before Uncle Sam decided
+to end the war. There's another one not long from
+the "Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his
+uniform. He speaks with a twang of old Virginia on
+every syllable and they say his family&mdash;but that has
+nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major
+general and is in these parts on a mission.</p>
+
+<p>There are three American women in the room. One
+who is interested in Y. M. C. A. work and a number
+of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of the uniform
+and holds court at the head of a table of five officers.
+Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is engaged
+in the extension of the canteen work of a Paris
+organisation, is sitting at our table and she is willing to
+wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves
+to a big donation check that Germany will be ready for
+any kind of peace before an American offensive in the
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>The interests of the other American woman are negative.
+She professes no concern in the fact that war correspondents'
+life insurances are cancelled, but she repeats
+to me that a dead correspondent is of no use to his paper,
+and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a
+fork in his hand instead of a pencil.</p>
+
+<p>The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon
+door brings in a gust of dampness that makes the tablecloths
+flap. Rain coats swish and rustle in the entry.
+Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The
+moon is gone.</p>
+
+<p>A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting
+the quadrangle. Their hobnailed soles and steel plated
+heels ring on the stone flags. The arches echo back their
+song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In days of old<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A warrior bold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My love is young and fair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My love has golden hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So what care I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With frequent passages where a dearth of words reduce
+the selection to musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas,
+the voices melt into the blackness and the rain.</p>
+
+<p>"Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This
+place is saturated with romance. I don't have to be
+back to the post until to-morrow night. Where will we
+go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house
+on the square. What do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to
+the hotel," the wife replies.</p>
+
+<p>Romance was slapped with a custard pie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>"FRONTWARD HO!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the artillery training had proceeded to such a
+point that the French instructors were congratulating
+our officers upon their proficiency, the rumours spread
+through the post that the brigade had been ordered to
+go to the front&mdash;that we were to be the first American
+soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>The news was received with joy. The men were keen
+to try out their newly acquired abilities upon the enemy.
+Harness was polished until it shone. Brass equipment
+gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The
+men groomed the horses until the animals got pains
+from it. Enlisted men sojourning in the Guard House
+for petty offences, despatched their guards with scrawled
+pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so that
+they could accompany the outfits to the front.</p>
+
+<p>With one special purpose in view, I made application
+to General March for an assignment to Battery A of
+the Sixth Field Artillery. I received the appointment.
+The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A
+was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we
+would march out in that order, that Battery A would
+entrain first, detrain first, go in the line first, and I hoped
+to be present at the firing of the first American shot in
+the war.</p>
+
+<p>We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in
+the morning, two days later. Officers and men had
+been up and dressed since midnight. Ten minutes after
+their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+equipment packed ready for departure with the exception
+of mess kits.</p>
+
+<p>While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest
+of us "leaned up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and
+hot coffee. The cook had been on the job all night and
+his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed as if it
+was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow"
+acted as a primer on the sleepy human machines.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness, the animals were packed into the
+gun carriages and caissons down in the gun park, and
+it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the captain's whistle
+sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled
+over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men
+made facetious good-byes to the scene of their six weeks'
+training.</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers like movement&mdash;we were on the move. Every
+one's spirits were up and the animals were frisky and
+high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains rattled as some
+of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought
+back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers,
+muffled in great coats, hung on the caisson seats and
+chided the drivers.</p>
+
+<p>We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make
+no difference. Rumours could never be depended upon,
+so none of us knew our destination, but all of us hoped
+that we were going into action. Every man in the battery
+felt that the schooling was over and that the battery,
+if given a chance, could prove that it needed no further
+training.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear
+that we were on our way to some other training camp
+for some post-graduate course in firing or maybe for
+the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries.
+The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+about our prospects wouldn't change them, and that
+anything was better than staying in the same place forever.</p>
+
+<p>Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad
+tracks. The crossing bore a name as everything
+else did in that land of poetical nomenclature. There was
+only one house there. It was an old grey stone cottage,
+its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of
+shrubbery. It was occupied by three persons, the old
+crossing-tender, his wife&mdash;and one other. That other
+was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.</p>
+
+<p>We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing
+gates for traffic on the road. She was about sixteen
+years old. Her ankles were encased in thick grey woollen
+hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from
+her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move
+in her clumsy footgear might break them off.</p>
+
+<p>As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode
+one of the lead pair on piece No. 2, began to give vent
+to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher was singing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We were sailing along<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Moonlight bay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You could hear the voices ringing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They seemed to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'You have stolen my heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, don't go away,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As we kissed and said good-bye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Moonlight bay."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It would almost have seemed that there was need of
+some explanation for Gallagher's musical demonstration
+on this cold, dark morning, but none was demanded.
+Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His pair of lead horses were walking in much too
+orderly a fashion for the occasion. Apparently the
+occasion demanded a little greater show of dash and
+spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his
+mount and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy
+handle of his riding crop.</p>
+
+<p>The leads lunged forward against their collars. The
+sudden plunge was accompanied by a jangle of chains
+as the traces tightened. The gun carriage jolted and
+the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on
+the lines as he shouted in a calculated pitch the French
+names of his horses. And then the reason for Gallagher's
+conduct developed.</p>
+
+<p>A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of
+the gate-tender's cottage opened outward. In the window
+was a lamp. The yellow rays from it shone upward
+and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair,
+black eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then
+a sweet voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Gude-bye, Meeky."</p>
+
+<p>"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Après la guerre</i>, Meeky," said Jeanne.</p>
+
+<p>"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out
+one of the men, astride one of the wheel pair of the
+same gun.</p>
+
+<p>The window had closed, but before the light disappeared,
+black eyes flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher,
+himself, two horses ahead, turned in the saddle
+and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing at the
+same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl
+when they saw one."</p>
+
+<p>We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+out of Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away,
+and smiling frigidly across the snow-clad neutral Alps,
+dispelled the night mist in our part of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The battery warmed under its glow. Village after
+village we passed through, returning the polite salutes
+of early rising grand-sires who uncovered their grey
+heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who waved
+kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and
+smiled the straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age
+as they wished us good fortune in the war.</p>
+
+<p>We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields
+and hills of France, our table decorations, cold beef
+and dry bread, our fare, with canteens full to wash it
+down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags futilely
+for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch
+had timed the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we
+mounted and resumed the march.</p>
+
+<p>The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs
+had been shifted to positions of maximum comfort.
+The horses were still fresh enough to need tight rein.
+The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps
+on their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads
+that never before had been topped with armoured covering.
+In addition to all other equipment, each man carried
+two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an explanation
+for me as to this double gas mask equipment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted
+the next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian
+cigarette from my proffered case. I winced as he deliberately
+tore the paper from that precious fine smoke and
+inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, England and France and us is all Allies,"
+he said. "Both of them loves us and we love both of
+them. We don't know nothing about gas masks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+they knows all there is to know about them. The French
+say their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas
+mask is the best.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now
+Uncle Sam don't want to hurt nobody's feelings, so he
+says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about this here matter.
+We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of
+them a try-out.'</p>
+
+<p>"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags.
+The first time we get into a mess of this here
+gas, somebody will send the order around to change
+masks in the middle of it&mdash;just to find out which is the
+best one."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that
+fine cigarette on a roadside kilometer stone and closed
+the international prospects of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and
+emerged on the other side just as a storm of rain and
+hail burst with mountain fury. The hailstones rattled
+on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound
+as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson
+wheels as we took the steep down-grade. The road
+hugged the valley wall which was a rugged, granite cliff.</p>
+
+<p>I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and
+watched our battery as it passed through the historic
+rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance to the mediæval
+town of Besançon. The portal is located at a sharp turn
+of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain
+spur. Ancient doors of iron-studded oak still guard
+the entrance, but they have long since stood open. Battlements
+that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown
+down in ancient menace to any invader.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs06.jpg" width="500" height="302" alt="CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN
+OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER" title="" />
+<span class="caption">CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN
+OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs07.jpg" width="500" height="303" alt="IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE THIS 155 MM.
+GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO
+RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY
+AND SLOWLY, LIKE A STEAM ROLLER" title="" />
+<span class="caption">IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE THIS 155 MM.
+GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO
+RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY
+AND SLOWLY, LIKE A STEAM ROLLER</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>No Roman conqueror at the head of his invading
+legions ever rode through that triumphal arch with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+greater pride than rode our little captain at the head
+of his battery. Our little captain was in stature the
+smallest man in our battery, but he compensated for
+that by riding the tallest horse in the battery.</p>
+
+<p>He carried his head at a jaunty angle. He wore his
+helmet at a nifty tilt, with the chin strap riding between
+his underlip and his dimpled, upheld chin. He carried
+his shoulders back, and his chest out. The reins hung
+gracefully in his left hand, and he had assumed a rather
+moving-picture pose of the right fist on his right hip.
+Behind him flew the red guidon, its stirruped staff held
+stiffly at the right arm's length by the battery standard
+bearer.</p>
+
+<p>Both of them smiled&mdash;expansive smiles of pride&mdash;into
+the clicking lens of my camera. I forgave our little
+captain for his smile of pride. I knew that six weeks
+before that very day our little captain had fitted into
+the scheme of civilian life as a machinery salesman from
+Indiana. And there that day, he rode at the head of his
+two hundred and fifty fighting men and horses, at the
+head of his guns, rolling down that road in France on
+the way to the front.</p>
+
+<p>In back of him and towering upward, was that historic
+rock that had known the tread and passage of countless
+martial footsteps down through the centuries. Behind
+him, the gun carriages rattled through the frowning
+portal. Oh, if the folks back on the Wabash could
+have seen him then!</p>
+
+<p>We wound through the crooked narrow streets of
+Besançon, our steel-tired wheels bounding and banging
+over the cobblestones. Townsfolk waved to us from
+windows and doorways. Old women in the market
+square abandoned their baskets of beet roots and beans
+to flutter green stained aprons in our direction. Our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+column was flanked by clattering phalanxes of wooden-shoed
+street gamins, who must have known more about
+our movements than we did, because they all shouted,
+"Gude-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Six weeks' familiarity between these same artillerymen
+on town leave and these same urchins had temporised
+the blind admiration that caused them first to greet
+our men solely with shouts of "<i>Vive les Américains</i>."
+Now that they knew us better, they alternated the old
+greeting with shouts of that all-meaning and also meaningless
+French expression, "Oo la la."</p>
+
+<p>Our way led over the stone, spanned bridge that
+crossed the sluggish river through the town, and on to
+the hilly outskirts where mounted French guides met
+and directed us to the railroad loading platform.</p>
+
+<p>The platform was a busy place. The regimental supply
+company which was preceding us over the road was
+engaged in forcibly persuading the last of its mules to
+enter the toy freight cars which bore on the side the
+printed legend, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8."</p>
+
+<p>Several arclights and one or two acetylene flares illuminated
+the scene. It was raining fitfully, but not
+enough to dampen the spirits of the Y. M. C. A. workers
+who wrestled with canvas tarpaulins and foraged materials
+to construct a make-shift shelter for a free coffee
+and sandwich counter.</p>
+
+<p>Their stoves were burning brightly and the hurriedly
+erected stove pipes, leaning wearily against the stone
+wall enclosing the quay, topped the wall like a miniature
+of the sky line of Pittsburgh. The boiling coffee pots
+gave off a delicious steam. In the language of our battery,
+the "Whime say" delivered the goods.</p>
+
+<p>During it all the mules brayed and the supply company
+men swore. Most humans, cognizant of the principles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+of safety first, are respectful of the rear quarters
+of a mule. We watched one disrespecter of these principles
+invite what might have been called "mulecide"
+with utter contempt for the consequences. He deliberately
+stood in the dangerous immediate rear of one particularly
+onery mule, and kicked the mule.</p>
+
+<p>His name was "Missouri Slim," as he took pains to
+inform the object of his caress. He further announced
+to all present, men and mules, that he had been brought
+up with mules from babyhood and knew mules from the
+tips of their long ears to the ends of their hard tails.</p>
+
+<p>The obdurate animal in question had refused to enter
+the door of the car that had been indicated as his Pullman.
+"Missouri Slim" called three other ex-natives of
+Champ Clark's state to his assistance. They fearlessly
+put a shoulder under each of the mule's quarters. Then
+they grunted a unanimous "heave," and lifted the struggling
+animal off its feet. As a perfect matter of course,
+they walked right into the car with him with no more
+trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," remarked
+a quiet, mild-mannered man in uniform, beside
+whom I happened to be standing. He spoke with a slow,
+almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of
+the supply company, and there were a number of things
+that were new to him, as his story revealed. He was the
+first homesick horse doctor I ever met.</p>
+
+<p>"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me.
+"I went to a veterinary college and had a nice little practice,&mdash;sorter
+kept myself so busy that I never got much
+of a chance to think about this here war. But one day,
+about two months ago, I got a letter from the War Department
+down in Washington.</p>
+
+<p>"They said the hoss doctor college had given them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+my name as one of the graduates and the letter said
+that the War Department was making out a list of
+hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank
+and send it to Washington.</p>
+
+<p>"'Joe,' my wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that
+the country is paying to you. The Government just
+wants the names of the patriotic professional citizens of
+the country.' So we filled out the blank and mailed it
+and forgot all about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, about two weeks later, I got a letter from
+Washington telling me to go at once to Douglas, Arizona.
+It sorter scared the wife and me at first because neither
+of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her that
+I was sure it wasn't anything serious&mdash;I thought that
+Uncle Sam just had some sick hosses down there and
+wanted me to go down and look them over.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and
+an extra pair of socks in my hand satchel along with
+my instruments and I kissed her and the little boy good-bye
+and told them that I would hurry up and prescribe
+for the Government hosses and be back in about five
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major
+shoved me into a uniform and told me I was commissioned
+as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That afternoon I
+was put on a train with a battery and we were on our
+way east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We
+landed somewhere in France and moved way out here.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife was expecting me back in five days and here
+it is I've been away two months and I haven't had a
+letter from her and now we're moving up to the front.
+It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten
+years, and I guess I am a little homesick, but it sure is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+a comfort to travel with an outfit that knows how to
+handle mules like this one does."</p>
+
+<p>The supply company completed loading, and the homesick
+horse doctor boarded the last car as the train moved
+down the track. Our battery took possession of the
+platform. A train of empties was shunted into position
+and we began loading guns and wagons on the flat cars
+and putting the animals into the box cars.</p>
+
+<p>Considerable confusion accompanied this operation.
+The horses seemed to have decided scruples against entering
+the cars. It was dark and the rain came down
+miserably. The men swore. There was considerable
+kicking on the part of the men as well as the animals.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed one group that was gathered around a plunging
+team of horses. The group represented an entanglement
+of rope, harness, horses and men. I heard a clang
+of metal and saw the flash of two steel-shod hoofs. A
+little corporal, holding his head up with both hands,
+backed out of the group,&mdash;backed clear across the platform
+and sat down on a bale of hay.</p>
+
+<p>I went to his assistance. Blood was trickling through
+his fingers. I washed his two scalp wounds with water
+from a canteen and applied first aid bandages.</p>
+
+<p>"Just my luck," I heard my patient mumbling as I
+swathed his head in white strips and imparted to him
+the appearance of a first-class front line casualty.</p>
+
+<p>"You're lucky," I told him truthfully. "Not many
+men get kicked in the head by a horse and escape without
+a fractured skull."</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't it," he said; "you see for the last week
+I've been wearing that steel helmet&mdash;that cast-iron sombrero
+that weighs so much it almost breaks your neck,
+and two minutes before that long-legged baby kicked
+me, the tin hat fell off my head."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By the time our battery had been loaded, another
+battery was waiting to move on to the platform. Our
+captain went down the length of the train examining
+the halter straps in the horse cars and assuring himself
+of the correct apportionment of men in each car. Then
+we moved out on what developed to be a wild night ride.</p>
+
+<p>The horse has been described as man's friend and
+no one questions that a horse and a man, if placed out
+in any large open space, are capable of getting along to
+their mutual comfort. But when army regulations and
+the requirements of military transportation place eight
+horses and four men in the same toy French box car
+and then pat all twelve of them figuratively on the neck
+and tell them to lie down together and sleep through
+an indefinite night's ride, it is not only probable, but it
+is certain, that the legendary comradeship of the man
+and the horse ceases. The described condition does not
+encompass the best understood relation of the two as
+travelling companions.</p>
+
+<p>On our military trains in France, the reservations of
+space for the human and dumb occupants of the same
+car were something as follows: Four horses occupied
+the forward half of the car. Four more horses occupied
+the rear half of the car. Four men occupied the
+remaining space. The eight four-footed animals are
+packed in lengthwise with their heads towards the central
+space between the two side doors. The central
+space is reserved for the four two-footed animals.</p>
+
+<p>Then the train moves. If the movement is forward
+and sudden, as it usually is, the four horses in the forward
+end of the car involuntarily obey the rules of inertia
+and slide into the central space. If the movement
+of the train is backward and equally sudden, the four
+horses in the rear end of the car obey the same rule<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+and plunge forward into the central space. On the
+whole, night life for the men in the straw on the floor
+of the central space is a lively existence, while "riding
+the rattlers with a horse outfit."</p>
+
+<p>Our battery found it so. I rode a number of miles
+that night sitting with four artillerymen in the central
+space between the side doors which had been closed
+upon orders. From the roof of the car, immediately
+above our heads, an oil lantern swung and swayed with
+every jolt of the wheels and cast a feeble light down
+upon our conference in the straw. We occupied a small
+square area which we had attempted to particularise by
+roping it off.</p>
+
+<p>On either side were the blank surfaces of the closed
+doors. To either end were the heads of four nervous
+animals, eight ponderous hulks of steel-shod horseflesh,
+high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic under
+the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject
+at any minute to new fits of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>We sat at their feet as we rattled along. I recalled
+the scene of the loose cannon plunging about the crowded
+deck of a rolling vessel at sea and related Hugo's thrilling
+description to my companions.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah," observed Shoemaker, driver of the "wheelers"
+on No. 4 piece, "Yeah, but there ain't no mast to climb
+up on and get out of the way on in this here boxcar."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather take my chances with a cannon any day,"
+said 'Beady' Watson, gunner. "A cannon will stay put
+when you fix it. There's our piece out on the flat car
+and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck
+to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me
+ride with the old gun out there. It would be a little
+colder but a lot healthier. Try to go to sleep in here
+and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where do you suppose we are going anyway?" asked
+Slater, fuse cutter in the same section. "I'm strong for
+travel, but I always like to read the program before we
+start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our
+way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you go up and ask the Captain?" suggested
+Boyle, corporal in charge of the car. "Maybe the
+Colonel gave him a special message to deliver to you
+about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though.
+They ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," replied
+Slater, "I hope we stop over to feed the horses
+at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about that joint. They
+say that they run the biggest crap game in the world
+there, and the police lay off the place because the Governor
+of the State or the King or something, banks the
+game. They tell me he uses straight bones and I figure
+a man could clean up big if he hit the game on a payday."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoemaker.
+"If there's anything happens to start a riot
+among these horses, you are going to find that you're
+gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train,
+I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army.
+He spells his 'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me
+that my grandfather and this cousin's grandfather had
+a business disagreement over a sauerkraut factory some
+time before the Civil War and my grandfather left
+Germany. Since then, there ain't been no love lost
+between the branches of the family, but we did hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut business and
+was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake,"
+said Watson. "It's kinda tough luck to get cheated out
+of a big business like that, but then you must remember
+that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled the
+dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never
+have gone to America and most likely you'd still be
+a German."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied Shoemaker;
+"wouldn't that been hell if I'd been on the other
+side in this war? But anyhow, I do hope we run into
+Cousin Hans somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>The horses had been comparatively quiet for some
+time, but now they seemed to be growing restless. They
+pricked their ears and we knew something was bothering
+them. The discussion stopped so that we could listen
+better.</p>
+
+<p>Above the rattle of the train, there came to us the
+sound of firing. It seemed to come from the direction
+in which we were going. With surprising quickness,
+the explosions grew louder. We were not only speeding
+toward the sounds of conflict, but the conflict itself
+seemed to be speeding toward us.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a crash unmistakably near. One of the
+horses in the forward end reared, and his head thumped
+the roof of the car. Once again on four feet, he pranced
+nervously and tossed his blood-wet forelock. Immediately
+the other horses began stamping.</p>
+
+<p>Another crash!&mdash;this time almost directly overhead.
+In the light of the swinging lantern, I could see the
+terror in the eyes of the frightened brutes. We clung
+to their halters and tried to quiet them but they lifted
+us off our feet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Put a twitch on that one's nose and hold him down,"
+Boyle ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh," said Slater, obeying, "we must be right up
+on the front line. Hope they don't stop this train in
+No Man's Land. Hold still, you crazy b&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Hans must have heard you talking," Watson
+shouted to Shoemaker. "Maybe you're going to see
+him quicker than you expected."</p>
+
+<p>The train was slowing down. The brakes shrieked
+and grated as we came to a jerky stop. Three of us
+braced ourselves at the heads of the four horses in the
+rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top
+of us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet
+the forward four. The explosions overhead increased.
+Now we heard the report of field pieces so close that
+they seemed to be almost alongside the track.</p>
+
+<p>There came a sharp bang at one of the side doors,
+and I thought I recognised the sound of the lead-loaded
+handle of the captain's riding whip. His voice, coming
+to us a minute later above the trampling and kicking of
+the panic-stricken animals, verified my belief.</p>
+
+<p>"Darken that lantern," he shouted. "Keep all lights
+out and keep your helmets on. Stay in the cars and
+hang on to the horses. There is an air raid on right
+above us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Boyle, and we heard the captain
+run to the next car. I blew out the light and we were
+in complete darkness, with eight tossing, plunging horses
+that kicked and reared at every crash of the guns nearby
+or burst of the shells overhead.</p>
+
+<p>We hung on while the air battle went on above. One
+horse went down on his knees and in his frantic struggles
+to regain his feet, almost kicked the feet from under
+the animal beside him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At times, thunderous detonations told us that aerial
+bombs were doing their work near at hand. We supposed
+correctly that we were near some town not far
+behind the lines, and that the German was paying it a
+night visit with some of his heaviest visiting cards.</p>
+
+<p>I opened one side door just a crack and looked out.
+The darkness above blossomed with blinding blotches
+of fire that flashed on and off. It seemed as though the
+sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with
+hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed
+back and forth, flashing momentary gleams of brilliance
+through the punctures. Again, this vision would pass as
+a luminous dripping mass would poise itself on high and
+cast a steady white glare that revealed clusters of grey
+smoke puffs of exploded shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p>We had to close the door because the flashes added to
+the terror of the horses, but the aerial activity passed
+almost as suddenly as it had come and left our train untouched.
+As the raiding planes went down the wind,
+followed always by the poppings of the anti-aircraft
+guns, the sound of the conflict grew distant. We got
+control over the horses although they still trembled with
+fright.</p>
+
+<p>There came another rap at the door and I hurriedly
+accepted the captain's invitation to accompany him forward
+to a first-class coach where I spent the remainder
+of the night stretched out on the cushions. As our train
+resumed its way into the darkness, I dreamed of racing
+before a stampede of wild horses.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>INTO THE LINE&mdash;THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>A damp, chill, morning mist made the dawn even
+greyer as our battery train slid into a loading platform
+almost under the walls of a large manufacturing plant
+engaged in producing war materials.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that the section chiefs reported
+that not a man had been injured, and not so much as a
+leg broken in the crowded horse cars, every man in the
+battery now declared the absence of any doubt but the
+air raid had been directly aimed at Battery A.</p>
+
+<p>"There might be a spy in this here very outfit," said
+'Texas' Tinsdale, the battery alarmist. "Else how could
+them German aviators have known that Battery A was
+on the road last night? They knew we was on the way
+to the front and they tried to get us."</p>
+
+<p>"Hire a hall," shouted the gruffy top sergeant. "We've
+got two hours to unload. A lot of you fireside veterans
+get busy. Gun crews get to work on the flats and drivers
+unload horses. No chow until we're ready to move
+out."</p>
+
+<p>The sign on a station lamp-post told us the name of the
+town. It was Jarville. But it jarred nothing in our
+memories. None of us had ever heard of it before.
+I asked the captain where we were.</p>
+
+<p>"Just about thirty miles behind the front," he replied.
+"We are moving up to our last billets as soon as we unload
+and feed."</p>
+
+<p>The horses had made the ride wearing their harness,
+some of which had become entangled and broken in transit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+A number of saddles had slipped from backs and
+were down behind forelegs.</p>
+
+<p>"We're learning something every minute," the captain
+exclaimed. "American army regulations call for
+the removal of all harness from the horses before they
+are put into the cars, but the French have learned that
+that is a dangerous practice over here.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't unload unharnessed horses and get them
+hitched to the guns as quick as you can harnessed horses.
+The idea is this. We're pretty close behind the lines.
+A German air party might make this unloading platform
+a visit at any time and if any of them are in the air
+and happen to see us unloading, they'd sure call on us.</p>
+
+<p>"The French have learned that the only way to make
+the best of such a situation, if it should arise, is to have
+the horses already harnessed so that they can be run
+out of the cars quickly, hitched to the guns in a jiffy and
+hurried away. If the horses are in the cars unharnessed,
+and all of the harness is being carried in other cars, confusion
+is increased and there is a greater prospect of
+your losing your train, horses, guns and everything from
+an incendiary bomb, not to mention low flying machine
+work."</p>
+
+<p>His explanation revealed a promising attitude that I
+found in almost all American soldiers of all ranks that
+I had encountered up to that time in France. The foundation
+of the attitude was a willingness to admit ignorance
+of new conditions and an eagerness to possess
+themselves of all knowledge that the French and British
+had acquired through bitter and costly experience.</p>
+
+<p>Further than that, the American inclination pushed
+the soldier students to look beyond even those then accepted
+standards. The tendency was to improve beyond
+the French and British, to apply new American principles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+of time or labour-saving to simple operation, to
+save man-power and horseflesh by sane safety appliances,
+to increase efficiency, speed, accuracy&mdash;in a word,
+their aim was to make themselves the best fighting men
+in the Allied cause.</p>
+
+<p>One instance of this is worthy of recounting. I came
+upon the young Russian who was the battery saddler.
+He was a citizen of the United States whose uniform
+he wore, but he was such a new citizen, that he hardly
+spoke English. I found him handling a small piece of
+galvanised iron and a horse shoe. He appeared to be
+trying to fit the rumpled piece of metal into the shoe.</p>
+
+<p>In his broken English he explained that he was trying
+to fashion a light metal plate that could be easily placed
+between a horse's shoe and the hoof, to protect the frog
+of the foot from nails picked up on the road. With all
+soldiers wearing hobnailed boots, the roads were full of
+those sharp bits of metal which had caused serious losses
+of horseflesh through lameness and blood poisoning.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The unloading had continued under the eyes of smiling
+French girls in bloomers who were just departing
+from their work on the early morning shift in the munition
+factory beside the station. These were the first
+American soldiers they had seen and they were free to
+pass comment upon our appearance. So were the men
+of Battery A, who overlooked the oiled, grimed faces
+and hands of the bloomered beauties, and announced the
+general verdict that "they sure were fat little devils."</p>
+
+<p>The unloading completed, a scanty snack consisting of
+two unbuttered slices of white bread with a hunk of cold
+meat and maybe the bite of an onion, had been put away
+by the time the horses' nose bags were empty. With a
+French guide in the lead, we moved off the platform,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+rattled along under a railroad viaduct, and down the
+main street of Jarville, which was large enough to boast
+street car tracks and a shell-damaged cathedral spire.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining townsfolk had lived with the glare and
+rumble of the front for three years now and the passage
+back and forth of men and horses and guns hardly
+elicited as much attention as the occasional promenade of
+a policeman in Evanston, Illinois. But these were different
+men that rode through those streets that day.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first battery of American artillery that
+had passed that way. This was an occasion and the
+townspeople responded to it. Children, women and old
+men chirped "vivas," kissed hands, bared heads and
+waved hats and aprons from curb and shop door and
+windows overhead.</p>
+
+<p>There was no cheering, but there were smiles and tears
+and "God bless you's." It was not a vociferous greeting,
+but a heart-felt one. They offered all there was
+left of an emotion that still ran deep and strong within
+but that outwardly had been benumbed by three years
+of nerve-rack and war-weariness.</p>
+
+<p>Onward into the zone of war we rode. On through
+successive battered villages, past houses without roofs,
+windows with shattered panes, stone walls with gaping
+shell holes through them, churches without steeples, our
+battery moved toward the last billeting place before entering
+the line.</p>
+
+<p>This was the ancient town of Saint-Nicolas-du-Port on
+the banks of the river Meurthe. Into the Place de la
+Republic of the town the battery swung with a clamorous
+advance guard of schoolchildren and street gamins.</p>
+
+<p>The top sergeant who had preceded the battery into
+the town, galloped up to the captain upon our entry
+and presented him with a sheaf of yellow paper slips,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+which bore the addresses of houses and barns and the
+complements of men and horses to be quartered in each.
+This was the billeting schedule provided by the French
+major of the town. The guns were parked, the horses
+picketed and the potato peelers started on their endless
+task. The absence of fuel for the mess fires demanded
+immediate correction.</p>
+
+<p>It was a few minutes past noon when the captain and
+I entered the office of the French Town Major. It
+was vacant. The officers were at <i>déjeuner</i>, we learned
+from an old woman who was sweeping the commandant's
+rooms. Where?&mdash;Ah, she knew not. We accosted
+the first French officer we met on the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Where does the Town Major eat?" the Captain inquired
+in his best Indianapolis French. After the customary
+exchange of salutes, introductions, handshakes
+and greetings, the Frenchman informed us that Monsieur
+Le Commandant favoured the <i>pommard</i>, that Madame
+Larue served at the Hôtel de la Fountaine.</p>
+
+<p>We hurried to that place, and there in a little back
+room behind a plate-cluttered table with a red and white
+checkered table cloth, we found the Major. The Major
+said he spoke the English with the fluency. He demonstrated
+his delusion when we asked for wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Wood! Ah, but it is impossible that it is wood you
+ask of me. Have I not this morning early seen with
+my own eyes the wood ordered?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there is no wood," replied the Captain. "I must
+have wood for the fires. It is past noon and my men
+have not eaten."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I am telling you there is wood," replied the
+Major. "I saw your supply officer pay for the wood.
+By now I believe it has been delivered for you in the
+Place de la République."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But it hasn't," remonstrated the Captain, "and the
+fires have not yet been started, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is on the way, probably," said the Major.
+"Maybe it will be there soon. Maybe it is there now."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain took another tack.</p>
+
+<p>"Where was the wood bought?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"From the wood merchant beyond the river," replied
+the Major. "But it is already on the way, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you go to the wood merchant?" insisted the
+Captain. "We have got to have the wood toot sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! <i>tout de suite</i>&mdash;<i>tout de suite</i>&mdash;<i>tout de suite</i>," repeated
+the Major in tones of exasperation. "With you
+Americans it is always <i>tout de suite</i>. Here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He took my notebook and drew a plan of streets indicating
+the way to the place of the wood merchant. In
+spite of his remark and the undesired intrusion of business
+upon his <i>déjeuner</i>, the Major's manner was as
+friendly as could be expected from a Town Major. We
+left on the run.</p>
+
+<p>The wood merchant was a big man, elderly and fat.
+His face was red and he had bushy grey eyebrows. He
+wore a smock of blue cloth that came to his knees. He
+remonstrated that it was useless for us to buy wood from
+him because wood had already been bought for us. He
+spoke only French. The Captain dismissed all further
+argument by a direct frontal attack on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Avez-vous de bois?</i>" asked the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui</i>," the merchant nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Avez-vous de chevaux?</i>" the Captain asked.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui</i>," the merchant nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Avez-vous de voiture?</i>" the Captain asked.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui</i>,"&mdash;another nod.</p>
+
+<p>"All right then," continued the Captain, and then
+emphasising each word by the sudden production of another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+stiff finger on his extended hand, he said, "<i>Du bois&mdash;des
+chevaux&mdash;une voiture</i>&mdash;de whole damn business&mdash;and
+toot sweet."</p>
+
+<p>In some remarkable fashion the kindly wood merchant
+gathered that the Captain wanted wood piled in a wagon,
+drawn by a horse and wanted it in a hurry. <i>Tout de
+suite</i>, pronounced "toot sweet" by our soldiers, was a
+term calling for speed, that was among the first acquired
+by our men in France.</p>
+
+<p>The old man shrugged his shoulders, elevated his
+hand, palm outward, and signified with an expression
+of his face that it was useless to argue further for the
+benefit of these Americans. He turned and gave the
+necessary loading orders to his working force.</p>
+
+<p>That working force consisted of two French girls,
+each about eighteen years of age. They wore long baggy
+bloomers of brown corduroy, tight at the ankles where
+they flopped about in folds over clumsy wooden shoes.
+They wore blouses of the same material and tam o'shanter
+hats to match, called <i>bérets</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Each one of them had a cigarette hanging from the
+corner of her mouth. One stood on the ground and
+tossed up the thirty or forty-pound logs to her sister
+who stood above on top of the wagon. The latter caught
+them in her extended arms and placed them in a pile.
+To the best of my recollection, neither one of the girls
+missed a puff.</p>
+
+<p>While the loading proceeded, the wood merchant,
+speaking slowly in French, made us understand the following:</p>
+
+<p>"Many peculiar things happen in the war, Monsieur,"
+he said. "Your country, the America, is the land of
+wonders. Listen, my name is Helois. Ten days ago
+there came to me one of the washerwomen who clean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+the clothes on the banks of the Meurthe, and she said
+to me:</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, Monsieur, the wood merchant. You are the
+sly fox. I have your secret.' And I say to her that I
+know not of what she speaks.</p>
+
+<p>"'You boast in the town that your two sons are at
+the front,' she said, 'but I know that one at least of
+them is not.' And I was dumbfounded. I say to her,
+'Woman, it is a lie you tell me. Both of my boys are
+with their regiments, in the trenches even now, if by
+the grace of the good God they still live.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' she say to me, 'one of your sons hides in the
+hotel of Madame Larue. How do I know this secret,
+Monsieur the wood merchant? I know because this day
+have I washed the shirt, with his name on it, at the river
+bank. His name, Helois,&mdash;the Lieutenant Helois&mdash;was
+stamped on the collar and the shirt came from the hotel,
+La Fontaine.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tell her that it is a mistake&mdash;that it is the great injustice
+to me she speaks, and that night I dressed in my
+best clothes to penetrate this mystery&mdash;to meet this man
+who disgracefully used the name of my son&mdash;to expose
+this impostor who would bring shame to the name of
+Helois, the wood merchant, whose two sons have been
+fighting for France these three long years.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, Monsieur, I meet this man at the hotel. She
+was right. His name was Helois. Here is his card.
+The Lieutenant Louis F. Helois, and he is a lieutenant
+in the United States Army."</p>
+
+<p>"So it was a mistake," replied the Captain, handing
+the card back to the wood merchant, whose lobster red
+features bore an enigmatical smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No,&mdash;not the mistake, the truth," replied the wood
+merchant. "Not my son&mdash;but my grandson&mdash;the son of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+my son&mdash;the son of my third son who went to America
+years ago. And now he comes back in the uniform of
+liberty to fight again for France. Ah, <i>Messieurs les
+Officiers</i>&mdash;the sons of France return from the ends of
+the world to fight her cause."</p>
+
+<p>While the wood merchant was telling us that the
+American grandson had only stopped three days in the
+town and then had moved up to service at the front, the
+air was shattered by a loud report. It was the snap of
+the whip in the hands of the young French amazon,
+standing high on the load of wood. We escorted the
+fuel proudly to the Place de la République. Soon the
+fires were burning briskly and the smell of onions and
+coffee and hot chow was on the air.</p>
+
+<p>The stoves were pitched at the bottom of a stone
+monument in the centre of the square. Bags of potatoes
+and onions and burlap covered quarters of beef and
+other pieces of mess sergeants paraphernalia were piled
+on the steps of the monument, which was covered with
+the green and black scars from dampness and age.</p>
+
+<p>The plinth supported a stone shaft fifteen feet in
+height, which touched the lower branches of the trees.
+The monument was topped with a huge cross of stone
+on which was the sculptured figure of the Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Little Sykoff, the battery mess sergeant, stood over
+the stove at the bottom of the monument. He held in
+his hand a frying pan, which he shook back and forth
+over the fire to prevent the sizzling chips in the pan from
+burning. His eyes lowered from an inspection of the
+monument and met mine. He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gibbons," he said, "if that brother of mine, who
+runs the photograph gallery out on Paulina and Madison
+Streets in Chicago, could only see me now, he sure would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+tell the Rabbi. Can you beat it&mdash;a Jew here frying ham
+in the shadow of the Cross."</p>
+
+<p>It was rather hard to beat&mdash;and so was the ham. We
+made this concession as we sat on the plinth of the
+monument and polished our mess kits with bread. And
+such bread&mdash;it was the regulation United States army
+issue bread&mdash;white, firm and chuck full of nourishment&mdash;bread
+that seemed like cake to the French youngsters
+who tasted it and who returned with open mouths and
+outstretched hands for more of the "good white bread."</p>
+
+<p>After the meal, those members of Battery A not detailed
+for immediate duty denied themselves none of the
+joys that a new town, in a strange land, holds for a
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>Saint-Nicolas-du-Port boasts a remarkable cathedral
+of mediæval architecture, of enormous dimensions. It
+was crumbling with age, but still housed the holy. Time
+and the elements had left the traces of their rough usage
+upon the edifice.</p>
+
+<p>Half of the statues on the broad façade of the cathedral
+had been broken, and now the niches afforded domiciles
+for families of pigeons. On the ground, in a
+careless pile, to one side of the frontal arch, was an ignominious
+pile of miscellaneous arms and legs and heads
+of sculptured figures, resting there in anything but saintly
+dignity. Two of our young artillerymen were standing
+in front of the cathedral surveying it.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly is in need of repairs," said one of them.
+"I'll bet they haven't done no bricklaying or plumbing
+on this place since before the Civil War."</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't hardly the right way to treat old Saints,"
+replied his companion, referring to the pile of broken
+statuary. "Seems like they ought to cement the arms
+and legs and heads back on those old boys and old girls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+and put them back on their pedestals. I guess, though,
+there ain't nobody living to identify the pieces, so they
+could get the right arms and heads on the right bodies."</p>
+
+<p>Our battery had among its drivers an old timer who
+might have been called a historian. His opinion held
+weight in the organisation. He professed to be able
+to read American ball scores and war news out of French
+newspapers, a number of which he always carried. Later
+that day, I heard him lecturing the cathedral critics on
+their lack of appreciation of art and history.</p>
+
+<p>"New things ain't art," he told them; "things has got
+to be old before they are artistic. Nobody'd look at
+the Venus dee Milo if she had all her arms on. You
+never hear nobody admiring a modern up-to-date castle
+with electric lighting and bath tubs in it. It simply
+ain't art.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, this cathedral is art. This country around
+here is just full of history. Here's where whole book
+stores of it was written. Why, say, there was batteries
+of artillery rolling through this country a million years
+ago. It was right around here that Napoleon joined
+forces with Julius Cæsar to fight the Crusaders. This
+here is sacred ground."</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, a number of the battery, located the
+<i>buvette</i> that carried across its curtained front the gold
+lettered sign <i>bar Parisian</i>. It was a find. Some thirty
+American artillerymen crowded around the tables.</p>
+
+<p>Cigarette smoke filled the low-ceilinged room with
+blue layers, through which the lamp light shone. In one
+corner stood a mechanical piano which swallowed big
+copper sous and gave out discord's metallic melody. It
+was of an American make and the best number on its
+printed programme was "Aren't you Coming Back to Old
+Virginia, Molly?" Sous followed sous into this howitzer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+of harmony and it knew no rest that night. Everybody
+joined in and helped it out on the choruses.</p>
+
+<p>Things were going fine when the door opened at about
+nine thirty, and there stood two members of the American
+Provost Guard. They carried with them two orders.
+One instructed Madame, the proprietress, to dispense
+no more red ink or beer to American soldiers that
+night, and the other was a direction to all Americans
+around the table to get back to their billets for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The bunch left with reluctance but without a grumble.
+It was warm and comfortable within the <i>bar Parisian</i>
+and Madame's smiles and red wine and beer and Camembert
+cheese composed the Broadway of many recent
+dreams. But they left without complaint.</p>
+
+<p>They made their rollicking departure, returning Madame's
+parting smiles, gallantly lifting their steel helmets
+and showering her with vociferous "bong swore's."
+And&mdash;well it simply must be told. She kissed the last
+one out out the door and, turning, wiped away a tear
+with the corner of her apron. Madame had seen youth
+on the way to the front before.</p>
+
+<p>The billets were comfortable. Some were better than
+others. Picket line details slept in their blankets in the
+hay over the stables. Gun crews drew beds and pallets
+on the floor in occupied houses. In these homes there
+was always that hour before retirement for the night
+when the old men and remaining women of the French
+household and their several military guests billeted in
+the place, would gather about the fireplace in the kitchen
+and regale one another with stories, recounted by the
+murder of French and English languages and a wealth
+of pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the town-crier&mdash;he
+who daily beat the drum in front of the Hôtel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+de Ville and read lengthy bulletins, was interested in the
+workings of Gunner Black's colt automatic. Gunner
+Black, most anxious to show her, demonstrated the action
+of the pistol but, forgetting that inevitable shell
+in the chamber, shot himself in the arm.</p>
+
+<p>It was only an incident. The noise scared Louise,
+but not the wound. She had seen too many Americans
+get shot in the moving pictures.</p>
+
+<p>The captain and I were quartered in the house of the
+Curé of the cathedral. The old housekeeper of the
+place made the captain blush when she remarked her surprise
+that there were such young captains in the American
+army. Her name was Madame Dupont, and she
+was more than pleased to learn from the captain that
+that had been the maiden name of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>The captain's room had the interior dimensions and
+heavy decorations of the mystic inner sanctum of some
+secret grand lodge. Religious paintings and symbols
+hung from the walls, which were papered in dark red to
+match the heavy plush hangings over the ever closed
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>Two doors in the blank wall swung open revealing a
+hermetically sealed recess in which a bed just fitted.
+This arrangement, quite common in France, indicated
+that the device now popular in two-room sleeping apartments
+in America, must have been suggested by the sleeping
+customs of mediæval times.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning, our battery pulled out for the
+front. We were bound for the line. We took the roads
+out of Saint Nicolas to the east, making our way toward
+that part of the front that was known as the Luneville
+sector. Our way lay through the towns of Dombasle,
+Sommerviller, Maixe, Einville, Valhey, Serres, to the
+remains of the ruined village of Hoeville.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sector runs almost along the border between
+France and old Lorraine, occupied by the Germans since
+1870. Even the names of the old French towns beyond
+the border had been changed to German in the effort of
+the Prussians to Germanise the stolen province.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this section during the few days just prior
+to the outbreak of the war that France made unwise
+demonstration of her disinclination toward hostilities
+with Germany. Every soldier in France was under arms,
+as was every soldier in Europe. France had military
+patrols along her borders. In the French chamber of
+deputies, the socialists had rushed through a measure
+which was calculated to convince the German people that
+France had no intentions or desire of menacing German
+territory. By that measure every French soldier was
+withdrawn from the Franco-German border to a line
+ten miles inside of France. The German appreciation
+of this evidence of peacefulness was manifested when
+the enemy, at the outbreak of the war, moved across the
+border and occupied that ten-mile strip of France.</p>
+
+<p>France had succeeded in driving the enemy back again
+in that part of Lorraine, but only at the cost of many
+lives and the destruction of many French towns and
+villages. Since the close of the fighting season of 1914,
+there had been little or no progress on either side at
+this point. The opposing lines here had been stationary
+for almost three years and it was known on both sides
+as a quiet sector.</p>
+
+<p>The country side was of a rolling character, but very
+damp. At that season of the year when our first American
+fighting men reached the Western front, that part
+of the line that they occupied was particularly muddy
+and miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Before nine o'clock that morning as we rode on to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+the front, the horse-drawn traffic, including our battery,
+was forced to take the side of the road numerous times
+to permit the passage of long trains of motor trucks
+loaded down with American infantrymen, bound in the
+same direction.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the motor vehicles were of the omnibus type.
+A number of them were worthy old double-deckers that
+had seen long years of peaceful service on the boulevards
+of Paris before the war. Slats of wood ran lengthwise
+across the windows of the lower seating compartment
+and through these apertures young, sun-burned, American
+faces topped with steel helmets, peered forth.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our men reposed languidly on the rear steps
+of the busses or on the tops. Most of the bus-loads were
+singing rollicking choruses. The men were in good
+spirits. They had been cheered in every village they
+had passed through on the way from their training area.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, bowleg," was the greeting shouted by one
+of these motoring mockers, who looked down on our
+saddled steeds, "better get a hustle on them hayburners.
+We're going to be in Berlin by the time you get where
+the front used to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will," replied one of the mounted artillerymen,
+with a negative inflection. "You'll get a hell of
+a long ways without us. If you doughboys start anything
+without the artillery, you'll see Berlin through the
+bars of a prisoner's cage."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky pups&mdash;the artillery&mdash;nothing to do but ride,"
+was the passing shout of another taunter, perched high
+on a bus. This was an unanswerable revision of an old
+taunt that the artillery used to shout to passing infantry
+in the days when a foot soldier was really a foot soldier.
+Then the easy-riding mounted troops, when passing an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+infantry column on the road, would say, "Pretty soft
+for the doughboys&mdash;nothing to do but walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Times certainly have changed," one of our battery
+drivers felt it necessary to remark to me in defence of
+his branch of the service. "But there ain't no spark
+plugs or carburetors to get out of order on our mounts.</p>
+
+<p>"However, we do have our troubles. That runaway
+wheeler in No. 2 section broke away from the picket
+line last night and Kemball and I were detailed to hunt
+all over town for him.</p>
+
+<p>"You know that dark, winding, narrow street, that
+winds down the hill back of the cathedral. Well, it
+was about midnight and blacker than the ace of spades,
+when Kemball and I pushed along there in the dark,
+looking for that onery animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Suddenly, we heard a sharp clatter on the cobblestones
+half a block up the hill. It was coming our way
+full speed. 'Here he comes now,' said Kemball, 'and
+he's galloping like hell. Jump into a doorway or he'll
+climb all over us.'</p>
+
+<p>"We waited there pressed against the wall in the dark
+as the galloping came up to us and passed. What dy'e
+s'pose it was? It wasn't that runaway horse at all. Just
+a couple of them French kids chasing one another in
+wooden shoes."</p>
+
+<p>The road to the front was a populous one. We passed
+numerous groups of supply wagons carrying food and
+fodder up to the front lines. Other wagons were returning
+empty and here and there came an ambulance
+with bulgy blankets outlining the figures of stretcher
+cases, piled two high and two wide. Occasionally a
+Y. M. C. A. runabout loaded down with coffee pots and
+candy tins and driven by helmeted wearers of the Red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+Triangle, would pass us carrying its store of extras to
+the boys up front.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through villages where manufacturing
+plants were still in operation and, nearer the front, the
+roads lay through smaller hamlets, shell torn and deserted,
+save for sentries who stood guard in wooden
+coops at intersections. Civilians became fewer and
+fewer, although there was not a village that did not have
+one or two women or children or old men unfit for uniform.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the road mounted a rolling hill and here it
+was bordered by roadside screens consisting of stretched
+chicken wire to which whisps of straw and grass and bits
+of green dyed cloth had been attached. Our men riding
+behind the screen peered through apertures in it and saw
+the distant hills forward, from which German glasses
+could have observed all passage along that road had it
+not been for the screen.</p>
+
+<p>So we moved into position. It was late in the night
+of October 22nd, 1917, that our batteries of artillery
+and companies of infantry moved through the darkness
+on the last lap of their trip to the front. The roads
+were sticky and gummy. A light rain was falling. The
+guns boomed in front of us, but not with any continued
+intensity. Through streets paved with slippery cobbles
+and bordered with the bare skeletons of shell-wrecked
+houses, our American squads marched four abreast.
+Their passing in the darkness was accompanied by the
+sound of the unhastened tread of many hobnailed boots.</p>
+
+<p>At times, the rays of a cautiously flashed electric light
+would reveal our infantrymen with packs on back and
+rifles slung over their shoulders. A stiff wind whipped
+the rain into their faces and tugged the bottoms of their
+flapping, wet overcoats.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the fact that they had made it on
+foot a number of miles from the place where they had
+disembarked from the motor trucks, the men marched
+along to the soft singing of songs, which were ordered
+discontinued as the marching columns got closer to the
+communicating trenches which led into the front line.</p>
+
+<p>In the march were machine gun carts hauled by American
+mules and rolling kitchens, which at times dropped
+on the darkened road swirls of glowing red embers that
+had to be hurriedly stamped out. Anxious American
+staff officers consulted their wrist watches frequently
+in evidence of the concern they felt as to whether the
+various moving units were reaching designated points
+upon the scheduled minute.</p>
+
+<p>It was after midnight that our men reached the front
+line. It was the morning of October 23rd, 1917, that
+American infantrymen and Bavarian regiments of
+<i>Landwehr</i> and <i>Landsturm</i> faced one another for the
+first time in front line positions on the European front.</p>
+
+<p>Less than eight hundred yards of slate and drab-coloured
+soft ground, blotched with rust-red expanses of
+wire entanglements, separated the hostile lines.</p>
+
+<p>There was no moon. A few cloud-veiled stars only
+seemed to accentuate the blackness of the night. There,
+in the darkness and the mud, on the slippery firing step
+of trench walls and in damp, foul-smelling dugouts,
+young red-blooded Americans tingled for the first time
+with the thrill that they had trained so long and travelled
+so far to experience.</p>
+
+<p>Through unfortunate management of the Press arrangements
+in connection with this great historical event,
+American correspondents accredited by the War Department
+to our forces, were prevented from accompanying
+our men into the front that night. Good fortune, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+favoured me as one of the two sole exceptions to
+this circumstance. Raymond G. Carroll, correspondent
+of the Philadelphia <i>Public Ledger</i>, and myself, representing
+the Chicago <i>Tribune</i> and its associated papers,
+were the only two newspaper men who went into the
+line with the men that night. For enjoying this unusual
+opportunity, we were both arrested several days later,
+not, however, until after we had obtained the first-hand
+story of the great event.</p>
+
+<p>A mean drizzle of rain was falling that night, but it
+felt cool on the pink American cheeks that were hot with
+excitement. The very wetness of the air impregnated
+all it touched with the momentousness of the hour.
+Spirits were high and the mud was deep, but we who
+were there had the feeling that history was chiselling that
+night's date into her book of ages.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally a shell wheezed over through the soggy
+atmosphere, seeming to leave an unseen arc in the darkness
+above. It would terminate with a sullen thump in
+some spongy, water-soaked mound behind us. Then an
+answering missive of steel would whine away into the
+populated invisibility in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>French comrades, in half English and half French,
+gushed their congratulations, and shook us by the hand.
+Some of us were even hugged and kissed on both cheeks.
+Our men took the places of French platoons that were
+sent back to rest billets. But other French platoons
+remained shoulder to shoulder with our men in the front
+line. The presence of our troops there was in continuation
+of their training for the purpose of providing a
+nucleus for the construction of later contingents. Both
+our infantry and our artillery acted in conjunction with
+the French infantry and artillery and the sector remained
+under French command.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Our men were eager to ask questions and the French
+were ever ready to respond. They first told us about
+the difference in the sound of shells. Now that one that
+started with a bark in back of us and whined over our
+heads is a <i>départ</i>. It is an Allied shell on its way to the
+Germans. Now, this one, that whines over first and
+ends with a distant grunt, like a strong wallop on a
+wet carpet, is an <i>arrivée</i>. It has arrived from Germany.
+In the dugouts, our men smoked dozens of cigarettes,
+lighting fresh ones from the half-consumed butts. It is
+the appetite that comes with the progressive realisation
+of a long deferred hope. It is the tension that comes
+from at last arriving at an object and then finding nothing
+to do, now that you are there. It is the nervousness
+that nerveless youth suffers in inactivity.</p>
+
+<p>The men sloshed back and forth through the mud
+along the narrow confines of the trench. The order is
+against much movement, but immobility is unbearable.
+Wet slickers rustle against one another in the narrow
+traverses, and equipment, principally the French and
+English gas masks, hanging at either hip become entangled
+in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>At times a steel helmet falls from some unaccustomed
+head and, hitting perhaps a projecting rock in the trench
+wall, gives forth a clang which is followed by curses
+from its clumsy owner and an admonition of quiet from
+some young lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Olson, keep your damn fool head down below the
+top of that trench or you'll get it blown off." The sergeant
+is talking, and Olson, who brought from Minnesota
+a keen desire to see No Man's Land even at the risk
+of his life, is forced to repress the yearning.</p>
+
+<p>"Two men over in B Company just got holes drilled
+through their beans for doing the same thing," continued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+the sergeant. "There's nothing you can see out
+there anyhow. It's all darkness."</p>
+
+<p>Either consciously or unconsciously, the sergeant was
+lying, for the purpose of saving Olson and others from
+a fool's fate. There was not a single casualty in any
+American unit on the line that first night.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the telephone dugout?" a young lieutenant
+asked his French colleague. "I want to speak to the
+battalion commander."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must not speak English over the telephone,"
+replied the Frenchman, "the Germans will hear you with
+the instruments they use to tap the underground circuit."</p>
+
+<p>"But I was going to use our American code," said the
+front line novice; "if the Germans tap in they won't be
+able to figure out what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, my friend," replied the Frenchman, smiling.
+"They won't know what the message means, but your
+voice and language will mean to them that Americans
+are occupying the sector in front of them, and we want
+to give them that information in another way, <i>n'est ce
+pas?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly there was some concern in the German
+trenches just over the way with regard to what was
+taking place in our lines. Relief periods are ticklish
+intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible
+that some intimation of our presence may have been
+given.</p>
+
+<p>There was considerable conversation and movement
+among our men that night. Jimmy found it frequently
+necessary to call the attention of Johnny to some new
+thing he had discovered. And of a consequence, much
+natural, but needless, chattering resulted.</p>
+
+<p>I believe the Germans did become nervous because they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+made repeated attacks on the enveloping darkness with
+numbers of star shells. These aerial beauties of night
+warfare released from their exploding encasements high
+in the air, hung from white silk parachutes above the
+American amateurs.</p>
+
+<p>The numerous company and battery jesters did not
+refrain from imitative expressions of "Ahs" and "Ohs"
+and "Ain't it bootiful?" as their laughing upturned faces
+were illuminated in the white light.</p>
+
+<p>That night one rocket went up shortly before morning.
+It had a different effect from its predecessors. It
+reared itself from the darkness somewhere on the left.
+Its flight was noiseless as it mounted higher and higher
+on its fiery staff. Then it burst in a shower of green
+balls of fire.</p>
+
+<p>That meant business. One green rocket was the signal
+that the Germans were sending over gas shells. It was
+an alarm that meant the donning of gas masks. On they
+went quickly. It was the first time this equipment had
+been adjusted under emergency conditions, yet the men
+appeared to have mastered the contrivances.</p>
+
+<p>Then the word was passed along the trenches and
+through the dugouts for the removal of the masks. It
+had not been a French signal. The green rocket had
+been sent up by the Germans. The enemy was using
+green rockets that night as a signal of their own. There
+had been no gas shells. It was a false alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"The best kind of practice in the world," said one of
+our battalion commanders; "it's just the stuff we're here
+for. I hope the Germans happen to do that every night
+a new bunch of our men get in these trenches."</p>
+
+<p>While the infantry were experiencing these initial
+thrills in the front line, our gunners were struggling in
+the mud of the black gun pits to get their pieces into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+position in the quickest possible time, and achieve the
+honour of firing that first American shot in the war.</p>
+
+<p>Each battery worked feverishly in intense competition
+with every other battery. Battery A of the 6th Field,
+to which I had attached myself, lost in the race for the
+honour. Another battery in the same regiment accomplished
+the achievement.</p>
+
+<p>That was Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery. I am
+reproducing, herewith, for what I believe is the first
+time, the exact firing data on that shot and the officers
+and men who took part in it.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>By almost superhuman work through the entire previous
+day and night, details of men from Battery C had
+pulled one cannon by ropes across a muddy, almost impassable,
+meadow. So anxious were they to get off the
+first shot that they did not stop for meals.</p>
+
+<p>They managed to drag the piece into an old abandoned
+French gun pit. The historical position of that gun was
+one kilometre due east of the town of Bathelemont and
+three hundred metres northeast of the Bauzemont-Bathelemont
+road. The position was located two miles from
+the old international boundary line between France and
+German-Lorraine. The position was one and one-half
+kilometres back of the French first line, then occupied
+by Americans.</p>
+
+<p>The first shot was fired at 6:5:10 A. M., October 23rd,
+1917. Those who participated in the firing of the shot
+were as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">
+Lieutenant F. M. Mitchell, U.S.R., acted as platoon chief.<br />
+Corporal Robert Braley laid the piece.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>Sergeant Elward Warthen loaded the piece.<br />
+Sergeant Frank Grabowski prepared the fuse for cutting.<br />
+Private Louis Varady prepared the fuse for cutting.<br />
+Private John J. Wodarczak prepared the fuse for cutting.<br />
+Corporal Osborne W. De Varila prepared the fuse for cutting.<br />
+Sergeant Lonnie Domonick cut the fuse.<br />
+Captain Idus R. McLendon gave the command to fire.<br />
+Sergeant Alex L. Arch fired first shot.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The missile fired was a 75 millimetre or 3-inch high-explosive
+shell. The target was a German battery of
+150 millimetre or 6-inch guns located two kilometres back
+of the German first line trenches, and one kilometre in
+back of the boundary line between France and German-Lorraine.
+The position of that enemy battery on the
+map was in a field 100 metres west of the town which
+the French still call Xanrey, but which the Germans have
+called Schenris since they took it from France in 1870.
+Near that spot&mdash;and damn near&mdash;fell the first American
+shell fired in the great war.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>: It is peculiar to note that I am writing this
+chapter at Atlantic City, October 23rd, 1918, just one
+year to the day after the event. That shot surely started
+something.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was in the Luneville sector, described in the preceding
+chapter, that the first American fighting men
+faced the Germans on the western front. It was there
+that the enemy captured its first American prisoners
+in a small midnight raid; it was there that we captured
+some prisoners of theirs, and inflicted our first German
+casualties; it was there that the first American fighting
+man laid down his life on the western front.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these facts, however, the occupation of
+those front line posts in that sector constituted nothing
+more than a post-graduate course in training under the
+capable direction of French instructors who advised our
+officers and men in everything they did.</p>
+
+<p>At the conclusion of the course, which extended over
+a number of weeks, the American forces engaged in it
+were withdrawn from the line and retired for a well-earned
+rest period and for reorganisation purposes in
+areas back of the line. There they renewed equipment
+and prepared for the occupation of the first all-American
+sector on the western front.</p>
+
+<p>That sector was located in Lorraine some distance to
+the east of the Luneville front. It was north and slightly
+west of the city of Toul. It was on the east side of the
+St. Mihiel salient, then occupied by the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>The sector occupied a position in what the French
+called the Pont-à-Mousson front. Our men were to occupy
+an eight-mile section of the front line trenches extending
+from a point west of the town of Flirey, to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+point west of the ruins of the town of Seicheprey. The
+position was not far from the French stronghold of
+Verdun to the northwest or the German stronghold of
+Metz to the northeast, and was equidistant from both.</p>
+
+<p>That line changed from French blue to American
+khaki on the night of January 21st. The sector became
+American at midnight. I watched the men as they
+marched into the line. In small squads they proceeded
+silently up the road toward the north, from which direction
+a raw wind brought occasional sounds resembling
+the falling of steel plates on the wooden floor of a long
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>A half moon doubly ringed by mist, made the hazy
+night look grey. At intervals, phantom flashes flushed
+the sky. The mud of the roadway formed a colourless
+paste that made marching not unlike skating on a platter
+of glue.</p>
+
+<p>This was their departure for the front&mdash;this particular
+battalion&mdash;the first battalion of the 16th United States
+Infantry. I knew, and every man in it knew, what was
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>Each man was in for a long tour of duty in trenches
+knee-deep with melted snow and mud. Each platoon
+commander knew the particular portion of that battle-battered
+bog into which he must lead his men. Each
+company commander knew the section of shell-punctured,
+swamp land that was his to hold, and the battalion
+commander, a veteran American soldier, was well aware
+of the particular perils of the position which his one
+thousand or more men were going to occupy in the very
+jaw-joint of a narrowing salient.</p>
+
+<p>All branches of the United States military forces may
+take special pride in that first battalion that went into
+the new American line that night. The commander<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+represented the U. S. Officers Reserve Corps, and the
+other officers and men were from the reserves, the regulars,
+West Point, the National Guard and the National
+Army. Moreover, the organisation comprised men from
+all parts of the United States as well as men whose parents
+had come from almost every race and nationality
+in the world. One company alone possessed such a
+babble of dialects among its new Americans, that it
+proudly called itself, the Foreign Legion.</p>
+
+<p>For two days the battalion had rested in the mud of
+the semi-destroyed village of Ansauville, several miles
+back of the front. A broad, shallow stream, then at
+the flood, wound through and over most of the village
+site. Walking anywhere near the border of the water,
+one pulled about with him pounds of tenacious, black
+gumbo. Dogs and hogs, ducks and horses, and men,&mdash;all
+were painted with nature's handiest camouflage.</p>
+
+<p>Where the stream left the gaping ruins of a stone
+house on the edge of the village, there was a well-kept
+French graveyard, clinging to the slope of a small hill.
+Above the ruins of the hamlet, stood the steeple of the
+old stone church, from which it was customary to ring
+the alarm when the Germans sent over their shells of
+poison gas.</p>
+
+<p>Our officers busied themselves with, unfinished supply
+problems. Such matters as rubber boots for the men,
+duck boards for the trenches, food for the mules, and
+ration containers necessary for the conveyance of hot
+food to the front lines, were not permitted to interfere
+with the battalion's movements. In war, there is always
+the alternative of doing without or doing with
+makeshifts, and that particular battalion commander,
+after three years of war, was the kind of a soldier who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+made the best of circumstances no matter how adverse
+they may have been.</p>
+
+<p>That commander was Major Griffiths. He was an
+American fighting man. His military record began in
+the Philippine Insurrection, when, as a sergeant in a
+Tennessee regiment of National Guard, he was mentioned
+in orders for conspicuous gallantry. At the suppression
+of the insurrection, he became a major in the
+United States Constabulary in the Philippines. He resigned
+his majority in 1914, entered the Australian
+forces, and was wounded with them in the bloody landing
+at Gallipoli. He was invalided to England, where, upon
+his partial recovery, he was promoted to major in the
+British forces and was sent to France in command of a
+battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. With them, he
+received two more wounds, one at the Battle of Ypres,
+and another during the fighting around Loos.</p>
+
+<p>He was in an English hospital when America entered
+the war, but he hurried his convalescence and obtained
+a transfer back to the army of his own country. He
+hadn't regained as yet the full use of his right hand, his
+face still retained a hospital pallor, and an X-ray photograph
+of his body revealed the presence of numerous
+pieces of shell still lodged there. But on that night
+of January 21st, he could not conceal the pride that he
+felt in the honour in having been the one chosen to command
+the battalion of Americans that was to take over
+the first American sector in France. Major Griffiths
+survived those strenuous days on the Pont-à-Mousson
+front, but he received a fatal wound three months later
+at the head of his battalion in front of Catigny, in
+Picardy. He died fighting under his own flag.</p>
+
+<p>Just before daylight failed that wintry day, three
+poilus walked down the road from the front and into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+Ansauville. Two of them were helping a third, whose
+bandaged arm and shoulder explained the mission of
+the party. As they passed the rolling kitchens where
+the Americans were receiving their last meal before entering
+the trenches, there was silence and not even an
+exchange of greetings or smiles.</p>
+
+<p>This lack of expression only indicated the depth of
+feeling stirred by the appearance of this wounded French
+soldier. The incident, although comparatively trivial,
+seemed to arouse within our men a solemn grimness and
+a more fervent determination to pay back the enemy
+in kind. In silence, our men finished that last meal,
+which consisted of cold corned beef, two slices of dry
+bread per man, and coffee.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of that one wounded man did not make our
+boys realise more than they already did, what was in
+front of them. They had already made a forty mile
+march over frozen roads up to this place and had incurred
+discomforts seemingly greater than a shell-shattered
+arm or a bullet-fractured shoulder. After that
+gruelling hiking experience, it was a pleasant prospect to
+look forward to a chance of venting one's feelings on
+the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, no chip-on-the-shoulder cockiness
+marked the disposition of these men about to take first
+grips with the Germans,&mdash;no challenging bravado was
+revealed in the actions or statements of these grim,
+serious trail-blazers of the American front, whose attitude
+appeared to be one of soldierly resignation to the
+first martial principle, "Orders is orders."</p>
+
+<p>As the companies lined up in the village street in
+full marching order, awaiting the command to move,
+several half-hearted attempts at jocularity died cold.
+One irrepressible made a futile attempt at frivolity by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and
+was so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted
+jocularity drew as much mirth as an undertaker's final
+invitation to the mourners to take the last, long look at
+the departed.</p>
+
+<p>One bright-faced youngster tingling with the thrill of
+anticipation, leaped on a gun carriage and absently
+whistled a shrill medley, beginning with "Yaka-hula,"
+and ending with "Just a Song at Twilight." There was
+food for thought in the progress of his efforts from the
+frivolous to the pensive, but there was little time for such
+thoughts. No one even told him to shut up.</p>
+
+<p>While there was still light, an aerial battle took place
+overhead. For fifteen minutes, the French anti-aircraft
+guns banged away at three German planes, which were
+audaciously sailing over our lines. The Americans
+rooted like bleacherites for the guns but the home team
+failed to score, and the Germans sailed serenely home.
+They apparently had had time to make adequate observations.</p>
+
+<p>During the entire afternoon, German sausage balloons
+had hung high in the air back of the hostile line, offering
+additional advantages for enemy observation. On the
+highroad leading from Ansauville, a conspicuous sign
+<i>L'enemie vous voit</i> informed newcomers that German
+eyes were watching their movements and could interfere
+at any time with a long range shell. The fact was
+that the Germans held high ground and their glasses
+could command almost all of the terrain back of our
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>Under this seemingly eternal espionage punctuated at
+intervals by heavy shelling, several old women of the
+village had remained in their homes, living above the
+ground on quiet days and moving their knitting to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+front yard dugout at times when gas and shell and bomb
+interfered. Some of these women operated small shops
+in the front rooms of their damaged homes and the
+Americans lined up in front of the window counters
+and exchanged dirty French paper money for canned
+<i>pâté de foi gras</i> or jars of mustard.</p>
+
+<p>A machine gun company with mule-drawn carts led the
+movement from Ansauville into the front. It was followed
+at fifty yard intervals by other sections. Progress
+down that road was executed in small groups&mdash;it was
+better to lose one whole section than an entire company.</p>
+
+<p>That highroad to the front, with its border of shell-withered
+trees, was revealed that night against a bluish
+grey horizon occasionally rimmed with red. Against
+the sky, the moving groups were defined as impersonal
+black blocks. Young lieutenants marched ahead of each
+platoon. In the hazy light, it was difficult to distinguish
+them. The only difference was that their hips seemed
+bulkier from the heavy sacks, field glasses, map cases,
+canteens, pistol holsters and cartridge clips.</p>
+
+<p>Each section, as it marched out of the village, passed
+under the eye of Major Griffiths, who sat on his horse
+in the black shadow of a wall. A sergeant commanding
+one section was coming toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" ordered the Major. "Sergeant, where is your
+helmet?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of the men in my section is wearing it, sir,"
+replied the Sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" snapped the Major.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody took his and he hadn't any," said the
+Sergeant, "so I made him wear mine, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Get it back and wear it yourself," the Major ordered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+"Nothing could hurt the head of a man who couldn't
+hang on to his own helmet."</p>
+
+<p>The order was obeyed, the section marched on and a
+bareheaded Irishman out of hearing of the Major said,
+"I told the Sergeant not to make me wear it; I don't
+need the damn thing."</p>
+
+<p>Another section passed forward, the moonlight gleaming
+on the helmets jauntily cocked over one ear and
+casting black shadows over the faces of the wearers.
+From these shadows glowed red dots of fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Drop those cigarettes," came the command from the
+all watchful, unseen presence mounted on the horse in the
+shadow of the wall. Automatically, the section spouted
+red arcs that fell to the road on either side in a shower
+of sparks.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a damn shame to do that." Major Griffith spoke
+to me standing beside his horse. "You can't see a
+cigarette light fifty yards away, but if there were no
+orders against smoking, the men would be lighting
+matches or dumping pipes, and such flashes can be seen."</p>
+
+<p>There was need for caution. The enemy was always
+watchful for an interval when one organisation was relieving
+another on the line. That period represented
+the time when an attack could cause the greatest confusion
+in the ranks of the defenders. But that night our
+men accomplished the relief of the French Moroccan
+division then in the line without incident.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Two nights later, in company with a party of correspondents,
+I paid a midnight visit to our men in the
+front line trenches of that first American sector. With
+all lights out, cigarettes tabooed and the siren silenced,
+our overloaded motor slushed slowly along the shell-pitted
+roads, carefully skirting groups of marching men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+and lumbering supply wagons that took shape suddenly
+out of the mist-laden road in front of us.</p>
+
+<p>Although it was not raining, moisture seemed to drip
+from everything, and vapours from the ground, mixing
+with the fog overhead, almost obscured the hard-working
+moon.</p>
+
+<p>In the greyness of the night sight and smell lost their
+keenness, and familiar objects assumed unnatural forms,
+grotesque and indistinct.</p>
+
+<p>From somewhere ahead dull, muffled thumps in the mist
+brought memories of spring house cleaning and the dusting
+out of old cushions, but it was really the three-year-old
+song of the guns. Nature had censored observation
+by covering the spectacle with the mantle of indefiniteness.
+Still this was the big thing we had come to see&mdash;night
+work in and behind the front lines of the American
+sector.</p>
+
+<p>We approached an engineers' dump, where the phantoms
+of fog gradually materialised into helmeted khaki
+figures that moved in mud knee-deep and carried boxes
+and planks and bundles of tools. Total silence covered
+all the activity and not a ray of light revealed what mysteries
+had been worked here in surroundings that seemed
+no part of this world.</p>
+
+<p>An irregular pile of rock loomed grey and sinister
+before us, and, looking upward, we judged, from its
+gaping walls, that it was the remains of a church steeple.
+It was the dominating ruin in the town of Beaumont.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn here to the left," the officer conducting our party
+whispered into the ear of the driver.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden execution of the command caused the officer's
+helmet to rasp against that of the driver with a
+sound that set the cautious whispering to naught.</p>
+
+<p>"Park here in the shadow," he continued. "Make no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+noise; show no light. They dropped shells here ten minutes
+ago. Gentlemen, this is regimental headquarters.
+Follow me."</p>
+
+<p>In a well buttressed cellar, surmounted by a pile of
+ruins, we found the colonel sitting at a wooden table in
+front of a grandfather's clock of scratched mahogany.
+He called the roll&mdash;five special correspondents, Captain
+Chandler, American press officer, with a goatee and fur
+coat to match; Captain Vielcastel, a French press officer,
+who is a marquis and speaks English, and a lieutenant
+from brigade headquarters, who already had been named
+"Whispering Willie."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel offered sticks to those with the cane habit.
+With two runners in the lead, we started down what had
+been the main street of the ruined village.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand the dropping of that shell over
+here to-night," the colonel said. "When we relieved the
+French, there had been a long-standing agreement against
+such discourtesy. It's hard to believe the Boche would
+make a scrap of paper out of that agreement. They must
+have had a new gunner on the piece. We sent back two
+shells into their regimental headquarters. They have
+been quiet since."</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes' walk through the mud, and the colonel
+stopped to announce: "Within a hundred yards of you, a
+number of men are working. Can you hear 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>No one could, so he showed us a long line of sweating
+Americans stretching off somewhere into the fog. Their
+job was more of the endless trench digging and improving
+behind the lines. While one party swung pick and
+spade in the trenches, relief parties slept on the ground
+nearby. The colonel explained that these parties arrived
+after dark, worked all night, and then carefully camouflaged
+all evidences of new earth and departed before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+daylight, leaving no trace of their night's work to be discovered
+by prying airman. Often the work was carried
+on under an intermittent shelling, but that night only
+two shells had landed near them.</p>
+
+<p>An American-manned field gun shattered the silence,
+so close to us that we could feel its breath and had a
+greater respect for its bite. The proximity of the gun
+had not even been guessed by any of our party. A yellow
+stab of flame seemed to burn the mist through which
+the shell screeched on its way toward Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Correspondent Junius Woods, who was wearing an
+oversized pair of hip rubber boots, immediately strapped
+the tops to his belt.</p>
+
+<p>"I am taking no chance," he said; "I almost jumped
+out of them that time. They ought to send men out with
+a red flag before they pull off a blast like that."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel then left us and with the whispering lieutenant
+and runners in advance, we continued toward the
+front.</p>
+
+<p>"Walk in parties of two," was the order of the soft-toned
+subaltern. "Each party keep ten yards apart.
+Don't smoke. Don't talk. This road is reached by their
+field pieces. They also cover it with indirect machine
+gun fire. They sniped the brigade commander right
+along here this morning. He had to get down into the
+mud. I can afford to lose some of you, but not the entire
+party. If anything comes over, you are to jump
+into the communicating trenches on the right side of
+the road."</p>
+
+<p>His instructions were obeyed and it was almost with
+relief that, ten minutes later, we followed him down the
+slippery side of the muddy bank and landed in front of
+a dugout.</p>
+
+<p>In the long, narrow, low-ceilinged shelter which completely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+tunnelled the road at a depth of twenty feet, two
+twenty-year-old Americans were hugging a brazier filled
+with charcoal. In this dugout was housed a group from
+a machine gun battalion, some of whose members were
+snoring in a double tier of bunks on the side.</p>
+
+<p>Deep trenches at the other end of the dugout led to
+the gun pits, where this new arm of the service operated
+at ranges of two miles. These special squads fired over
+the heads of those in front of them or over the contours
+of the ground and put down a leaden barrage on the
+front line of the Germans. The firing not only was indirect
+but was without correction from the rectifying
+observation, of which the artillery had the benefit by
+watching the burst of their missiles.</p>
+
+<p>Regaining the road, we walked on through the ruins
+on the edge of the village of Seicheprey, where our way
+led through a drunken colony of leaning walls and brick
+piles.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the battalion headquarters, located underneath
+the old stones of a barn which was topped by the
+barest skeleton of a roof. What had been the first floor
+of the structure had been weighted down heavily with
+railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the commander's
+dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure
+bulged outward and were prevented from bursting by
+timber props radiating on all sides like the legs of a centipede.
+A mule team stood in front of the dugout.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" the whispering lieutenant inquired in
+hushed tones from a soldier in the road, as he pointed
+over the mules to the battalion headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>"What's what?" the soldier replied without respect.</p>
+
+<p>The obscurity of night is a great reducer of ranks.
+In the mist officer and man look alike.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that?" repeated "Whispering Willie" in lower,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+but angrier tones. "What's that there?" he reiterated,
+pointing at the mules.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see it's mules?" replied the man in an immoderate
+tone of voice, betraying annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>We were spared what followed. The lieutenant undoubtedly
+confirmed his rank, and the man undoubtedly
+proffered unto him the respect withheld by mistake. When
+"Whispering Willie" joined us several minutes later in
+the dugout, his helmet rode on the back of his head, but
+his dignity was on straight.</p>
+
+<p>The Battalion Commander, Major Griffith, was so glad
+to see us that he sent for another bottle of the murky
+grey water that came from a well on one side of a well
+populated graveyard not fifty yards from his post.</p>
+
+<p>"A good night," he said; "haven't seen it so quiet in
+three years. We have inter-battalion relief on. Some
+new companies are taking over the lines. Some of them
+are new to the front trenches and I'm going out with
+you and put them up on their toes. Wait till I report
+in."</p>
+
+<p>He rang the field telephone on the wall and waited
+for an answer. An oil lamp hung from a low ceiling over
+the map table. In the hot, smoky air we quietly held
+our places while the connection was made.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," the Major said, "operator, connect me with
+Milwaukee." Another wait&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Milwaukee, this is Larson. I'm talking from
+Hamburg. I'm leaving this post with a deck of cards
+and a runner. If you want me you can get me at Coney
+Island or Hinky Dink's. Wurtzburger will sit in here."</p>
+
+<p>"Some code, Major," Lincoln Eyre, correspondent,
+said. "What does a pack of cards indicate?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 332px;">
+<img src="images/gs08.jpg" width="332" height="500" alt="GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE
+
+Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic
+of the United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for
+Justice and for Liberty, November 3rd, 1917" title="" />
+<span class="caption">GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE
+
+Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic
+of the United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for
+Justice and for Liberty, November 3rd, 1917</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Why, anybody who comes out here when he doesn't
+have to is a funny card," the Major replied, "and it looks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+as if I have a pack of them to-night. Fritz gets quite a
+few things that go over our wires and we get lots of his.
+All are tapped by induction.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes the stuff we get is important and sometimes
+it isn't. Our wire tapping report last night carried
+a passage something like this:&mdash;The German operator
+at one post speaking to the operator at another said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Hello, Herman, where did that last shell drop?'</p>
+
+<p>"Second operator replied, 'It killed two men in a ration
+party in a communicating trench and spilt all the
+soup. No hot food for you to-night, Rudolph.'</p>
+
+<p>"Herman replying: 'That's all right. We have got
+some beer here.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then there was a confusion of sounds and a German
+was heard talking to some one in his dugout. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Hurry, here comes the lieutenant! Hide the can!'</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way it goes," added the Major, "but if
+we heard that the society editor of the <i>Fliegende Blaetter</i>
+and half a dozen pencil strafers were touring the German
+front line, we'd send 'em over something that would
+start 'em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I was
+joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin's
+to-night, they might give you something to write about
+and cost me a platoon or two. You're not worth it.
+Come on."</p>
+
+<p>Our party now numbered nine and we pushed off,
+stumbling through uneven lanes in the centre of dimly
+lit ruins. According to orders, we carried gas masks in
+a handy position.</p>
+
+<p>This sector had a nasty reputation when it comes to
+that sample of Teutonic culture. Fritz's poison shells
+dropped almost noiselessly and, without a report, broke
+open, liberating to enormous expansion the inclosed gases.
+These spread in all directions, and, owing to the lowness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+and dampness of the terrain, the poison clouds were imperceptible
+both to sight or smell. They clung close to
+the ground to claim unsuspecting victims.</p>
+
+<p>"How are we to know if we are breathing gas or not?"
+asked the Philadelphia correspondent, Mr. Henri Bazin.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what you <span class="smcap">don't</span> know," replied the Major.</p>
+
+<p>"Then when will we know it is time to adjust our
+masks?" Bazin persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"When you see some one fall who has breathed it,"
+the Major said.</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose we breathe it first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you won't need a mask," the Major replied,
+"You see, it's quite simple."</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" The sharp command, coming sternly but
+not too loud from somewhere in the adjacent mist,
+brought the party to a standstill in the open on the edge
+of the village. We remained notionless while the Major
+advanced upon command from the unseen. He rejoined
+us in several minutes with the remark that the challenge
+had come from one of his old men, and he only hoped
+the new companies taking over the line that night were
+as much on their jobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Relief night always is trying," the Major explained.
+"Fritz always likes to jump the newcomers before they
+get the lay of the land. He tried it on the last relief,
+but we burnt him."</p>
+
+<p>While talking the Major was leading the way through
+the first trench I had ever seen above the surface of the
+ground. The bottom of the trench was not only on a
+level with the surrounding terrain, but in some places
+it was even higher. Its walls, which rose almost to the
+height of a man's head, were made of large wicker woven
+cylinders filled with earth and stones.</p>
+
+<p>Our guide informed us that the land which we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+traversing was so low that any trench dug in the ground
+would simply be a ditch brimful of undrainable water,
+so that, inasmuch as this position was in the first line
+system, walls had been built on either side of the path to
+protect passers-by from shell fragments and indirect machine
+gun fire. We observed one large break where a
+shell had entered during the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on, this communicating passage, which was
+more corridor than trench, reached higher ground and
+descended into the earth. We reeled through its zig-zag
+course, staggering from one slanting corner to
+another.</p>
+
+<p>The sides were fairly well retained by French wicker
+work, but every eighth or tenth duck board was missing,
+making it necessary for trench travellers to step knee-deep
+in cold water or to jump the gap. Correspondent Eyre,
+who was wearing shoes and puttees, abhorred these
+breaks.</p>
+
+<p>We passed the Major's post of command, which he
+used during intense action, and some distance on, entered
+the front line. With the Major leading, we walked up to
+a place where two Americans were standing on a firing
+step with their rifles extended across the parapet. They
+were silently peering into the grey mist over No Man's
+Land. One of them looked around as we approached.
+Apparently he recognised the Major's cane as a symbol
+of rank. He came to attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," the Major said, "is this the way you let us
+walk up on you? Why don't you challenge me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you was an officer, sir," the man replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you are absolutely sure I am <span class="smcap">your</span> officer?"
+the Major said slowly and coldly, with emphasis on the
+word "your." "Suppose I tell you I am a German officer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+and these men behind me are Germans. How do you
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>With a quick movement the American brought his
+rifle forward to the challenge, his right hand slapping the
+wooden butt with an audible whack.</p>
+
+<p>"Advance one, and give the countersign," he said with
+a changed voice and manner and the Major, moving to
+within whispering distance, breathed the word over the
+man's extended bayonet. Upon hearing it, the soldier
+lowered his gun and stood at attention.</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult to figure whether his relief over the
+scare was greater than his fears of the censure he knew
+was coming.</p>
+
+<p>"Next time anybody gets that close to you without
+being challenged," the Major said, "don't be surprised
+if it is a German. That's the way they do it. They don't
+march in singing 'Deutschland Über Alles.'</p>
+
+<p>"If you see them first, you might live through the war.
+If they see you first, we will have wasted a lot of Liberty
+bonds and effort trying to make a soldier out of you.
+Now, remember, watch yourself."</p>
+
+<p>We pushed on encountering longer patches of trench
+where duck boards were entirely missing and where the
+wading sometimes was knee-deep. In some places, either
+the pounding of shells or the thawing out of the ground
+had pushed in the revetments, appreciably narrowing the
+way and making progress more difficult. Arriving at an
+unmanned firing step large enough to accommodate the
+party, we mounted and took a first look over the top.</p>
+
+<p>Moonlight now was stronger through the mist which
+hung fold over fold over the forbidden land between the
+opposing battle lines. At intervals nervous machine guns
+chattered their ghoulish gibberish or tut-tut-ted away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+chidingly like finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sputtering
+to the right and left of us was unenlightening. We
+couldn't tell whether they were speaking German or English.
+Occasional bullets whining somewhere through that
+wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping of linen
+sheets.</p>
+
+<p>Artillery fire was the exception during the entire night
+but when a shell did trace its unseen arc through the mist
+mantle, its echoes gave it the sound of a street car grinding
+through an under-river tunnel or the tube reverberations
+of a departing subway train.</p>
+
+<p>We were two hundred yards from the German front
+lines. Between their trenches and ours, at this point, was
+low land, so boggy as to be almost impassable. The opposing
+lines hugged the tops of two small ridges.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty yards in front was our wire barely discernible
+in the fog. The Major interrupted five wordless reveries
+by expressing, with what almost seemed regretfulness,
+the fact that in all his fighting experience he had never
+seen it "so damn quiet." His observation passed without
+a remark from us.</p>
+
+<p>The Major appeared to be itching for action and he got
+into official swing a hundred yards farther on, where a
+turn in the trench revealed to us the muffled figures of
+two young Americans, comfortably seated on grenade
+boxes on the firing step.</p>
+
+<p>From their easy positions they could look over the top
+and watch all approaches without rising. Each one had
+a blanket wrapped about his legs and feet. They looked
+the picture of ease. Without moving, one, with his rifle
+across his lap, challenged the Major, advanced him, and
+received the countersign. We followed the Major in time
+to hear his first remark:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Didn't they get the rocking chairs out here yet?" he
+said with the provoked air that customarily accompanies
+any condemnation of the quartermaster department.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," replied the seated sentry. "They didn't get
+here. The men we relieved said that they never got anything
+out here."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor the footstools?" the Major continued, this time
+with an unmistakable tone.</p>
+
+<p>The man didn't answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the
+Riviera?" the Major asked sternly. "You are less than
+two hundred yards from the Germans. You are all
+wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could
+lean over the top and snake off your head with a trench
+knife before you could get your feet loose. Take those
+blankets off your feet and stand up."</p>
+
+<p>The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and
+removing the grenade box chairs. The Major continued:</p>
+
+<p>"You know you are not sitting in a club window in
+Fifth Avenue and watching the girls go by. You're not
+looking for chickens out there. There's a hawk over
+there and sometimes he carries off precious little lambs.
+Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of
+that trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and
+gun ready to mix things."</p>
+
+<p>The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train
+of followers who, by this time, were beginning to feel
+that these trenches held other lambs, only they carried
+notebooks instead of cartridge belts.</p>
+
+<p>Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us
+about to hear the conversation that was going on within.
+Through the cracks of the door, we looked down a flight of
+steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield graveyard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of
+voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly.</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>
+"Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their ears,<br />
+The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers,<br />
+The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers,<br />
+They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice,
+"but I am ready to disown him. They talk a lot about this
+counter battery work, but it's all bunk. A battery in position
+has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all the time.
+They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves
+up all nice for the day.</p>
+
+<p>"'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, 'I guess we will
+drop a few shells on that German battery on the other
+side of the hill.' So they pops off forty or fifty rounds
+in that general direction and don't hit anything 'cause the
+German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep
+dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back
+into its holes, the German battery comes out and pops
+back forty or fifty at 'em and, of course, don't hurt them
+neither.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here
+batteries is eating, they get so sore about not having hit
+each other during the morning, that they just call off
+counter battery work for the day and turn their guns
+on the front lines and blow hell out of the infantry. I
+haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning
+to think all of them Germans and Allies are alike and has
+an agreement against the doughboys."</p>
+
+<p>The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," was the polite and innocent invitation guilelessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+spoken from below. The Major had his helmet
+on, so he couldn't tear his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Come up here, you idiots, every one of you."</p>
+
+<p>The Major directed his voice down into the hole in an
+unmistakable and official tone. There was a scurrying of
+feet and four men emerged carrying their guns. They
+were lined up against the trench wall.</p>
+
+<p>"At midnight," the Major began, "in your dugout in
+the front line forty yards from the Germans, with no
+sentry at the door, you hear a knock on the door and you
+shout, 'Come in.' I commend your politeness, and I
+know that's what your mothers taught you to say when
+visitors come, but this isn't any tea fight out here. One
+German could have wiggled over the top here and stood
+in this doorway and captured all four of you single-handed,
+or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down
+that hole and blown all of you to smithereens. What's
+your aim in life&mdash;hard labour in a German prison camp
+or a nice little wooden cross out here four thousand miles
+from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any sentry at that
+door?"</p>
+
+<p>The question remained unanswered but the incident
+had its effect on the quartet. Without orders, all four
+decided to spend the remainder of the night on the firing
+step with their eyes glued on the enemy's line. They
+simply hadn't realised they were really in the war. The
+Major knew this, but made a mental reservation of which
+the commander of this special platoon got full benefit
+before the night was over.</p>
+
+<p>The front line from here onward followed a small
+ridge running generally east and west, but now bearing
+slightly to the northward. We were told the German line
+ran in the same general direction, but at this point bore
+to the southward.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The opposing lines in the direction of our course were
+converging and we were approaching the place where
+they were the closest in the sector. If German listening
+posts heard the progress of our party through the line,
+only a telephone call back to the artillery was necessary
+to plant a shell among us, as every point on the system
+was registered.</p>
+
+<p>As we silently considered various eventualities immaterial
+to the prosecution of the war but not without
+personal concern, our progress was brought to a sudden
+standstill.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh-huh-halt!" came a drawn-out command in a
+husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an
+undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of
+the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was
+forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready for a
+thrust.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh-huh-huh-halt!" came the nervous, whispering
+command again, although we had been motionless since
+the first whisper.</p>
+
+<p>We heard a click as the safety catch on the man's
+rifle lock was thrown off and the weapon made ready to
+discharge. The Major was watching the nervous hand
+that rested none too steadily on the trigger stop. He
+stepped to one side, but the muzzle of the gun followed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh-huh-huh-halt! I tuh-tuh-tell you."</p>
+
+<p>This time the whisper vibrated with nervous tension
+and there was no mistaking the state of mind of the
+sentry.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it easy," replied the Major with attempted
+calm. "I'm waiting for you to challenge me. Don't
+get excited. This is the commanding officer."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What's the countersign?" came from the voice in a
+hard strain.</p>
+
+<p>"Troy," the Major said, and the word seemed to bring
+worlds of reassurance to the rifleman, who sighed with
+relief, but forgot to move his rifle until the Major said:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please take that gun off me and put the
+safety back in?"</p>
+
+<p>The nervous sentry moved the gun six inches to the
+right and we correspondents, standing in back of the
+Major, looked into something that seemed as big as the
+La Salle street tunnel. I jumped out of range behind the
+Major. Eyre plunged knee-deep into water out of range,
+and Woods with the rubber boots started to go over the
+top.</p>
+
+<p>The click of the replaced safety lock sounded unusually
+like the snap of a trigger, but no report followed and
+three hearts resumed their beating.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no occasion to get excited," the Major said
+to the young soldier in a fatherly tone. "I'm glad to
+see you are wide-awake and on the job. Don't feel any
+fears for your job and just remember that with that gun
+and bayonet in your hands you are better than any man
+who turns that trench corner or crosses out there. You've
+got the advantage of him, and besides that you are a better
+man than he is."</p>
+
+<p>The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the latter
+conducted the party quietly around the trench corner
+and into a sap leading directly out into No Man's Land.
+Twice the trench passed under broad belts of barbed wire,
+which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, because
+any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons.</p>
+
+<p>After several minutes of this cautious advance, we
+reached a small listening post that marked the closest
+point in the sector to the German line. Several silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit. Gunny
+sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above.
+We remained silent while the Major in the lowest whisper
+spoke with a corporal and learned that except for
+two or three occasions, when the watchers thought they
+heard sounds near our wire, the night had been calm.</p>
+
+<p>We departed as silently as we came. The German line
+from a distance of forty yards looked no different from
+its appearance at a greater distance, but since it was
+closer, it was carried with a constant tingle of anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>Into another communicating trench and through better
+walled fortifications of splintered forest, the Major
+led us to a place where the recent shelling had changed
+twenty feet of trench into a gaping gulley almost without
+sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail was endeavouring
+to repair the damage. In parties of two, we
+left the trench and crossed an open space on the level.
+The forty steps we covered across that forbidden ground
+were like stolen fruit. Such rapture! Bazin, who was
+seeking a title for a book, pulled "Eureka!"</p>
+
+<p>"Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for
+our long trip back to quarters, he led the way to the entrance
+of a cemetery, well kept in the midst of surrounding
+chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon row.</p>
+
+<p>"I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that
+held this line until we took it over," he said simply.
+"Our own boys that we've lost since we've been here, are
+buried down in the next village."</p>
+
+<p>We silently saluted the spot as we passed it thirty
+minutes later.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in
+the Toul sector, it was inevitable that belligerent activity
+would increase and this, in spite of the issuance of strict
+orders that there should be no development of the normal
+daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist the temptation
+to start something.</p>
+
+<p>As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to
+suspect that they were faced by different troops from the
+ones who had been confronting them. The enemy set
+out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on
+the American line.</p>
+
+<p>It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th
+that the Germans lowered a terrific barrage on one of
+our advance listening posts and then rushed the position
+with a raiding party outnumbering the defendants ten
+to one.</p>
+
+<p>Two Americans held that post&mdash;five more succeeded
+in making their way through the storm of falling shells
+and in coming to the assistance of the first two. That
+made seven Americans in the fight. When the fighting
+ceased, every one of the seven had been accounted for
+in the three items, dead, wounded or captured.</p>
+
+<p>That little handful of Americans, fought, died or were
+wounded in the positions which they had been ordered to
+hold. Although the engagement was an extremely minor
+one, it being the first of its kind on the American sector,
+it was sufficient to give the enemy some idea of the determination
+and fighting qualities of the individual American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+soldier. Their comrades were proud of them, and
+were inclined to consider the exploit, "Alamo stuff."</p>
+
+<p>Two of the defenders were killed, four were wounded,
+and one was captured. The wounded men reported that
+the captured American continued to fight even after being
+severely wounded. He was the last to remain on his
+feet and when a bomb blew his rifle from his hand and
+injured his arm, he succumbed to superior numbers and
+was carried off by his captors.</p>
+
+<p>After the hurried sortie, the Germans beat a hasty
+retreat so that the position was reoccupied immediately
+by another American detail.</p>
+
+<p>The "Alamo" seven had not been taken by surprise.
+Through a downpour of rather badly placed shells, they
+held their position on the firing step and worked both
+their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party,
+which they could not see, but knew would be advancing
+behind the curtain of fire. Hundreds of empty cartridges
+and a broken American bayonet constituted impartial
+testimony to the fierceness of the fighting. After the
+first rush, in which the defenders accounted for a number
+of Germans, the fighting began at close quarters, the
+enemy peppering the listening post with hand-grenades.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the German barrage had been lifted
+and lengthened until it was lowered again between the
+"Alamo" seven and their comrades in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>There were calls to surrender, but no acceptances. The
+fighting became hand-to-hand with bayonet and gun butt.
+The defenders fought on in the hope that assistance soon
+would arrive from the American artillery.</p>
+
+<p>But the Germans had planned the raid well. Their first
+barrage cut all telephone wires leading back from our
+front lines and the signal rocket which one of the men in
+the listening post had fired into the air, had been smothered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+in the dense mist. That rocket had called for a
+defensive barrage from American artillery and when
+no answer came to it, a second one was fired, but that
+also was snuffed out by the fog.</p>
+
+<p>The net result of the raid was that the Germans had
+captured one of our wounded men and had thereby identified
+the organisation opposing them as the First Regular
+Division of the United States Army, composed of
+the 16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Regular U. S. Infantry
+Regiments and the 5th, 6th and 7th Regular U. S. Army
+Field Artillery. The division was under the command
+of Major General Robert Lee Bullard.</p>
+
+<p>In the days and weeks that followed, the daily exchange
+of shells on the sector increased to two and three times
+the number it had been before our men arrived there.
+There were nightly patrols in No Man's Land and
+several instances where these patrols met in the dark and
+engaged one another with casualties on both sides.</p>
+
+<p>One night a little over a month later&mdash;the early morning
+of March 4th, to be exact&mdash;it was my privilege to
+witness from an exceptional vantage point, the first
+planned and concentrated American artillery action
+against the enemy. The German lines selected for this
+sudden downpour of shell, comprised two small salients
+jutting out from the enemy's positions in the vicinity of
+the ruined village of Lahayville, in the same sector.</p>
+
+<p>In company with an orderly who had been despatched
+as my guide, I started from an artillery battalion headquarters
+shortly before midnight, and together we made
+our way up the dark muddy road that led through the
+dense Bois de la Reine to the battery positions. Half an
+hour's walk and O'Neil, the guide, led me off the road
+into a darker tunnel of overlaced boughs where we
+stumbled along on the ties of a narrow gauge railroad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+that conveyed heavy shells from the road to the guns.
+We passed through several gun pits and stopped in front
+of a huge <i>abri</i> built entirely above ground.</p>
+
+<p>Its walls and roof must have been between five and
+seven feet thick and were made from layers of logs,
+sandbags, railroad iron and slabs of concrete reinforced
+with steel. It looked impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>"Battery commander's headquarters," O'Neil said to
+me as we entered a small hot room lighted by two oil
+lamps and a candle. Three officers, at two large map
+tables, were working on sheets of figures. Two wooden
+bunks, one above the other, and two posts supporting the
+low ceiling completed the meagre furnishings of the
+room. A young officer looked up from his work, O'Neil
+saluted, and addressed him.</p>
+
+<p>"The Major sent me up with this correspondent. He
+said you could let him go wherever he could see the fun
+and that you are not responsible for his safety." O'Neil
+caught the captain's smile at the closing remark and
+withdrew. The captain showed me the map.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are," he said, indicating a spot with his
+finger, "and here's what we are aiming at to-night. There
+are two places you can stay to see the fun. You can stay
+in this shelter and hear the sound of it, or you can go up
+a little further front to this point, and mount the platform
+in our observation tree. In this <i>abri</i> you are safe
+from splinters and shrapnel but a direct hit would wipe
+us out. In the tree you are exposed to direct hits and
+splinters from nearby bursts but at least you can see
+the whole show. It's the highest point around here and
+overlooks the whole sector."</p>
+
+<p>I sensed that the captain expected a busy evening and
+looked forward with no joy to possible interference from
+a questioning visitor, so I chose the tree.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said, "you've got helmet and gas masks,
+I see. Now how's your watch? Take the right time off
+mine. We have just synchronised ours with headquarters.
+Zero is one o'clock. You had better start now."</p>
+
+<p>He called for an orderly with a German name, and the
+two of us left. Before I was out of the room, the captain
+had returned to his mathematics and was figuring
+out the latest range variations and making allowances
+for latest developments in wind, temperature and barometer.
+The orderly with the German name and I plunged
+again into the trees and brought up shortly on the edge
+of a group of men who were standing in the dark near
+a large tree trunk. I could hear several other men and
+some stamping horses off to one side.</p>
+
+<p>The party at the foot of the tree was composed of observers,
+signal linemen and runners. All of them were
+enlisted men. I inquired who were to be my comrades in
+the tree top and three presented themselves. One said
+his name was Pat Guahn, the second gave his as Peter
+Griffin and the third acknowledged Mike Stanton. I
+introduced myself and Griffin said, "I see we are all
+from the same part of Italy."</p>
+
+<p>At twenty minutes to one, we started up the tree,
+mounting by rudely constructed ladders that led from
+one to the other of the four crudely fashioned platforms.
+We reached the top breathless and with no false impressions
+about the stability of our swaying perch. The tree
+seemed to be the tallest in the forest and nothing interfered
+with our forward view. The platform was a bit
+shaky and Guahn put my thoughts to words and music by
+softly singing&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the shell comes the runners all flop,<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">When the shell busts, good-bye to our station,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We're up in a tree, bound for damnation."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The compass gives us north and we locate in the forward
+darkness an approximate sweep of the front lines.
+Guahn is looking for the flash of a certain German gun
+and it will be his duty to keep his eyes trained through
+the fork of a certain marked twig within arm's reach.</p>
+
+<p>"If she speaks, we want to know it," Guahn says; "I
+can see her from here when she flashes and there's another
+man who can see her from another place. You see
+we get an intersection of angles on her and then we know
+where she is just as though she had sent her address.
+Two minutes later we drop a card on her and keep her
+warm."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that that gun from Russia we heard about?" Griffin
+asks.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answers Guahn, "we are not looking for her
+from that station. Besides, she isn't Russian. She was
+made by the British, used by the Russians, captured by
+the Germans and in turn is used by them against Americans.
+We have found pieces of her shell and they all
+have an English trade mark on them. She fires big
+eight inch stuff."</p>
+
+<p>Griffin is watching in another direction for another
+flash and Stanton is on the lookout for signal flares and
+the flash of a signal light projector which might be used
+in case the telephone communication is disturbed by
+enemy fire. It is then that the runners at the base of
+the tree must carry the message back by horse.</p>
+
+<p>Only an occasional thump is heard forward in the
+darkness. Now and then machine guns chatter insanely
+as they tuck a seam in the night. At infrequent intervals,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+a star shell curves upward, bursts, suspends its
+silent whiteness in mid-air, and dies.</p>
+
+<p>In our tree top all seems quiet and so is the night.
+There is no moon and only a few stars are out. A penetrating
+dampness takes the place of cold and there is that
+in the air that threatens a change of weather.</p>
+
+<p>The illuminated dial of my watch tells me that it is
+three minutes of one and I communicate the information
+to the rest of the Irish quartet. In three minutes, the
+little world that we look upon from our tree top is due
+to change with terrific suddenness and untold possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere below in the darkness and to one side, I
+hear the clank of a ponderous breech lock as the mechanism
+is closed on a shell in one of the heavy guns.
+Otherwise all remains silent.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes of one. Each minute seems to drag like
+an hour. It is impossible to keep one's mind off that
+unsuspecting group of humans out there in that little
+section of German trench upon which the heavens are
+about to fall. Griffin leans over the railing and calls to
+the runners to stand by the horses' heads until they become
+accustomed to the coming roar.</p>
+
+<p>One minute of one. We grip the railing and wait.</p>
+
+<p>Two flashes and two reports, the barest distinguishable
+interval, and the black horizon belches red. From extreme
+left to extreme right the flattened proscenium in
+front of us glows with the ghastliness of the Broockon.</p>
+
+<p>Waves of light flush the dark vault above like the night
+sky over South Chicago's blast furnaces. The heavens
+reflect the glare. The flashes range in colour from blinding
+yellow to the softest tints of pink. They seem to
+form themselves from strange combinations of greens
+and mauves and lavenders.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sharp shattering crash of the guns reaches our
+ears almost on the instant. The forest shakes and our
+tree top sways with the slam of the heavies close by. The
+riven air whimpers with the husky whispering of the
+rushing load of metal bolts passing above us.</p>
+
+<p>Looking up into that void, we deny the uselessness of
+the act and seek in vain to follow the trains of those unseen
+things that make the air electric with their presence.
+We hear them coming, passing, going, but see not one
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>"There's whole blacksmith's shops sailing over our
+heads on the way to Germany," Pat Guahn shouts in my
+ear. "I guess the Dutchman sure knows how to call for
+help. He doesn't care for that first wallop, and he
+thinks he would like about a half million reserves from
+the Russian front."</p>
+
+<p>"That darkness out in No Man's Land don't make any
+hit with him either," Stanton contributes. "He's got it
+lit up so bright I'm homesick for Broadway."</p>
+
+<p>Now comes the thunder of the shell arrivals. You
+know the old covered wooden bridges that are still to
+be found in the country. Have you ever heard a team
+of horses and a farm wagon thumping and rumbling over
+such a bridge on the trot?</p>
+
+<p>Multiply the horse team a thousand times. Lash the
+animals from the trot to the wild gallop. Imagine the
+sound of their stampede through the echoing wooden
+structure and you approach in volume and effect the
+rumble and roar of the steel as it rained down on that
+little German salient that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to them babies bustin'," says Griffin. "I'm
+betting them groundhogs is sure huntin' their holes right
+now and trying to dig clear through to China."</p>
+
+<p>That was the sound and sight of that opening salvo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+from all guns, from the small trench mortars in the line,
+the lightest field pieces behind them, the heavy field pieces
+about us and the ponderous railroad artillery located
+behind us.</p>
+
+<p>Its crash has slashed the inkiness in front of us with
+a lurid red meridian. I don't know how many hands had
+pulled lanyards on exactly the same instant but the consequent
+spread of fire looked like one continuous flame.</p>
+
+<p>Now the "seventy-fives" are speaking, not in unison,
+but at various speeds, limited only by the utmost celerity
+of the sweating gun crews.</p>
+
+<p>But the German front line is not the only locality receiving
+unsolicited attention. Enemy gun positions far
+behind the lines are being plastered with high explosives
+and anesthetised with gas shells.</p>
+
+<p>So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of
+the German batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty
+minutes before the first enemy gun replies to the terrific
+barrage. And though expected momentarily, a German
+counter barrage fails to materialise.</p>
+
+<p>In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shelling
+but the retaliation does not develop. When occupying
+an exposed position, the suspense of waiting for an
+impending blow increases in tenseness as the delay continues
+and the expectations remain unrealised. With no
+inclination to be unreasonable, one even prays for the
+speedy delivery of the blow in the same way that the
+man with the aching tooth urges the dentist to speed up
+and have it over with.</p>
+
+<p>"Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Griffin
+asks. "I've had myself all tuned up for the last twenty
+minutes to have a leg blown off and be thankful. I hate
+this waiting stuff."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+'em a chance to get their breath and come out of their
+holes. That barrage drove 'em down a couple hundred
+feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to
+come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."</p>
+
+<p>We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared
+with what they were receiving from our side of the
+line. The German artillery came into lethargic action
+after the American barrage had been in constant operation
+for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only
+desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland
+came our way, and even they carried a rather tired, listless
+buzz, as though they didn't know exactly where they
+were going and didn't care.</p>
+
+<p>Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit
+not far above our tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly
+looked as though we were shooting all the hard-stuff
+and the German end of the fireworks party was all
+coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells
+that passed us, three failed to explode upon landing.</p>
+
+<p>"That makes three dubs," said Guahn.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you
+mean duds and even then you are wrong. Those were
+gas pills. They just crack open quietly so you don't know
+it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll hear
+the gas alert soon."</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the
+throaty gurgling of the sirens. The alarm started on
+our right and spread from station to station through the
+woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our
+muffled faces toward the firing line. Through the moisture
+fogged glasses of my mask, I looked first upon my
+companions on this rustic scaffold above the forest.</p>
+
+<p>War's demands had removed our appearances far from
+the human. Our heads were topped with uncomfortable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+steel casques, harder than the backs of turtles. Our eyes
+were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and
+owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rubber
+cloth. Our lungs sucked air through tubes from a
+canvass bag under our chins and we were inhabiting a
+tree top like a family of apes. It really required imagination
+to make it seem real.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like the party is over," came the muffled remark
+from the masked figure beside me. The cannonading
+was dying down appreciably. The blinking line of
+lights in front of us grew less.</p>
+
+<p>A terrific upward blast of red and green flame from
+the ground close to our tree, reminded us that one heavy
+still remained under firing orders. The flash seen through
+the forest revealed in intricate tracings the intertwining
+limbs and branches of the trees. It presented the appearance
+of a piece of strong black lace spread out and held
+at arm's length in front of a glowing grate.</p>
+
+<p>From the German lines an increased number of flares
+shot skyward and as the cannon cracks ceased, save for
+isolated booms, the enemy machine guns could be heard
+at work, riveting the night with sprays of lead and sounding
+for all the world like a scourge of hungry woodpeckers.</p>
+
+<p>"God help any of the doughboys that are going up
+against any of that stuff," Griffin observed through his
+mask.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about our doughboys," replied Stanton;
+"they are all safe in their trenches now. That's
+most likely the reason why our guns were ordered to lay
+off. I guess Fritzie got busy with his typewriters too
+late."</p>
+
+<p>I descended the tree, leaving my companions to wait
+for the orders necessary for their departure. Unfamiliar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+with the unmarked paths of the forest and guided only
+as to general directions, I made my way through the
+trees some distance in search of the road back from the
+front.</p>
+
+<p>A number of mud and water-filled shell holes intervened
+to make the exertion greater and consequently the
+demand upon lungs for air greater. After floundering
+several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas
+mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that
+comes to tear off the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxiation
+for just one breath of fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided
+me to a log cabin where I learned from a sentry that
+the gas scare had just been called off. Continuing on
+the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a walking
+horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly
+the advantage over him as his head was still encased. I
+told him the gas alarm was off and he tore away the
+mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was removing
+the horse's gas mask.</p>
+
+<p>A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good-night
+to the battalion commander in front of his roadside
+shack. A party of mounted runners was passing on the
+way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity
+quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in command
+of regular army artillery, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, men, we licked hell out of them."</p>
+
+<p>The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans,
+always maintained a high daily rating of artillery activity.
+The opposing forces were continually planning surprises
+on one another. At any minute of the night or
+day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas
+might break out on either side. Both sides operated their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+sound ranging apparatus to a rather high degree of
+efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>By these delicate instruments we could locate the exact
+position of an unseen enemy battery. Following that
+location, the battery would immediately be visited with
+a concentrated downpour of hot steel intended to wipe it
+out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so
+that in the artillery, when the men were not actually
+manning the guns in action, they were digging gun pits
+for reserve positions which they could occupy if the
+enemy happened to get the proper range of the old
+positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery
+adopted a system by which many lives were saved.</p>
+
+<p>If a German battery began shelling one of our battery
+positions, the artillerymen in that position were not called
+upon to stand by their guns and return the fire. The
+order would be given to temporarily abandon the position
+and the men would be withdrawn a safe distance. The
+German battery that was firing would be responded to,
+two to one, by other American batteries located nearby
+and which did not happen to be under fire at the time.
+By this system we conserved our strength.</p>
+
+<p>Our infantry was strong in their praise of the artillery.
+I observed this particularly one day on the Toul
+front when General Pershing dropped in unexpectedly
+at the division headquarters, then located in the hillside
+village of Bourcq. While the commander and his party
+were awaiting a meal which was being prepared, four
+muddy figures tramped down the hallway of the Château.
+Through the doorway the general observed their entrance.</p>
+
+<p>The two leading figures were stolid German soldiers,
+prisoners of war, and behind them marched their captors,
+two excusably proud young Americans. One of them
+carried his bayoneted rifle at the ready, while the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+carried the equipment which had been taken from the
+prisoners. The American commander ordered the group
+brought before him and asked one of the Americans to
+relate the story of the capture.</p>
+
+<p>"We in the infantry got 'em, sir," replied one, "but
+the artillery deserved most of the credit. It happened
+just at dawn this morning. Jim here, and myself, were
+holding down an advance machine gun post when the
+Germans laid down a flock of shells on our first line
+trench. We just kept at the gun ready to let them have
+it if they started to come over.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon we saw them coming through the mist and
+we began to put it to 'em. I think we got a bunch of
+them but they kept on coming.</p>
+
+<p>"Then somebody back in our first line shot up the
+signal for a barrage in our sector. It couldn't have been
+a minute before our cannon cut loose and the shells began
+to drop right down in the middle of the raiding party.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a good heavy barrage, sir, and it cut clean
+through the centre of the raiders. Two Germans were
+ahead of the rest and the barrage landed right in back of
+them. The rest started running back toward their lines,
+but the first pair could not go back because they would
+have had to pass through the barrage. I kept the machine
+gun going all the time and Jim showed himself above the
+trench and pointed his rifle at the cut-off pair.</p>
+
+<p>"They put up their hands right quick and we waved to
+'em to come in. They took it on the jump and landed
+in our trench as fast as they could. We took their equipment
+off them and we were ordered to march them back
+here to headquarters. That's all there was to it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The enemy in front of Toul manifested an inordinate
+anxiety to know more about the strength of our forces
+and the character of the positions we occupied. A captured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+German document issued to the Fifth Bavarian
+Landwehr infantry brigade instructed every observer and
+patrol to do his or its best "to bring information about
+the new enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is known as yet about the methods of fighting
+or leadership," the document set forth, "and all information
+possible must be gathered as to particular features
+of American fighting and outpost tactics. This
+will then be used for extending the information bulletin.
+Any observation or identification, however insignificant,
+may be of the greatest value."</p>
+
+<p>The document directed that data on the following questions
+be obtained:</p>
+
+<p>"Are sentry posts sentry posts or stronger posts?
+Further advanced reconnoitring patrols? Manner of
+challenging? Behaviour on post during day and night?
+Vigilance? Ambush tactics and cunning?</p>
+
+<p>"Do they shoot and signal on every occasion? Do
+the posts hold their ground on the approach of a patrol,
+or do they fall back?</p>
+
+<p>"Are the Americans careful and cautious? Are they
+noisy? What is their behaviour during smoke screens?"</p>
+
+<p>The enemy's keen desire to acquire this information
+was displayed in the desperate efforts it made. One day
+the French troops occupying the trenches on the right
+flank of the American sector, encountered a soldier in
+an American uniform walking through their positions.</p>
+
+<p>He was stopped and questioned. He said he had been
+one of an American patrol that had gone out the night
+before, that he had lost his way in No Man's Land
+and that he thought he was returning to his own trenches,
+when he dropped into those held by the French.</p>
+
+<p>Although the man wore our uniform and spoke excellent
+English and seemed straightforward in his replies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+as to his name and rank and organisation, the French
+officer before whom he was brought was not completely
+satisfied. To overcome this hesitancy, the suspected
+man opened his shirt and produced an American identification
+tag verifying his answers.</p>
+
+<p>The French officer, still suspicious, ordered the man
+held while he telephoned to the American organisation
+mentioned to ascertain whether any man of the name
+given was missing from that unit.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the American captain. "We lost him
+last October, when we were in the front line down in the
+Luneville sector. He was captured with eight others
+by the Germans."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we've got him over here on your right flank.
+He came into our lines this morning&mdash;" the French officer
+started to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully," came the American interruption over the
+wire. "He's escaped from the Germans and has come
+clear through their lines to get back to his company. He'll
+get a D. S. C. for that. We'll send right over for him."</p>
+
+<p>"But when we questioned him," replied the Frenchman,
+"he said he left your lines only last night on patrol
+and got lost in No Man's Land."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come right over and look at that party, myself,"
+the American captain hastily replied.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the French officer's dugout several hours
+later and the suspect was ordered brought in.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be crazy, sir," the French orderly said.
+"He tried to kill himself a few minutes ago and we have
+had to hold him."</p>
+
+<p>The man was brought into the dugout between two
+poilus who held his arms. The American captain took
+a careful look and said:</p>
+
+<p>"That's not our man. He wears our uniform correctly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+and that's our regulation identification tag. Both of
+them must have been taken away from our man when
+he was captured. This man is an impostor."</p>
+
+<p>"He's more than that," replied the Frenchman with a
+smile. "He's a German spy."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner made no reply, but later made a full
+confession of his act, and also gave to his interrogators
+much valuable information, which, however, did not
+save him from paying the penalty in front of a firing
+squad. When he faced the rifles, he was not wearing
+the stolen uniform.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH</h3>
+
+
+<p>Toward the end of March, 1918, just at the time when
+the American Expeditionary Forces were approaching the
+desired degree of military effectiveness, the fate of civilisation
+was suddenly imperilled by the materialisation
+of the long expected German offensive.</p>
+
+<p>This push, the greatest the enemy had ever attempted,
+began on March 21st, and the place that Hindenburg
+selected for the drive was Picardy, the valley of the
+Somme, the ancient cockpit of Europe. On that day the
+German hordes, scores upon scores of divisions, hurled
+themselves against the British line between Arras and
+Noyon.</p>
+
+<p>Before that tremendous weight of manpower, the
+Allied line was forced to give and one of the holding
+British armies, the Fifth, gave ground on the right flank,
+and with its left as a hinge, swung back like a gate, opening
+the way for the Germans toward Paris.</p>
+
+<p>There have been many descriptions of the fierce fighting
+put up by the French and British to stem the German
+advance, but the most interesting one that ever came to
+my notice, came from one of the few American soldiers
+that participated in the defence. Two weeks after the
+opening of the battle and at a time when the German advance
+had been stopped, I came upon this American in
+a United States Military Hospital at Dijon.</p>
+
+<p>An interne led me to the bedside of Jimmy Brady, a
+former jockey from the Pimlico turf in Baltimore, and
+now a proud wearer of Uncle Sam's khaki. In his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+quaint way, Jimmy told me the story of what a little
+handful of Americans did in the great battle in Picardy.
+Jimmy knew. Jimmy had been there.</p>
+
+<p>"Lad," he said, "I'm telling you it was a real jam.
+I learned one hell of a headful in the last ten days that
+I'll not be forgetting in the next ten years. I've got
+new ideas about how long this war is goin' to last. Of
+course, we're going to lick the Boches before it ends,
+but I've sorter given up the picture I had of myself marching
+up Fifth Avenue in a victory parade on this coming
+Fourth of July. I'll say it can't be done in that time.</p>
+
+<p>"Our outfit from old &mdash;&mdash; engineers, and believe me
+there's none better, have been working up in the Somme
+country for the last two months. We were billeted at
+Brie and most of our work had been throwing bridges
+across the Canal du Nord about three miles south of
+Peronne. I'm telling you the Somme ain't a river. It's
+a swamp, and they just hardly squeeze enough water
+outer it to make a canal which takes the place of a river.</p>
+
+<p>"We was working under the British. Their old bridges
+over the canal were wooden affairs and most of them
+had signs on them reading, 'This bridge won't hold a
+tank,' and that bridge wouldn't bear trotting horses, and
+so on. Some of 'em we tore down must have been put
+in for scenery purposes only. We were slamming up
+some husky looking steel structures like you see in the
+States, and believe me it makes me sick to think that we
+had to blow 'em all up again before the Boches got to 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"I see by the papers that the battle began on the 21st,
+but I've got no more idea about the date of it than the
+King of Honolulu. They say it's been on only about ten
+days, but I couldn't swear it hadn't been on since New
+Year's Eve. It sure seemed a long time. As I told you,
+we were working just south of Peronne on the main road<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+between St. Quentin and Amiens. She started on a foggy
+morning and for two days the music kept getting closer.
+On the first day, all traffic was frontward, men, guns, and
+camions going up towards the lines, and then the tide
+began to flow back.</p>
+
+<p>"Ambulances and camions, full of poor wounded devils,
+filled the road, and then came labour battalions of
+chattering Chinks, Egyptians, and Fiji Islanders and
+God knows what. None of these birds were lingering,
+because the enemy was sprinkling the roads with shells
+and sorter keeping their marching spirits up. Orders
+came for us to ditch our packs and equipment all except
+spades, rifles, belts and canteens, and we set off toward
+the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind your map of the Somme? Well, we
+pulls up at Chaulnes for a breath. It was a big depot
+and dump town&mdash;aeroplanes and everything piled up in
+it. We were ordered onto demolition work, being as we
+was still classed as non-combatants. I don't know how
+many billions of dollars' worth of stuff we blew up and
+destroyed, but it seemed to me there was no end of it.
+Fritz kept coming all the time and they hiked us on to
+Aubercourt and then to Dormant, and each place we
+stopped and dug trenches, and then they shoots us into
+camions and rushes us north to a town not far out of
+Amiens.</p>
+
+<p>"With about forty men, we marched down the road,
+this time as non-combatants no longer. We stopped just
+east of the village of Marcelcave and dug a line of
+trenches across the road. We had twenty machine guns
+and almost as many different kinds of ammunition as
+there was different nationalities in our trench. Our position
+was the fifth line of defence, we was told, but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+guns kept getting closer and a lot of that long range stuff
+was giving us hell. Near me there was a squad of my men,
+one Chink, three Canadians, and we two Dublin fusileers.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we begin to see our own guns, that is, British
+guns, beginning to blow hell out of this here village of
+Marcelcave right in front of us. It made me wild to see
+the artillery making a mistake like that, so I says to one of
+these here Dublin fusileers:</p>
+
+<p>"'Whatinell's 'matter wid dose guns firing on our own
+men up there in the village? If this is the fifth line, then
+that must be our fourth line in the village?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Lad,' says the Dublin fusileer to me, 'I don't want
+to discourage you for the life of me, but this only used
+to be the fifth line. We are in the first line now and it's up
+to you and me and the Chink and the rest of us to keep the
+Fritzes out of Amiens. At this moment we are all that's
+between.'</p>
+
+<p>"We started to the machine guns and began pouring
+it in on 'em. The minute some of 'em would start out of
+the town we would wither them. Holy mother, but what
+a beautiful murder it was!</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know then, and don't know yet, what has
+become of all the rest of our officers and men, but I sorter
+felt like every shot I sent over was paying 'em back
+for some of their dirty work. We kept handing it to
+'em hot. You oughter seen that Chink talking Mongolian
+to a machine gun, and, believe me, he sure made
+it understand him. I'm here to say that when a Chink
+fights, he's a fighting son-of-a-gun and don't let anybody
+kid you different.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, our little mob held 'em off till dark and then
+British Tommies piled in and relieved us. We needed
+it because we hadn't had a bite in seventy hours and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+had been lying in the mud and water for twice that time.
+Just before relief comes on, two skulking figures comes
+over the top. I was thinking that maybe these was
+Hindus or Eskimos coming to join our little international
+party and we shouts out to 'em and asks 'em where
+they hails from. Both of 'em yelled back, 'Kamerad,'
+and then I knew that we'd not only held the fort, but
+had captured two prisoners even if they was deserters.</p>
+
+<p>"I marched 'em back that night to the next town and
+took 'em into a grocery store, where there was a lot of
+Tommies helping themselves to the first meal in days.
+While we were eating bread and cheese and sardines
+and also feeding me two prisoners, we talks to them
+and finds out that, as far as they are concerned, the
+Kaiser will never get their vote again.</p>
+
+<p>"One Tommy says to one of my prisoners: 'Kaiser no
+good&mdash;pas bon, ain't it?' and the prisoner said, 'Yah,'
+and I shoved my elbow into his ribs and right quick he
+said, 'Nein.' Then the Tommy said: 'Hindenburg
+dirty rotter, nacy pa?' and the Fritz said, 'Yah. Nein,'
+and then looked at me and said 'Yah' again. They was
+not bad prisoners and I marched 'em twenty miles that
+night, just the three of us&mdash;two of them in front and
+me in back with the rifle over me arm.</p>
+
+<p>"And the joke of it was that both of them could
+have taken the gun and killed me any minute for all I
+could have done."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you figure that, Corporal?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>For reply, Jimmy Brady drew from beneath the
+blankets a pair of knotted hands with fingers and thumbs
+stiffened and bent in and obviously impossible to use on
+a trigger. Brady is not in the hospital for wounds.
+Four days and nights in water and mud in the battle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+battles had twisted and shrunken him with rheumatism.
+But he is one rheumatic who helped to save Amiens.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Upon the heels of the German successes in Picardy,
+developments followed fast. Principal among these,
+was the materialisation of a unified command of all
+the armies of the Allies. General Ferdinand Foch
+was selected and placed in supreme command of every
+fighting man under the Allied flags.</p>
+
+<p>One of the events that led up to this long delayed
+action, was the unprecedented action of General Pershing,
+when he turned over the command of all the American
+forces in France to General Foch. He did this with
+the words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"I come to say to you that the American people would
+hold it a great honour for our troops were they engaged
+in the present battle. I ask it of you in my name and
+in that of the American people.</p>
+
+<p>"There is at this moment no other question than that
+of fighting. Infantry, artillery, aviation&mdash;all that we
+have are yours to dispose of as you will. Others are
+coming which are as numerous as will be necessary.
+I have come to say to you that the American people
+would be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in
+history."</p></div>
+
+<p>The action met with the unqualified endorsement of
+every officer and man in the American forces. From
+that minute on, the American slogan in France was
+"Let's go," and every regiment began to hope that it
+would be among the American organisations selected
+to do battle with the German in Picardy. Secretary of
+War Baker, then in France, expressed his pleasure over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+General Pershing's unselfish offer with the following
+public statement on Mar. 30th:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"I am delighted with the prompt and effective action
+of General Pershing in placing all American troops at
+the disposal of the Allies in the present situation. His
+action will meet with hearty approval in the United
+States, where the people desire their Expeditionary
+Force to be of the utmost service to the common cause.</p>
+
+<p>"I have visited practically all the American troops in
+France, some of them quite recently, and had an opportunity
+to observe the enthusiasm with which the officers
+and men receive the announcement that they may be
+used in the present conflict. Regiments to which the
+announcement was made, broke spontaneously into
+cheers."</p></div>
+
+<p>Particularly were there cheers when the news spread
+through the ranks of the First United States division,
+then on duty on the line in front of Toul, that it had
+been the first American division chosen to go into
+Picardy. I was fortunate enough to make arrangements
+to go with them.</p>
+
+<p>I rode out from old positions with the guns and
+boarded the troop train which took our battery by devious
+routes to changes of scenery, gratifying both to
+vision and spirit. We lived in our cars on tinned meat
+and hard bread, washed down with swallows of <i>vin
+ordinaire</i>, hurriedly purchased at station <i>buvettes</i>. The
+horses rode well.</p>
+
+<p>Officers and men, none of us cared for train schedule
+simply because none of us knew where we were going,
+and little time was wasted in conjecture. Soldierly
+curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+on our way, and with this satisfaction, the hours passed
+easily. In fact, the blackjack game in the officers' compartment
+had reached the point where the battery commander
+had garnered almost all of the French paper
+money in sight, when our train passed slowly through
+the environs of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Other American troop trains had preceded us, because
+where the railroad embankment ran close and parallel
+to the street of some nameless Faubourg, our appearance
+was met with cheers and cries from a welcoming regiment
+of Paris street gamins, who trotted in the street
+beside the slow moving troop train and shouted and
+threw their hats and wooden shoes in the air. Sous
+and fifty centime pieces and franc pieces showered from
+the side doors of the horses' cars as American soldiers,
+with typical disregard for the value of money, pitched
+coin after coin to the scrambling mob of children. At
+least a hundred francs must have been cast out upon
+those happy, romping waves of childish faces and up-stretched
+dirty hands.</p>
+
+<p>"A soldier would give his shirt away," said a platoon
+commander, leaning out of the window and watching the
+spectacle, and surreptitiously pitching a few coins himself.
+"Hope we get out of this place before the men
+pitch out a gun or a horse to that bunch. Happy little
+devils, aren't they? It's great to think we are on our
+way up to meet their daddies."</p>
+
+<p>Unnumbered hours more passed merrily in the troop
+train before we were shunted into the siding of a
+little town. Work of unloading was started and completed
+within an hour. Guns and wagons were unloaded
+on the quay, while the animals were removed from the
+cars on movable runways or ramps. As each gun or
+wagon reached the ground, its drivers hitched in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+horses and moved it away. Five minutes later we rode
+out of the yards and down the main street of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Broad steel tires on the carriages of the heavies
+bumped and rumbled over the clean cobbles and the
+horses pranced spryly to get the kinks out of their legs,
+long fatigued from vibrations of the train. Women, old
+and young, lined the curbs, smiling and throwing kisses,
+waving handkerchiefs and aprons and begging for souvenirs.
+If every request for a button had been complied
+with, our battery would have reached the front
+with a shocking shortage of safety pins.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness came on and with it a fine rain, as we cleared
+the town and halted on a level plain between soft fields
+of tender new wheat, which the horses sensed and snorted
+to get at. In twenty minutes, Mess Sergeant Kelly,
+from his high altar on the rolling kitchen, announced
+that the last of hot coffee had been dispensed. Somewhere
+up ahead in the darkness, battery bugle notes conveyed
+orders to prepare to mount. With the rattle of
+equipment and the application of endearing epithets,
+which horses unfortunately don't understand, we moved
+off at the sound of "forward."</p>
+
+<p>Off on our left, a noiseless passenger train slid silently
+across the rim of the valley, blue dimmed lights in its
+coach windows glowing like a row of wet sulphur
+matches. Far off in the north, flutters of white light
+flushed the night sky and an occasional grumbling of
+the distant guns gave us our first impression of the
+battle of battles. Every man in our battery tingled with
+the thrill. This was riding frontward with the guns&mdash;this
+was rolling and rumbling on through the night up
+toward the glare and glamour of war. I was riding
+beside the captain at the head of the column. He broke
+silence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It seems like a far cry from Honolulu with the
+moon playing through the palm trees on the beach," he
+said quizzically, "to this place and these scenes and
+events to-night, but a little thing like a flip of coin decided
+it for me, and I'm blessing that coin to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"A year ago January, before we came into the war,
+I was stationed at San Antonio. Another officer friend
+of mine was stationed there and one day he received
+orders to report for duty at Honolulu. He had a girl
+in San Antonio and didn't want to leave her and he
+knew I didn't have a girl and didn't give a damn where
+I went, or was sent, so long as it was with the army.
+He put up the proposition of mutual exchange being
+permitted under regulations.</p>
+
+<p>"He wanted to take my place in San Antonio and
+give me his assignment in Honolulu, which I must say
+looked mighty good in those days to anybody who was
+tired of Texas. I didn't think then we'd ever come to
+war and besides it didn't make much difference to me
+one way or the other where I went. But instead of accepting
+the proposition right off the reel, I told Jim
+we'd flip a coin to decide.</p>
+
+<p>"If it came tails, he would go to Honolulu. If it
+came heads, I would go to Honolulu. He flipped. Tails
+won. I'm in France and poor Jim is out there in
+Honolulu tending the Ukulele crop with prospects of
+having to stay there for some time. Poor devil, I got
+a letter from him last week.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, man knows no keener joy in the world
+than that which I have to-night. Here I am in France
+at the head of two hundred and fifty men and horses
+and the guns and we're rolling up front to kick a dent in
+history. The poor unfortunate that ain't in this fight has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+almost got license to shoot himself. Life knows no
+keener joy than this."</p>
+
+<p>It was a long speech for our captain, but his words
+expressed not only the feeling of our battery, but our
+whole regiment, from the humblest wagon driver up to
+the colonel who, by the way, has just made himself most
+unpopular with the regiment by being promoted to a
+Brigadier Generalship. The colonel is passing upward
+to a higher command and the regiment is sore on losing
+him. One of his humblest critics has characterised the
+event as the "first rough trick the old man ever pulled."</p>
+
+<p>Midnight passed and we were still wheeling our way
+through sleeping villages, consulting maps under rays of
+flashlights, gathering directions some of the time from
+mile posts and wall signs, and at other times gaining
+knowledge of roads and turns and hills from sleepy
+heads in curl wrappers that protruded from bedroom
+chambers and were over-generous in advice.</p>
+
+<p>The animals were tired. Rain soaked the cigarettes
+and made them draw badly. Above was drizzle and
+below was mud. There were a few grumbles, but no
+man in our column would have traded places with a
+brother back home even if offered a farm to boot.</p>
+
+<p>It was after three in the morning when we parked
+the guns in front of a château, brought forward some
+lagging combat wagons and discovered the rolling
+kitchen had gone astray. In another hour the animals
+had been unhitched but not unharnessed, fed and
+watered in darkness and the men, in utter weariness,
+prepared to lie down and sleep anywhere. At this juncture,
+word was passed through the sections that the
+battery would get ready to move immediately. Orders
+were to clear the village by six o'clock. Neither men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+nor horses were rested, but we moved out on time and
+breakfasted on the road.</p>
+
+<p>The way seemed long, the roads bad and the guns
+heavy. But we were passing through an Eden of beauty&mdash;green
+fields and rolling hills crested by ancient
+châteaux. At times, the road wound down through
+hillside orchards, white and pink with apple blooms.
+Fatigue was heavy on man and beast, but I heard one
+walking cannoneer singing, "When It's Apple Blossom-time
+in Normandie." Another rider in the column recalled
+the time when his father used to give him ten
+cents for standing on the bottom of an upturned tin basin
+and reciting, "Over the mountains winding down, horse
+and foot into Frederickstown."</p>
+
+<p>"The jar of these guns as they grind over the gravel
+is enough to grind the heart out of you," said a sweating
+cannoneer who was pressing a helping shoulder to
+one of the heavies as we negotiated a steep hill.</p>
+
+<p>"What in hell you kicking about," said the man opposite.
+"Suppose you was travelling with one of them
+guns the Germans are using on Paris&mdash;I mean that old
+John J. Longdistance. You'd know what heavy guns are
+then. They say that the gun's so big and takes so many
+horses to haul it, that the man who drives the lead pair
+has never spent the night in the same town with the
+fellow who rides wheel swing."</p>
+
+<p>A young reserve lieutenant with mind intensely on
+his work, combined for my benefit his impressions of
+scenery with a lesson in artillery location. His characterisation
+of the landscape was as technical as it was
+unpoetical.</p>
+
+<p>"A great howitzer country," was the tenor of his
+remarks. "Look at the bottom of that slide. Fine position
+for one fifty-five. Take that gully over there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+That's a beaut of a place. No use talking. Great howitzer
+country."</p>
+
+<p>During the afternoon, a veterinarian turned over two
+horses to a French peasant. One was exhausted and
+unable to proceed, and the other suffered a bad hoof,
+which would require weeks for healing. News that both
+animals were not going to be shot was received with
+joy by two men who had ridden them. I saw them
+patting the disabled mounts affectionately on the neck
+and heard one of them say,</p>
+
+<p>"'Salright, old timer&mdash;'salright. Frenchy here is going
+to take care of you all right. Uncle Sam's paying
+the bill and I am coming back and get you soon's we
+give Fritzie his bumps."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, a young cannoneer gave in to fatigue
+and ignored orders to the extent of reclining on gun
+trail and falling asleep. A rut in the road made a stiff
+jolt, he rolled off and one ponderous wheel of the gun
+carriage passed over him. One leg, one arm and two
+ribs were broken and his feet crushed, was the doctor's
+verdict as the victim was carried away in an ambulance.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll get better all right," said the medico, "but he's
+finished his bit in the army."</p>
+
+<p>The column halted for lunch outside of a small town
+and I climbed on foot to the hilltop castle where
+mediæval and modern were mixed in mute mélange. A
+drawbridge crossed a long dry moat to cracked walls of
+rock covered with ivy. For all its well preserved signs
+of artistic ruin, it was occupied and well fitted within.
+From the topmost parapet of one rickety looking tower,
+a wire stretched out through the air to an old, ruined
+mill which was surmounted by a modern wind motor,
+the tail of which incongruously advertised the words<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+"Ideal power," with the typical conspicuity of American
+salesmanship.</p>
+
+<p>Near the base of the old mill was another jumble of
+moss-covered rocks, now used as a summer house, but
+open on all sides. At a table in the centre of this open
+structure, sat a blond haired young American soldier
+with black receivers clamped to either ear. I approached
+and watched him jotting down words on a paper pad
+before him. After several minutes of intent silence, he
+removed the harness from his head and told me that
+he belonged to the wireless outfit with the artillery and
+this station had been in operation since the day before.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems so peaceful here with the sun streaming down
+over these old walls," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you hear out of the air?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we pick up a lot of junk," he replied, "I'm waiting
+for the German communiqué now. Here's some
+Spanish stuff I just picked up and some more junk in
+French. The English stations haven't started this afternoon.
+A few minutes ago I heard a German aeroplane
+signalling by wireless to a German battery and directing
+its fire. I could tell every time the gun was ordered to
+fire and every time the aviator said the shot was short or
+over. It's kinder funny to sit back here in quiet and
+listen in the war, isn't it?" I agreed it was weird and
+it was.</p>
+
+<p>In darkness again at the end of a hard day on the
+road, we parked the guns that night in a little village
+which was headquarters for our regiment and where I
+spent the night writing by an old oil lamp in the Mayor's
+office. A former Chicago bellhop who spoke better Italian
+than English and naturally should, was sleeping on
+a blanket roll on the floor near me. On the walls of
+the room were posted numerous flag-decked proclamations,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+some now yellow with the time that had passed
+over them since their issue back in 1914. They pertained
+to the mobilisation of the men of the village, men whose
+names remain now only as a memory.</p>
+
+<p>But in their place was the new khaki-clad Chicago
+bellhop snoring there on the floor and several thousand
+more as sturdy and ready as he, all billeted within a
+stone's throw of that room. They were here to finish
+the fight begun by those village peasants who had
+marched away four years before when the Mayor of
+the town posted that bulletin. These Americans stood
+ready to go down to honoured graves beside them.</p>
+
+<p>Our division was under the French high command
+and was buried in the midst of the mighty preparations
+then on foot. Our ranks were full, our numbers strong,
+our morale high. Every officer and man in the organisation
+had the feeling that the eyes of dashing French
+comrades-in-arms and hard fighting British brothers
+were on them. Our inspiration was in the belief that
+the attention of the Allied nations of the world and
+more particularly the hope and pride of our own people
+across the sea, was centred upon us. With that sacred
+feeling, the first division stood resolute to meet the test.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the disquieting news then prevalent in the
+nervous civilian areas back of the lines, reached us, but
+its effect, as far as I could see, was nil. Our officers
+and men were as unconcerned about the reports of enemy
+successes as though we were children in the nursery of
+a burning house and the neighbourhood was ringing with
+fire alarms. German advances before Amiens, enemy
+rushes gaining gory ground in Flanders, carried no
+shock to the high resolve that existed in the Allied reserves
+of which we were a part.</p>
+
+<p>Our army knew nothing but confidence. If there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+other than optimism to be derived from the current
+events, then our army was inclined to consider such a
+result as gratifying, because it could be calculated to
+create a greater measure of speed and assistance from
+the slowly functioning powers in America. The reasoning
+was that any possible pessimism would hurry to the
+wheel every American shoulder that had failed to take
+up its individual war burden under the wave of optimism.
+The army had another reason for its optimism. Our
+officers knew something about the dark days that had
+preceded the first battle at the Marne. They were familiar
+with the gloomy outlook in 1914 that had led to
+the hurried removal of the French government from
+Paris to Bordeaux. Our men recalled how the enemy
+was then overrunning Belgium, how the old British
+"Contemptibles" were in retreat, and how the German
+was within twenty miles of the French capital.</p>
+
+<p>In that crisis had come the message by Foch and the
+brilliant stroke with which he backed it up. What
+followed was the tumble and collapse of the straddling
+German effort and the forced transformation in the
+enemy's plans from a war of six weeks to a war of four
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Our army knew the man who turned the trick at the
+Marne. We knew that we were under his command,
+and not the slightest doubt existed but that it was now
+our destiny to take part in another play of the cards
+which would call and cash the German hand. Our
+forces in the coming engagements were staking their
+lives, to a man, on Foch's ace in the hole.</p>
+
+<p>That was the deadly earnestness of our army's confidence
+in Foch. The capture of a hill top in Picardy
+or the loss of a village in Flanders had no effect upon
+that confidence. It found reinforcement in the belief<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+that since March 21st, America had gained a newer and
+keener appreciation of her part in the war.</p>
+
+<p>Our army began to feel that the American people,
+more than three thousand miles away from the battle
+fronts, would have a better understanding of the intense
+meaning that had been already conveyed in General
+Pershing's words, "Confidence is needed but overconfidence
+is dangerous." In other words, our soldiers in
+the field began to feel that home tendencies that underrated
+the enemy's strength and underestimated the effort
+necessary to overcome him, had been corrected. The
+army had long felt that such tendencies had made good
+material for Billy Sunday's sermons and spread-eagle
+speeches, but they hadn't loaded guns or placed men in
+the front line.</p>
+
+<p>We felt that this crisis had brought to America a better
+realisation of the fact that Germany had not been
+beaten and that she was yet to be beaten and that America's
+share in the administration of that beating would
+have to be greater and more determined than had heretofore
+been deemed necessary. It was the hope of the
+army that this realisation would reach the people with
+a shock. Shocks were known to make realisations less
+easy to forget. Forgetfulness from then on might have
+meant Allied defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Lagging memories found no billet in the personnel of
+that First Division. Its records, registering five hundred
+casualties, kept in mind the fact that the division
+had seen service on the line and still had scores to settle
+with the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Its officers and men, with but few exceptions, had
+undergone their baptism in German fire and had found
+the experience not distasteful. The division had esprit
+which made the members of every regiment and brigade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+in it vie with the members of any other regiment and
+brigade. If you had asked any enlisted man in the division,
+he would have told you that his company, battery,
+regiment or brigade "had it all over the rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>That was the feeling that our division brought with
+them when we marched into Picardy to meet the German
+push. That was the spirit that dominated officers and
+men during the ten days that we spent in man&oelig;uvres and
+preparations in that concentration area in the vicinity
+of the ancient town of Chaumont-en-Vexin in the department
+of the Oise. It was the feeling that made us
+anxious and eager to move on up to the actual front.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>UNDER FIRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the day before our departure for the front from
+the concentration area in Picardy, every officer in the
+division, and they numbered almost a thousand, was
+summoned to the temporary divisional headquarters,
+where General Pershing addressed to them remarks
+which have since become known as the commander's
+"farewell to the First." We had passed out from his
+command and from then on our orders were to come
+from the commander of the French army to which the
+division was to be attached.</p>
+
+<p>General Pershing stood on a mound at the rear of a
+beautiful château of Norman architecture, the Château
+du Jard, located on the edge of the town of Chaumont-en-Vexin.
+The officers ranged themselves in informal
+rows on the grass. Birds were singing somewhere above
+in the dense, green foliage, and sunlight was filtering
+through the leaves of the giant trees.</p>
+
+<p>The American commander spoke of the traditions
+which every American soldier should remember in the
+coming trials. He referred to the opportunity then
+present for us, whose fathers established liberty in the
+New World, now to assist the Old World in throwing off
+its yoke of tyranny. Throughout this touching farewell
+to the men he had trained&mdash;to his men then leaving
+for scenes from which some of them would never return&mdash;the
+commander's voice never betrayed the depth of
+feeling behind it.</p>
+
+<p>That night we made final arrangements for the morrow's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+move. I travelled with the artillery where orders
+were received for the reduction of all packs to the
+lightest possible as all men would be dismounted and the
+baggage wagons would be reserved for food, ammunition
+and officers' luggage only. Officers' packs, by the
+same order, had to shrink from one hundred and fifty
+pounds to twenty.</p>
+
+<p>There were many misgivings that night as owners
+were forced to discard cherished belongings. Cumbersome
+camp paraphernalia, rubber bathtubs, pneumatic
+mattresses, extra blankets, socks, sweaters, etc., all parted
+company from erstwhile owners. That order caused
+many a heart-break and the abandonment of thousands
+of dollars' worth of personal equipment in our area.</p>
+
+<p>I have no doubt that some of the village maidens were
+surprised at the remarkable generosity of officers and
+men who presented them with expensive toilet sets.
+Marie at the village <i>estaminet</i> received five of them all
+fitted in neat leather rolls and inscribed with as many
+different sets of initials. The old men of the town
+gloried in the sweaters, woollen socks and underwear.</p>
+
+<p>There was no chance to fudge on the slim baggage
+order. An officer, bound by duty, weighed each officer's
+kit as it reached the baggage wagons and those tipping
+the scales at more than the prescribed twenty pounds,
+were thrown out entirely. I happened to be watching
+the loading when it came turn for the regimental band
+to stow away its encased instruments in one wagon. It
+must be remembered that musicians at the front are
+stretcher bearers. The baggage judge lifted the case
+containing the bass horn.</p>
+
+<p>"No horn in the world ever weighed that much," he
+said. "Open it up," was the terse command. The case
+was opened and the base horn pulled out. The baggage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+officer began operations on the funnel. I watched him
+remove from the horn's interior two spare blankets, four
+pairs of socks, an extra pair of pants and a carton of
+cigarettes. He then inserted his arm up to the shoulder
+in the instrument's innards and brought forth two apples,
+a small tin of blackberry jam and an egg wrapped in an
+undershirt.</p>
+
+<p>The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band
+was heartbroken. The clarinet player, who had watched
+the operation and whose case followed for inspection,
+saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden
+chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was observing
+the ruthless pillage but, strangely, his countenance
+was the opposite of the others. He was actually smiling.
+I inquired the cause of his mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"When we packed up, those guys with the big hollow
+instruments all had the laugh on me," he said. "Now
+I've got it on them. I play the piccolo."</p>
+
+<p>All the mounted men under the rank of battery commanders
+were dismounted in order to save the horses
+for any possibilities in the war of movement. A dismounted
+artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed
+with a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just
+prior to setting out for a long tramp. In his opinion,
+he has been reduced too near the status of the despised
+doughboy.</p>
+
+<p>It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a
+horse to ride and a saddle to strap one's pack on. In
+the lineup before we started, I saw two of these gunners
+standing by weighted down with their cumbersome, unaccustomed
+packs. They were backed against a stone
+wall and were easing their burdens by resting the packs
+on the stone ledge. Another one similarly burdened
+passed and, in a most serious tone, inquired:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another
+blanket roll?" The reply of two dejected gunners
+would bar this story from publication.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the march early in the morning, but not
+without some initial confusion by reason of the inevitable
+higher orders which always come at the last minute to
+change programmes. On parallel roads through that zone
+of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our columns
+swung along the dusty highroads.</p>
+
+<p>There were many who held that America would not
+be thoroughly awake to the full meaning of her participation
+in the war until the day there came back from
+the battlefields a long list of casualties&mdash;a division wiped
+out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions expressed
+in France and many firmly believed that nothing
+short of such a shock would arouse our nation to the
+exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the
+Allied cause from defeat.</p>
+
+<p>On this march, that thought recurred to some and
+perhaps to many who refrained soberly from placing it
+in words. I knew several in the organisation who felt
+that we were on our way to that sacrifice. I can not estimate
+in how many minds the thought became tangible,
+but among several whom I heard seriously discussing the
+matter, I found a perfect willingness on their part to
+meet the unknown&mdash;to march on to the sacrifice with
+the feeling that if the loss of their life would help bring
+about a greater prosecution of the war by our country,
+then they would not have died in vain.</p>
+
+<p>If this was the underlying spirit, it had no effect
+whatever upon outward appearances which could hardly
+be better described than with Cliff Raymond's lilting
+words: "There are roses in their rifles just the same." If
+this move was on to the sacrifice&mdash;if death awaited at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+the end of the road, then those men were marching
+toward it with a song.</p>
+
+<p>It takes a hard march to test the morale of soldiers.
+When the feet are road-sore, when the legs ache from
+the endless pounding of hobnails on hard macadam,
+when the pack straps cut and burn to the shoulder blades,
+and the tin hat weighs down like a crown of thorns,
+then keep your ear open for a jest and if your hearing
+is rewarded, you will know that you march with men.</p>
+
+<p>Many times that first day, those jests came to enliven
+dejected spirits and put smiles on sweat-rinsed faces. I
+recall our battery as it negotiated the steep hills. When
+the eight horses attached to the gun carriages were
+struggling to pull them up the incline, a certain subaltern
+with a voice slow, but damnably insistent, would sing
+out, "Cannoneers, to the wheels." This reiterated command
+at every grade forced aching shoulders already
+weary with their own burdens to strain behind the heavy
+carriages and ease the pull on the animals.</p>
+
+<p>Once on a down grade, our way crossed the
+tracks of a narrow gauge railroad. Not far from the
+crossing could be seen a dinky engine puffing and snorting
+furiously in terrific effort to move up the hill its attached
+train of loaded ammunition cars. The engine
+was having a hard fight when some light-hearted weary
+one in our column gave voice to something which brought
+up the smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Cannoneers, to the wheel!" was the shout and even
+the dignified subaltern whose pet command was the butt
+of the exclamation, joined in the wave of laughs that
+went down the line.</p>
+
+<p>An imposing château of the second empire now presided
+over by an American heiress, the wife of a French
+officer, was regimental headquarters that night. Its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+barns and outbuildings were the cleanest in France according
+to individuals who had slept in so many barns
+that they feel qualified to judge.</p>
+
+<p>"Painfully sanitary," said a young lieutenant, who
+remarked that the tile floor might make a stable smell
+sweeter but it hardly offered the slumbering possibilities
+of a straw shakedown. While the men arranged their
+blankets in those quarters, the horses grazed and rolled
+in green paddocks fenced with white painted rails. The
+cooks got busy with the evening meal and the men off
+duty started exploring the two nearby villages.</p>
+
+<p>For the American soldier, financial deals were always
+a part of these explorations. It was seldom more than
+an hour after his arrival in a populated village before
+the stock market and board of trade were in full operation.
+These mobile establishments usually were set up
+in the village square if headquarters did not happen to
+be located too close. There were plenty to play the
+rôles of bulls and bears; there was much bidding and
+shouting of quotations.</p>
+
+<p>The dealings were not in bushels of wheat or shares
+in oils or rails. Delicacies were the bartered commodities
+and of these, eggs were the strongest. The German
+intelligence service could have found no surer way to
+trace the peregrinations of American troops about France,
+than to follow up the string of eggless villages they left
+behind them.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as billets were located, those without extra
+duty began the egg canvass of the town. There was
+success for those who made the earliest start and struck
+the section with the most prolific hens. Eggs were
+bought at various prices before news of the American
+arrivals had caused peasants to set up a new scale of
+charges. The usual late starter and the victim of arrangements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+was the officer's striker who lost valuable
+time by having to take care of his officer's luggage and
+get the latter established in billets. It was then his duty
+to procure eggs for the officer's mess.</p>
+
+<p>By that time, all natural egg sources had been obliterated
+and the only available supply was cornered by the
+soldiers' board of trade. The desired breakfast food
+could be obtained in that place only. It was the last
+and only resort of the striker, who is euphoniously known
+as a dog robber. In the board of trade he would find
+soldiers with helmets full of eggs which could be bought
+at anywhere from two to three times their original price.
+It was only by the payment of such prices that the officer
+was able to get anything that could possibly leave a
+trace of yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the
+soldiers themselves had ample belt room to accommodate
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen
+eggs which he ordered Madame to fry in succession. I
+can believe it because I saw it. Madame saw it also,
+but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A captain
+of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastronomic
+feat.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for,"
+he said. "Our department handles claims for all stolen
+or destroyed property and we have yet to receive the
+first claim from this town. Of course every one knows
+that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those
+who hold that theft for the purpose of satisfying demands
+of the stomach is not theft. But our records
+show that the American soldier in France is ready to,
+willing to, and capable of buying what he needs outside
+of his ration allowance.</p>
+
+<p>"We have some instances of stealing, but most of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+them are trivial. Recently, we took from the pay of
+one whole battalion the cost of thirty-one cheeses which
+were taken from a railroad restaurant counter. The
+facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry
+and the train was stopping only for five minutes and
+the woman behind the counter didn't have time to even
+take, much less change, the money offered, so the men
+grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to board the
+train as it was moving off.</p>
+
+<p>"There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam
+didn't have the heart to charge any one. He paid the
+bill himself and maybe if you could send the story back
+home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth
+the money. It happened during a recent cold spell when
+some of our troops were coming from seaboard to the
+interior. They travelled in semi-opened horse cars and
+it was cold, damn cold.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the trains stopped in front of a small railroad
+station and six soldiers with cold hands and feet
+jumped from the car and entered the waiting room, in
+the centre of which was a large square coal stove with
+red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders
+and disjointed the stove pipe. At the same time, two
+others placed poles under the bottom of the stove, lifted
+it off the floor and walked out of the room with it.</p>
+
+<p>"They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out
+of one door and were warm for the remainder of the
+trip. It was the first time in the history of that little
+village that anybody had ever stolen a red hot stove.
+The French government, owning the railroads, made
+claim against us for four hundred francs for the stove
+and eleven francs' worth of coal in it. Uncle Sam paid
+the bill and was glad to do it.</p>
+
+<p>"I know of only one case to beat that one and that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+concerned an infantryman who stole a hive full of honey
+and took the bees along with it. The medical department
+handled one aspect of the case and the provost
+marshal the other. The bees meted out some of the
+punishment and we stung his pay for the costs."</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing, however, that men on the move
+found it most difficult to steal and that was sleep. So
+at least it seemed the next morning when we swung
+into the road at daybreak and continued our march into
+the north. Much speculation went the rounds as to our
+destination. The much debated question was as to
+whether our forces would be incorporated with Foch's
+reserve armies and held in readiness for a possible
+counter offensive, or whether we should be placed in one
+of the line armies and assigned to holding a position in
+the path of the German push. But all this conjecture
+resulted in nothing more than passing the time. Our
+way led over byroads and side lanes which the French
+master of circulation had laid down for us.</p>
+
+<p>Behind an active front, the French sanctified their
+main roads and reserved them for the use of fast motor
+traffic and the rushing up of supplies or reserves in cases
+of necessity. Thousands of poilus too old for combat
+duty did the repair work on these main arteries. All
+minor and slow moving traffic was side-tracked to keep
+the main line clear. At times we were forced to cross
+the main highroads and then we encountered the forward
+and backward stream of traffic to and from the front.
+At one of those intersections, I sought the grass bank at
+the side of the road for rest. Two interesting actors in
+this great drama were there before me. One was an
+American soldier wearing a blue brassard with the white
+letters M. P. He was a military policeman on duty as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+road marker whose function is to regulate traffic and
+prevent congestion.</p>
+
+<p>Beside him was seated a peculiar looking person whose
+knee length skirts of khaki exposed legs encased in wrap
+puttees. A motor coat of yellow leather and the visored
+cap of a British Tommy completed the costume. The
+hair showing beneath the crown of the cap was rather
+long and straight, but betrayed traces of having been
+recently close cropped. For all her masculine appearance,
+she was French and the young road marker was
+lavishing upon her everything he had gleaned in a
+Freshman year of French in a Spokane high school.</p>
+
+<p>I offered my cigarette case and was surprised when
+the girl refrained. That surprise increased when I saw
+her extract from a leather case of her own a full fledged
+black cigar which she proceeded to light and smoke with
+gusto. When I expressed my greater surprise, she increased
+it by shrugging her shoulders prettily, plunging
+one gauntleted hand into a side pocket and producing
+a pipe with a pouch of tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing dainty about that pipe. It had
+no delicate amber stem nor circlet of filigree gold.
+There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It was just
+a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the
+black burnt bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth
+piece. It looked like one of those that father used to
+consent to have boiled once a year, after mother had
+charged it with rotting the lace curtains. If war makes
+men of peace-time citizens, then&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs09.jpg" width="500" height="328" alt="FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY.
+THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS &quot;CHARS D&#39;ASSAUTS,&quot;
+ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY.
+THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS &quot;CHARS D&#39;ASSAUTS,&quot;
+ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs10.jpg" width="500" height="347" alt="YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, WHERE,
+IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE
+OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, WHERE,
+IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE
+OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But she was a girl and her name was Yvonne. The
+red-winged letter on her coat lapel placed her in the automobile
+service and the motor ambulance stationed at the
+road side explained her special branch of work. She
+inquired the meaning of my correspondent's insignia and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+then explained that she had drawn pastelles for a Paris
+publication before the war, but had been transporting
+<i>blessés</i> since. The French lesson proceeded and Spokane
+Steve and I learned from her that the longest word
+in the French language is spelled "Anticonstitutionellement."
+I expressed the hope that some day both of us
+would be able to pronounce it.</p>
+
+<p>On the girl's right wrist was a silver chain bracelet
+with identification disk. In response to our interested
+gaze, she exhibited it to us, and upon her own volition,
+informed us that she was a descendant of the same family
+as Jeanne d'Arc. Steve heard and winked to me with
+a remark that they couldn't pull any stuff like that on anybody
+from Spokane, because he had never heard that
+that Maid of Orleans had been married. Yvonne must
+have understood the last word because she explained
+forthwith that she had not claimed direct descendence
+from the famous Jeanne, but from the same family.
+Steve looked her in the eye and said, "Jay compraw."</p>
+
+<p>She explained the meaning of the small gold and silver
+medals suspended from the bracelet. She detached two
+and presented them to us. One of them bore in relief
+the image of a man in flowing robes carrying a child on
+his shoulder, and the reverse depicted a tourist driving
+a motor through hilly country.</p>
+
+<p>"That is St. Christophe," said Yvonne. "He is the
+patron saint of travellers. His medal is good luck
+against accidents on the road. Here is one of St. Elias.
+He is the new patron saint of the aviators. You remember.
+Didn't he go to heaven in a fiery chariot, or
+fly up on golden wings or something like that? Anyhow,
+all the aviators wear one of his medals."</p>
+
+<p>St. Christophe was attached to my identification disk.
+Steve declared infantrymen travelled too slowly ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+to have anything happen to them and that he was going
+to give his to a friend who drove a truck. When I fell
+in line with the next passing battery and moved down the
+road, Spokane Steve and the Yvonne of the family of
+Jeanne had launched into a discussion of prize fighting
+and chewing tobacco.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In billets that night, in a village not far from Beauvais,
+the singing contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered
+by the battalion commander Major Robert R. McCormick
+was resumed with intense rivalry between the
+tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery
+man was croaking Annie Laurie, when an "A" Battery
+booster in the audience remarked audibly,</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, I'd rather hear first call." First call is
+the bugle note that disturbs sleep and starts the men on
+the next day's work.</p>
+
+<p>A worried lieutenant found me in the crowd around
+the rolling kitchen and inquired:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know whether there's a provost guard on
+that inn down the road?" I couldn't inform him, but
+inquired the reason for his alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a hunch that the prune juice is running knee
+deep to-night," he replied, "and I don't want any of
+my section trying to march to-morrow with swelled
+heads."</p>
+
+<p>"Prune juice" is not slang. It is a veritable expression
+and anybody who thinks that the favourite of the
+boarding house table cannot produce a fermented article
+that is <i>très fort</i> in the way of a throat burner, is greatly
+mistaken. In France the fermented juice of the prune
+is called "water of life," but it carries a "dead to the
+world" kick. The simple prune, which the army used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+to call "native son" by reason of its California origin,
+now ranks with its most inebriating sisters of the vine.</p>
+
+<p>The flow of <i>eau de vie</i> must have been dammed at the
+inn. On the road the next day, I saw a mule driver
+wearing a sixteen candle power black eye. When I inquired
+the source of the lamp shade, he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"This is my first wound in the war of movement. Me
+and the cop had an offensive down in that town that's
+spelt like Sissors but you say it some other way." I
+knew he was thinking of Gisors.</p>
+
+<p>The third and fourth day's march brought us into
+regions nearer the front, where the movement of refugees
+on the roads seemed greater, where the roll of the
+guns came constantly from the north, where enemy motors
+droned through the air on missions of frightfulness.</p>
+
+<p>There was a major in our regiment whose knowledge
+of French was confined to the single affirmative exclamation,
+"Ah, oui." He worked this expression constantly
+in the French conversation with a refugee woman from
+the invaded districts. She with her children occupied
+one room in the cottage. When the major started to
+leave, two days later, the refugee woman addressed him
+in a reproving tone and with tears. He could only reply
+with sympathetic "Ah, oui's," which seemed to make
+her all the more frantic.</p>
+
+<p>An interpreter straightened matters out by informing
+the major that the woman wanted to know why he was
+leaving without getting her furniture.</p>
+
+<p>"What furniture?" replied the puzzled major.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she says," said the interpreter, "that you
+promised her you would send three army trucks to her
+house back of the German lines and bring all of her household
+goods to this side of the line. She says that she explained
+all of it to you and you said, 'Ah, oui.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The major has since abandoned the "ah, oui" habit.</p>
+
+<p>At one o'clock one morning, orders reached the battalion
+for reconnaissance detail; each battery to be ready
+to take road by daylight. We were off at break of day
+in motor trucks with a reel cart of telephone wire
+hitched on behind. Thirty minutes later we rumbled
+along roads under range of German field pieces and
+arrived in a village designated as battalion headquarters
+to find that we were first to reach the sector allotted for
+American occupation. The name of the town was
+Serevilliers.</p>
+
+<p>Our ears did not delude us about the activity of the
+sector, but I found that officers and men of the detail
+were inclined to accept the heavy shelling in a non-committal
+manner until a French interpreter attached
+to us remarked that artillery action in the sector was as
+intense as any he had experienced at Verdun.</p>
+
+<p>If the ever present crash of shells reminded us that
+we were opposite the peak of the German push, there
+was plenty of work to engage minds that might otherwise
+have paid too much attention to the dangers of their
+location. A chalk cellar with a vaulted ceiling and
+ventilators, unfortunately opening on the enemy side of
+the upper structure, was selected as the battalion command
+post. The men went to work immediately to
+remove piles of dirty billeting straw under which was
+found glass, china, silverware and family portraits, all
+of which had been hurriedly buried by the owners of the
+house not two weeks before.</p>
+
+<p>While linemen planned communications, and battery
+officers surveyed gun positions, the battalion commander
+and two orienting officers went forward to the frontal
+zone to get the first look at our future targets and establish
+observation posts from which our firing could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+directed. I accompanied the small party, which was led
+by a French officer familiar with the sector. It was upon
+his advice that we left the roads and took cuts across
+fields, avoiding the path and road intersections and taking
+advantage of any shelter offered by the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Virgin fields on our way bore the enormous craters
+left by the explosion of poorly directed German shells of
+heavy calibre. Orders were to throw ourselves face
+downward upon the ground upon the sound of each approaching
+missile. There is no text book logic on judging
+from the sound of a shell whether it has your address
+written on it, but it is surprising how quick that education
+may be obtained by experience. Several hours of
+walking and dropping to the ground resulted in an attuning
+of the ears which made it possible to judge approximately
+whether that oncoming, whining, unseen
+thing from above would land dangerously near or
+ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common
+to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the
+sounds. Time after time the collective judgment and
+consequent prostration of the entire party was proven
+well timed by the arrival of a shell uncomfortably close.</p>
+
+<p>We gained a wooded hillside that bristled with busy
+French seventy-fives, which the German tried in vain
+to locate with his howitzer fire. We mounted a forest
+plateau, in the centre of which a beautiful white château
+still held out against the enemy's best efforts to locate it
+with his guns. One shell addressed in this special direction
+fortunately announced its coming with such unmistakable
+vehemence that our party all landed in the same
+shell hole at once.</p>
+
+<p>Every head was down when the explosion came.
+Branches and pieces of tree trunk were whirled upward,
+and the air became populated with deadly bumble bees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+and humming birds, for such is the sound that the shell
+splinters make. When I essayed our shell hole afterward,
+I couldn't fathom how five of us had managed to
+accommodate ourselves in it, but in the rush of necessity,
+no difficulty had been found.</p>
+
+<p>Passing from the woods forward, one by one, over
+a bald field, we skirted a village that was being heavily
+shelled, and reached a trench on the side of the hill in
+direct view of the German positions. The enemy partially
+occupied the ruined village of Cantigny not eight
+hundred yards away, but our glasses were unable to
+pick up the trace of a single person in the débris. French
+shells, arriving endlessly in the village, shot geysers of
+dust and wreckage skyward. It was from this village,
+several days later, that our infantry patrols brought in
+several prisoners, all of whom were suffering from shell
+shock. But our men in the village opposite underwent
+the same treatment at the hands of the German artillery.</p>
+
+<p>It was true of this sector that what corresponded to
+the infantry front line was a much safer place to be in
+than in the reserve positions, or about the gun pits in
+villages or along roads in our back area. Front line
+activity was something of minor consideration, as both
+sides seemed to have greater interests at other points
+and, in addition to that, the men of both sides were busy
+digging trenches and shelters. There were numerous
+machine gun posts which swept with lead the indeterminate
+region between the lines, and at night, patrols
+from both sides explored as far as possible the holdings
+of the other side.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the battalion headquarters that night by
+a route apparently as popular to German artillery as was
+the one we used in the forenoon, we found a telephone
+switchboard in full operation in the sub-cellar, and mess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the
+ground. Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed
+that one door had suffered some damage which had
+caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster ceiling of
+the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen
+places. At every shock to the earth, a little stream of
+oats would come through the holes from the attic above.
+These falling down on the officer's neck in the midst of
+a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to
+call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain.</p>
+
+<p>We learned more about the sinister meaning of that
+broken door and the ceiling holes when it became necessary
+later in the evening to move mess to a safer location.
+The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of
+the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of
+German shells that missed the intersection caused too
+much interruption in our cook's work.</p>
+
+<p>We found that the mess room was vacant by reason
+of the fact that it had become too unpleasant for French
+officers, who had relinquished it the day before. We
+followed their suite and were not surprised when an
+infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and
+just one day later, to the hour, followed us out of it.</p>
+
+<p>Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and
+listening to the pound of arriving shells on nearby cross
+roads and battery positions, we estimated how long it
+would be before this little village would be completely
+levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappearing
+from houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and
+stone walls were showing jagged gaps. One whole wall
+of the village school had crumbled before one blast, so
+that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and
+their books and papers were exposed to view from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+street. On the blackboard was a penmanship model
+which read:</p>
+
+<p>"Let no day pass without having saved something."</p>
+
+<p>An officer came down the dark stone steps into the
+cellar, kicked off his boots and lay down on some blankets
+in one corner.</p>
+
+<p>"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode,"
+I remarked. "Do you know whether they were gas or
+duds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said,
+"but I do know that that horse out in the yard is certainly
+getting ripe."</p>
+
+<p>The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered
+grave adjoining our ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask
+was not the most unpleasant form of slumber.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>BEFORE CANTIGNY</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is strange how sleep can come at the front in surroundings
+not unlike the interior of a boiler factory, but
+it does. I heard of no man who slept in the cellars beneath
+the ruins of Serevilliers that night being disturbed
+by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground,
+both of which were ever present through our dormant
+senses. Stranger still was the fact that at midnight
+when the shelling almost ceased, for small intervals,
+almost every sleeper there present was aroused by the
+sudden silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago,"
+said one officer, "I don't believe I will be able to sleep
+unless I get somebody to stand under my window and
+shake a thunder sheet all night."</p>
+
+<p>It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such
+conditions, can turn off the switch on an energetic imagination
+and resign himself completely to fate. In those
+cellars that night, every man knew that one direct hit
+of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar
+wall, would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such
+a possibility demands consideration in the slowest moving
+minds.</p>
+
+<p>Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon
+this matter at varying lengths, but I doubt in the end
+if there is much difference in the conclusion arrived at.
+Such reflections produce the inevitable decision that
+if one particular shell is coming into your particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so
+"What the hell!" You might just as well go to sleep
+and forget it because if it gets you, you most probably
+will never know anything about it anyway. I believe
+such is the philosophy of the shelled.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been three o'clock in the morning when
+a sputtering motor cycle came to a stop in the shelter
+of our cellar door and a gas guard standing there exchanged
+words with some one. It ended in the sound of
+hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider descended,
+lighting his way with the yellow shaft from an
+electric pocket lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and rolling
+over on his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the
+messenger. "I'm carrying orders on to the next town.
+Adjutant gave me this letter to deliver to you, sir. The
+Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for waking
+you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope
+looked important and he thought you might like to get
+it right away."</p>
+
+<p>"Hmm," said the Major, weighing the official looking
+envelope in one hand and observing both the American
+stamps in one corner and numerous addresses to which
+the missive had been forwarded. He tore off one end
+and extracted a sheet which he unfolded and read while
+the messenger waited at his request. I was prepared to
+hear of a promotion order from Washington and made
+ready to offer congratulations. The Major smiled and
+tossed the paper over to me, at the same time reaching
+for a notebook and fountain pen.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold a light for me," he said to the messenger as he
+sat on the edge of the bed and began writing. "This is
+urgent and I will make answer now. You will mail it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+at regimental headquarters." As his pen scratched
+across the writing pad, I read the letter he had just received.
+The stationery bore the heading of an alumni
+association of a well-known eastern university. The
+contents ran as follows:</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>"Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country?
+What are you doing to help win the war? While our
+brave boys are in France facing the Kaiser's shell and
+gas, the alumni association has directed me as secretary
+to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite
+them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We
+ask your subscription to a fund which we are raising to
+send cigarettes to young students of the university who
+are now serving with the colours and who are so nobly
+maintaining the traditions of our Alma Mater. Please
+fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession and
+present occupation. Fraternally yours, &mdash;&mdash; Secretary."</p>
+
+<p>The Major was watching me with a smile as I concluded
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook
+leaf:</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>"Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little
+village in France. With regard to my present profession,
+will inform you that I am an expert in ammunition
+trafficking and am at present occupied in exporting
+large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route.
+Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes
+for youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding
+the sacred traditions of our school. After all, we old
+boys should do something to help along the cause. Yours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+to best the Kaiser. &mdash;&mdash;, Major. &mdash;&mdash; Field
+Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major
+as he folded the letter and addressed an envelope. It
+rather seemed to me that it would but before I could
+finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his
+blankets.</p>
+
+<p>By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc
+wrought by the shells that had arrived in the night. I
+had thought in seeing refugees moving southward along
+the roads, that there was little variety of articles related
+to human existence that they failed to carry away with
+them. But one inspection of the abandoned abodes of
+the unfortunate peasants of Serevilliers was enough to
+convince me of the greater variety of things that had
+to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and
+the French peasants pride themselves upon never throwing
+anything away.</p>
+
+<p>The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded
+clothing of all ages, discarded but saved. Old shoes and
+dresses, ceremonial high hats and frock coats, brought
+forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on the
+floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china.
+Shutters and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the
+village <i>estaminet</i> much mud had been tracked in by exploring
+feet and the red tiled floor was littered with straw
+and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the
+antiquary.</p>
+
+<p>The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard
+table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the
+cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They enjoyed
+after dinner billiards just the same with three
+large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the
+green cushions.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the
+next town to the north. Men who do this job are, in
+my opinion, the most daring in any organisation that
+depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone communication.
+For them, there is no shelter when a
+deluge of shells pours upon a field across which their
+wire is laid. Without protection of any kind from the
+flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot to repair
+the cut wires and restore communication. During one
+of these shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side
+<i>abri</i> and prepared to await clearer weather.</p>
+
+<p>In the distance, down the road, appeared a scudding
+cloud of dust. An occasional shell dropping close on
+either side of the road seemed to add speed to the apparition.
+As it drew closer, I could see that it was a motor
+cycle of the three wheeled bathtub variety. The rider
+on the cycle was bending close over his handle bars and
+apparently giving her all there was in her, but the bulky
+figure that filled to overflowing the side car, rode with
+his head well back.</p>
+
+<p>At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub contraption
+bounced on its springs, bow and stern rising
+and falling like a small ship in a rough sea. Its nearer
+approach revealed that the giant torso apparent above its
+rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment
+which might have marked the wearer as either the master
+of a four in hand or a Mississippi steamboat of the antebellum
+type. The enormous shoulders, thus draped,
+were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its
+rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as
+chin and double chin. The whole was topped by a huge
+fat cigar which sprouted upward from the elevated chin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+and at times gave forth clouds like the forward smoke-stack
+on the <i>Robert E. Lee</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I was trying to decide in my mind whether the elevated
+chin posture of the passenger was the result of
+pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's apple, when the
+scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting bank
+in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I
+occupied. As the machine came to halt, the superior
+chin depressed itself ninety degrees, and brought into
+view the smiling features of that smile-making gentleman
+from Paducah&mdash;Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine,
+rider and passenger stopped for breath and I made bold
+to ask the intrepid humourist if he suffered from a too
+keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an
+inordinate admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge
+Priest explained with reference to his former stiff-necked
+pose, "but George here," waving to the driver,
+"took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The
+jolt almost took my head off and the wind kept me from
+getting it back into position. George stuck his spurs
+into this here flying bootblack stand just about the time
+something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen
+stove half loaded with window weights and window
+panes. I think George made a record for this road.
+I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard."</p>
+
+<p>When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached
+the next deserted town without incident. It was almost
+the vesper hour or what had been the allotted time for
+that rite in those parts when I entered the yard of the
+village church, located in an exposed position at a cross
+roads on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable
+whirr sounded above and I threw myself on the ground
+just as the high velocity, small calibre German shell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof
+and wall met.</p>
+
+<p>While steel splinters whistled through the air, an
+avalanche of slate tiles slid down the slanting surface of
+the roof, and fell in a clattering cascade on the graves
+in the yard below. I sought speedy shelter in the lee of
+a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the churchyard
+and one of them had landed on the final resting place
+of the family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble
+slab which had sealed the top of the sunken vault had
+been heaved aside and one wall was shattered, leaving
+open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy
+caskets lying in an orderly row.</p>
+
+<p>Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, surmounted
+by now unpainted wooden crosses on which
+were inscribed in pencil the names of French soldiers
+with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the
+tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior.
+In the soil at the head of each grave, an ordinary beer
+bottle had been planted neck downward, and through
+the glass one could see the paper scroll on which the
+name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved.
+While I wondered at this prosaic method of identification,
+an American soldier came around the corner of
+the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down on an old
+tombstone.</p>
+
+<p>"Stick around if you want to hear something good,"
+he said, "That is if that last shell didn't bust the organ.
+There's a French poilu who has come up here every
+afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and he
+plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is
+great. Reminds me of when I was an altar boy, back
+in St. Paul."</p>
+
+<p>We waited and soon there came from the rickety old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+organ loft the soothing tones of an organ. The ancient
+pipes, sweetened by the benedictions of ages, poured
+forth melody to the touch of one whose playing was
+simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the
+graves as the rays of the dying sun brought to life new
+colouring in the leaded windows of stained glass behind
+which a soldier of France swayed at the ivory keyboard
+and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of
+death and destruction that might arrive through the air
+any minute.</p>
+
+<p>My companion informed me that the poilu at the
+organ wore a uniform of horizon blue which marked
+him as casual to this village, whose French garrisons
+were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki worn by all
+French colonials in service. The sign of the golden
+crescent on their collar tabs identified them as children
+of Mahomet and one would have known as much anyway
+upon seeing the use to which the large crucifix
+standing in what was the market place had been put.</p>
+
+<p>So as not to impede traffic through the place, it had
+become necessary to elevate the field telephone wires
+from the ground and send them across the road overhead.
+The crucifix in the centre of the place had presented
+itself as excellent support for this wire and the
+sons of the prophet had utilised it with no intention of
+disrespect. The uplifted right knee of the figure on the
+cross was insulated and wired. War, the moderniser
+and mocker of Christ, seemed to have devised new pain
+for the Teacher of Peace. The crucifixion had become
+the electrocution.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the cross had been nailed a rudely made
+sign conveying to all who passed the French warning
+that this was an exposed crossing and should be negotiated
+rapidly. Fifty yards away another board bore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+the red letters R. A. S. and by following the direction
+indicated by arrows, one arrived at the cellar in which
+the American doctor had established a Relief Aid Station.
+The Medico had furnished his subterranean apartments
+with furniture removed from the house above.</p>
+
+<p>"Might as well bring it down here and make the
+boys comfortable," he said, "as to leave it up there and
+let shells make kindling out of it. Funny thing about
+these cellars. Ones with western exposure&mdash;that is,
+with doors and ventilators opening on the side away
+from the enemy seem scarcest. That seems to have been
+enough to have revived all that talk about German
+architects having had something to do with the erection
+of those buildings before the war. You remember at
+one time it was said that a number of houses on the
+front had been found to have plaster walls on the side
+nearest the enemy and stone walls on the other side.
+There might be something to it, but I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>Across the street an American battalion headquarters
+had been established on the first floor and in the basement
+of the house, which appeared the most pretentious
+in the village. Telephone wires now entered the building
+through broken window panes, and within maps had been
+tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to
+the hard usage demanded by war. An old man conspicuous
+by his civilian clothes wandered about the yard
+here and there, picking up some stray implement or
+nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or placing it carefully
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a tragedy," the battalion commander told me.
+"That man is mayor of this town. He was forced to flee
+with the rest of the civilians. He returned to-day to look
+over the ruins. This is his house we occupy. I explained
+that much of it is as we found it, but that we undoubtedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+have broken some things. I could see that every broken
+chair and window and plate meant a heart throb to him,
+but he only looked up at me with his wrinkled old face and
+smiled as he said, 'It is all right, Monsieur. I understand.
+<i>C'est la guerre.</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>The old man opened one of his barn doors, revealing a
+floor littered with straw and a fringe of hobnailed American
+boots. A night-working detail was asleep in blankets.
+A sleepy voice growled out something about closing the
+door again and the old man with a polite, "<i>Pardonnez-moi,
+messieurs</i>," swung the wooden portal softly shut. His
+home&mdash;his house&mdash;his barn&mdash;his straw&mdash;<i>c'est la guerre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>An evening meal of "corn willy" served on some of
+the Mayor's remaining chinaware, was concluded by a
+final course of fresh spring onions. These came from
+the Mayor's own garden just outside the door. As the
+cook affirmed, it was no difficulty to gather them.</p>
+
+<p>"Every night Germans drop shells in the garden," he
+said. "I don't even have to pull 'em. Just go out in the
+morning and pick 'em up off the ground."</p>
+
+<p>I spent part of the night in gun pits along the road
+side, bordering the town. This particular battery of heavies
+was engaged on a night long programme of interdiction
+fire laid down with irregular intensity on cross roads
+and communication points in the enemy's back areas.
+Under screens of camouflage netting, these howitzers with
+mottled bores squatting frog-like on their carriages, intermittently
+vomited flame, red, green and orange. The detonations
+were ear-splitting and cannoneers relieved the
+recurring shocks by clapping their hands to the sides of
+their head and balancing on the toes each time the lanyard
+was pulled.</p>
+
+<p>Infantry reserves were swinging along in the road
+directly in back of the guns. They were moving up to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+forward positions and they sang in an undertone as they
+moved in open order.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Glor&mdash;ree&mdash;us, Glor&mdash;ree&mdash;us!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One keg of beer for the four of us.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glory be to Mike there are no more of us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For four of us can drink it all alone."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some of these marchers would come during an interval
+of silence to a position on the road not ten feet from
+a darkened, camouflaged howitzer just as it would shatter
+the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness and
+unexpectedness of the detonation would make the marchers
+start and jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions,
+the gun crews would laugh heartily and indulge in good
+natured raillery with the infantrymen.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened.
+We were just shipping a load of sauerkraut to the
+Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner. "Haven't you
+heard the orders against running your horses? Come
+down to a gallop and take it easy."</p>
+
+<p>"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman,
+"You smell like a livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork
+for a bayonet and come on up where there's some
+fighting."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy,"
+came another voice from the dark gun pit. "This is a
+tray forte sector. If you don't get killed the first eight
+days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing. You're
+marching over what's called 'the road you don't come
+back on.'"</p>
+
+<p>A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the
+moment when the road was unoccupied, put in appearance
+as the end of the infantry column passed, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading
+and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men
+received big shells in their arms and carried them to the
+roadside dumps where they were piled in readiness for
+the guns. The road was in an exposed position and this
+active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time,
+so the ammunition train captain was anxious to get his
+charges away in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p>His fears were not without foundation, because in the
+midst of the unloading, one German missile arrived in a
+nearby field and sprayed the roadway with steel just as
+every one flattened out on the ground. Five ammunition
+hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swearing
+at the shell fragment which had gone through the
+radiator of his truck and liberated the water contents.
+The unloading was completed with all speed, and the
+ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck.
+With some of the gunners who had helped in unloading,
+I crawled into the chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters
+in the straw.</p>
+
+<p>"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as
+he sat in the straw, unwrapping his puttees. I told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to know the most popular publication
+around this place?" he asked, and I replied affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p>"It's called the <i>Daily Woollen Undershirt</i>," he said.
+"Haven't you seen everybody sitting along the roadside
+reading theirs and trying to keep up with things? Believe
+me, it's some reading-matter, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him kid you," said the section chief, "I
+haven't had to read mine yet. The doctor fixed up the
+baths in town and yesterday he passed around those flea
+charms. Have you seen them?"</p>
+
+<p>For our joint inspection there was passed the string
+necklace with two linen tabs soaked in aromatic oil of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+cedar, while the section chief gave an impromptu lecture
+on personal sanitation. It was concluded by a peremptory
+order from without for extinction of all lights.
+The candle stuck on the helmet top was snuffed and we
+lay down in darkness with the guns booming away on
+either side.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Our positions were located in a country almost as new
+to war as were the fields of Flanders in the fall of '14.
+A little over a month before it had all been peaceful
+farming land, far behind the belligerent lines. Upon our
+arrival, its sprouting fields of late wheat and oats were
+untended and bearing their first harvest of shell craters.</p>
+
+<p>The abandoned villages now occupied by troops told
+once more the mute tales of the homeless. The villagers,
+old men, old women and children, had fled, driving before
+them their cows and farm animals even as they
+themselves had been driven back by the train of German
+shells. In their deserted cottages remained the fresh
+traces of their departure and the ruthless rupturing of
+home ties, generations old.</p>
+
+<p>On every hand were evidences of the reborn war of
+semi-movement. One day I would see a battery of light
+guns swing into position by a roadside, see an observing
+officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the firing
+of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the
+next morning, they would have changed position, rumbled
+off to other parts, leaving beside the road only the marks
+of their cannon wheels and mounds of empty shell cases.</p>
+
+<p>Between our infantry lines and those of the German,
+there was yet to grow the complete web of woven wire
+entanglements that marred the landscapes on the long established
+fronts. Still standing, silent sentinels over some
+of our front line positions were trees, church steeples,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+dwellings and barns that as yet had not been levelled to
+the ground. Dugouts had begun to show their entrances
+in the surface of the ground and cross roads had started
+to sprout with rudely constructed shelters. Fat sandbags
+were just taking the places of potted geraniums on
+the sills of first floor windows. War's toll was being exacted
+daily, but the country had yet to pay the full price.
+It was going through that process of degeneration toward
+the stripped and barren but it still held much of its erstwhile
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Those days before Cantigny were marked by particularly
+heavy artillery fire. The ordnance duel was unrelenting
+and the daily exchange of shells reached an aggregate
+far in excess of anything that the First Division
+had ever experienced before.</p>
+
+<p>Nightly the back areas of the front were shattered
+with shells. The German was much interested in preventing
+us from bringing up supplies and munition.
+We manifested the same interest toward him. American
+batteries firing at long range, harassed the road intersections
+behind the enemy's line and wooded places
+where relief troops might have been assembled under
+cover of darkness. The expenditure of shells was enormous
+but it continued practically twenty-four hours a
+day. German prisoners, shaking from the nervous effects
+of the pounding, certified to the untiring efforts of
+our gunners.</p>
+
+<p>The small nameless village that we occupied almost
+opposite the German position in Cantigny seemed to receive
+particular attention from the enemy artillery. In
+retaliation, our guns almost levelled Cantigny and a
+nearby village which the enemy occupied. Every hour,
+under the rain of death, the work of digging was continued
+and the men doing it needed no urging from their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+officers. There was something sinister and emphatic
+about the whine of a "two ten German H. E." that inspired
+one with a desire to start for the antipodes by the
+shortest and most direct route.</p>
+
+<p>The number of arrivals by way of the air in that particular
+village every day numbered high in the thousands.
+Under such conditions, no life-loving human could have
+failed to produce the last degree of utility out of a spade.
+The continual dropping of shells in the ruins and the
+unending fountains of chalk dust and dirt left little for
+the imagination, but one officer told me that it reminded
+him of living in a room where some one was eternally
+beating the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>This taste of the war of semi-movement was appreciated
+by the American soldier. It had in it a dash of novelty,
+lacking in the position warfare to which he had
+become accustomed in the mud and marsh of the Moselle
+and the Meuse. For one thing, there were better and
+cleaner billets than had ever been encountered before
+by our men. Fresh, unthrashed oats and fragrant hay
+had been found in the hurriedly abandoned lofts back
+of the line and in the caves and cellars nearer the front.</p>
+
+<p>In many places the men were sleeping on feather mattresses
+in old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that had been
+removed from jeopardy above ground to comparative
+safety below. Whole caves were furnished, and not badly
+furnished, by this salvage of furniture, much of which
+would have brought fancy prices in any collection of
+antiques.</p>
+
+<p>Forced to a recognition solely of intrinsic values, our
+men made prompt utilisation of much of the material
+abandoned by the civilian population. Home in the field is
+where a soldier sleeps and after all, why not have it as
+comfortable as his surroundings will afford? Those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+caves and vegetable cellars, many with walls and vaulted
+ceilings of clean red brick or white blocks of chalk, constituted
+excellent shelters from shell splinters and even
+protected the men from direct hits by missiles of small
+calibre.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the villages, our riflemen found protection in
+quickly scraped holes in the ground. There were some
+trenches but they were not contiguous. "No Man's
+Land" was an area of uncertain boundary. Our gunners
+had quarters burrowed into the chalk not far from their
+gun pits. All communication and the bringing up of
+shells and food were conducted under cover of darkness.
+Under such conditions, we lived and waited for the order
+to go forward.</p>
+
+<p>Our sector in that battle of the Somme was so situated
+that the opposing lines ran north and south. The
+enemy was between us and the rising sun. Behind our
+rear echelons was the main road between Amiens and
+Beauvais. Amiens, the objective of the German drive,
+was thirty-five kilometres away on our left, Beauvais
+was the same distance on our right and two hours by
+train from Paris.</p>
+
+<p>We were eager for the fight. The graves of our dead
+dotted new fields in France. We were holding with the
+French on the Picardy line. We were between the Germans
+and the sea. We were before Cantigny.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS&mdash;"ZERO AT 2 A. M."</h3>
+
+
+<p>While the First U. S. Division was executing in
+Picardy a small, planned operation which resulted in the
+capture of the German fortified positions in the town of
+Cantigny, other American divisions at other parts along
+the line were indulging in that most common of frontal
+diversions&mdash;the raid.</p>
+
+<p>I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front.
+The 26th Division, composed of National Guard troops
+from New England, made the raid. On Memorial Day,
+I had seen those men of the Yankee Division decorating
+the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the
+line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw
+them come trooping back across No Man's Land after
+successfully decorating the enemy positions with German
+graves.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the
+ruined village of Hamondville and came into first contact
+with the American soldiers that had been selected for the
+raid. Their engineers were at work in the street connecting
+sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were
+to be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire.
+In interested circles about them were men who were to
+make the dash through the break even before the smoke
+cleared and the débris ceased falling. They were to be
+distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that
+the helmets worn by the raiders were covered with burlap
+and some of them had their faces blackened.</p>
+
+<p>In the failing evening light, we walked on through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+several heaps of stone and rafters that had once been villages,
+and were stopped by a military policeman who inquired
+in broad Irish brogue for our passes. These meeting
+with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road
+ahead with its dangerous twist, known as "Dead Man's
+Curve," for the reason that the enemy was at that minute
+placing his evening contribution of shells in that vicinity.
+Acting on the policeman's suggestion, we took a
+short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old craters
+were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with
+which this country abounds at this time of year. Newer
+punctures showed as wounds in the yellow soil and contained
+pools of evil-smelling water, green with scum.</p>
+
+<p>Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened
+us from direct enemy observation, we advanced toward
+the jagged skyline of a ruined village on the crest. The
+odour of open graves befouled the sheltered slope, indicating
+that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection
+and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the
+winding duckboards and were led by small signs painted
+on wood to the colonel's headquarters. We descended the
+stone steps beneath a rickety looking ruin and entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Guests for our party," was the Colonel's greeting.
+The command post had a long narrow interior which was
+well lighted but poorly ventilated, the walls and floor were
+of wood and a low beamed ceiling was supported by
+timbers. "Well, I think it will be a good show."</p>
+
+<p>"We are sending over a little party of new boys just
+for practice and a 'look-see' in Hunland. We have two
+companies in this regiment which feel they've sorter been
+left out on most of the fun to date, so this affair has
+been arranged for them. We put the plans together last
+week and pushed the boys through three days of training<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+for it back of the lines. They're fit as fiddlers to-night
+and it looks like there'll be no interruption to their
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"No one man in the world, be he correspondent or
+soldier, could see every angle of even so small a thing
+as a little raid like this," the Colonel explained. "What
+you can't see you have got to imagine. I'm suggesting
+that you stay right in here for the show. That telephone
+on my adjutant's desk is the web centre of all
+things occurring in this sector to-night and the closer
+you are to it, the more you can see and learn. Lieutenant
+Warren will take you up the road first and give you a
+look out of the observatory, so you'll know in what part
+of Germany our tourists are going to explore."</p>
+
+<p>Darkness had fallen when we emerged, but there were
+sufficient stars out to show up the outline of the gaping
+walls on either side of our way. We passed a number of
+sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a ruin.
+After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened passage
+for some minutes, we entered a small room where
+several officers were gathered around a table on which
+two burning candles were stuck in bottles. Our guide,
+stepping to one end of the room, pulled aside a blanket
+curtain and passed through a narrow doorway. We followed.</p>
+
+<p>Up a narrow, steep, wooden stairway between two
+walls of solid masonry, not over two feet apart, we
+passed, and arrived on a none too stable wooded runway
+with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through
+the ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now almost
+nude of tiles, we could see the starry sky. Proceeding
+along the runway, we arrived, somewhere in that
+cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose interior<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+blackness was relieved by a lighter slit, an opening facing
+the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Against the starry skyline, we could see the black outline
+of a flat tableland in the left distance which we knew
+to be that part of the heights of Meuse for whose commanding
+ridge there have been so many violent contests
+between the close-locked lines in the forest of
+Apremont. More to the centre of the picture, stood
+Mont Sec, detached from the range and pushing its summit
+up through the lowland mist like the dorsal fin of
+a porpoise in a calm sea. On the right the lowland extended
+to indistinct distances, where it blended with the
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p>In all that expanse of quiet night, there was not a
+single flicker of light, and at that time not a sound to
+indicate that unmentionable numbers of our men were
+facing one another in parallel ditches across the silent
+moor.</p>
+
+<p>"See that clump of trees way out there?" said the
+lieutenant, directing our vision with his arm. "Now
+then, hold your hand at arm's length in front of you,
+straight along a line from your eyes along the left edge
+of your hand to that clump of trees. Now then, look
+right along the right edge of your hand and you will be
+looking at Richecourt. The Boche hold it. We go in on
+the right of that to-night."</p>
+
+<p>We looked as per instructions and saw nothing. As
+far as we were concerned Richecourt was a daylight
+view, but these owls of the lookout knew its location as
+well as they knew the streets of their native towns back
+in New England. We returned to the colonel's command
+post, where cots were provided, and we turned in for a
+few hours' sleep on the promise of being called in time.</p>
+
+<p>It was 2 A. M. when we were summoned to command<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+post for the colonel's explanation of the night's
+plans. The regimental commander, smoking a long pipe
+with a curved stem, sat in front of a map on which he
+conducted the exposition.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," he said, placing his finger on a section of
+the line marking the American trenches, "is the point of
+departure. That's the jumping off place. These X
+marks running between the lines is the enemy wire, and
+here, and here, and here are where we blow it up. We
+reach the German trenches at these points and clean up.
+Then the men follow the enemy communicating trenches,
+penetrate three hundred metres to the east edge of Richecourt,
+and return.</p>
+
+<p>"Zero hour is 2:30. It's now 2:10. Our raiders have
+left their trenches already. They are out in No Man's
+Land now. The engineers are with them carrying explosives
+for the wire. There are stretcher bearers in the
+party to bring back our wounded and also signal men right
+behind them with wire and one telephone. The reports
+from that wire are relayed here and we will also be kept
+informed by runners. The whole party has thirty minutes
+in which to crawl forward and place explosives under
+the wire. They will have things in readiness by
+2:30 and then the show begins."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes before the hour, I stepped out of the
+dugout and looked at the silent sky toward the front.
+Not even a star shell disturbed the blue black starlight.
+The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all this
+was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash
+and crash. There is always that minute of uncertainty
+before the raiding hour when the tensity of the situation
+becomes almost painful. Has the enemy happened to
+become aware of the plans? Have our men been deprived
+of the needed element of surprise? But for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+thousands of metres behind us, we know that in black
+battery pits anxious crews are standing beside their
+loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the
+jerk of the lanyard.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the earth trembles. Through the dugout
+window facing back from the lines, I see the night sky
+burst livid with light. A second later and the crash
+reaches our ears. It is deafening. Now we hear the
+whine of shells as they burn the air overhead. The telephone
+bell rings.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, this is Boston," the Adjutant speaks into the receiver.
+We listen breathlessly. Has something gone
+wrong at the last minute?</p>
+
+<p>"Right, I have it," said the Adjutant, hanging up the
+receiver and turning to the Colonel; "X-4 reports barrage
+dropped on schedule."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said the Colonel. "Gentlemen, here's what's
+happening. Our shells are this minute falling all along
+the German front line, in front of the part selected for
+the raid and on both flanks. Now then, this section
+of the enemy's position is confined in a box barrage which
+is pounding in his front and is placing a curtain of fire
+on his left and his right and another in his rear. Any
+German within the confines of that box trying to get out
+will have a damn hard time and so will any who try to
+come through it to help him."</p>
+
+<p>"Boston talking," the Adjutant is making answer over
+the telephone. He repeats the message. "233, all the
+wire blown up, right."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine," says the Colonel. "Now they are advancing
+and right in front of them is another rolling barrage of
+shells which is creeping forward on the German lines at
+the same pace our men are walking. They are walking
+in extended order behind it. At the same time our artillery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+has taken care of the enemy's guns by this time
+so that no German barrage will be able to come down on
+our raiders. Our guns for the last three minutes have
+been dumping gas and high explosives on every battery
+position behind the German lines. That's called 'Neutralisation.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Boston talking." The room grows quiet again as the
+Adjutant takes the message.</p>
+
+<p>"2:36. Y-1 reports O. K."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything fine and dandy," the Colonel observes,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Boston talking." There is a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"2:39. G-7 reports sending up three red rockets east
+of A-19. The operator thinks it's a signal for outposts
+to withdraw and also for counter barrage."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late," snaps the Colonel. "There's a reception
+committee in Hades waiting for 'em right now."</p>
+
+<p>At 2:40 the dugout door opens and in walks Doc Comfort
+from the Red Cross First Aid Station across the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly is a pretty sight, Colonel. Fritzies' front
+door is lit up like a cathedral at high mass."</p>
+
+<p>At 2:41. "A very good beginning," remarks a short,
+fat French Major who sits beside the Colonel. He represents
+the French army corps.</p>
+
+<p>2:43. "Boston talking,&mdash;Lieutenant Kernan reports
+everything quiet in his sector."</p>
+
+<p>2:45. "Boston talking," the Adjutant turns to the
+Colonel and repeats, "Pittsburgh wants to know if
+there's much coming in here."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them nothing to amount to anything," replies the
+Colonel and the Adjutant repeats the message over the
+wire. As he finished, one German shell did land so
+close to the dugout that the door blew open. The officer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+stepped to the opening and called out into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Gas guard. Smell anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir. Think they are only high explosives."</p>
+
+<p>2:47. "Boston talking&mdash;enemy sent up one red, one
+green rocket and then three green rockets from B-14,"
+the Adjutant repeats.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is that report from?" asks the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"The operator at Jamestown, sir," replies the Adjutant.</p>
+
+<p>"Be ready for some gas, gentlemen," says the Colonel.
+"I think that's Fritzie's order for the stink. Orderly,
+put down gas covers on the doors and windows."</p>
+
+<p>I watched the man unroll the chemically dampened
+blankets over the doors and windows.</p>
+
+<p>2:49. "Boston talking&mdash;23 calls for barrage."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel and Major turn immediately to the wall
+map, placing a finger on 23 position.</p>
+
+<p>"Hum," says the Colonel. "Counter attack, hey? Well,
+the barrage will take care of them, but get me Watson
+on the line."</p>
+
+<p>"Connect me with Nantucket," the Adjutant asks the
+operator. "Hello, Watson, just a minute," turning to
+Colonel, "here's Watson, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Watson," the Colonel says, taking the receiver.
+"This is Yellow Jacket. Watch out for counter
+attack against 23. Place your men in readiness and be
+prepared to support Michel on your right. That's all,"
+returning 'phone to the Adjutant, "Get me Mr. Lake."</p>
+
+<p>While the Adjutant made the connection, the Colonel
+explained quickly the planned flanking movement on the
+map. "If they come over there," he said to the French
+Major, "not a God-damn one of them will ever get back
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>The French Major made a note in his report book.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Lake," the Colonel says, taking the 'phone.
+"This is Yellow Jacket. Keep your runners in close
+touch with Michel and Watson. Call me if anything
+happens. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>3:00. "Boston talking&mdash;G-2 reports all O.K. Still
+waiting for the message from Worth."</p>
+
+<p>3:02. "Storming party reports unhindered progress.
+No enemy encountered yet."</p>
+
+<p>This was the first message back from the raiders. It
+had been sent over the wire and the instruments they
+carried with them and then relayed to the Colonel's command
+post.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Magnifique</i>," says the French Major.</p>
+
+<p>3:04. "Boston talking. X-10 reports gas in Bois des
+Seicheprey."</p>
+
+<p>3:05. "Boston talking. Hello, yes, nothing coming
+in here to amount to anything. Just had a gas warning
+but none arrived yet."</p>
+
+<p>3:07. "Boston talking,&mdash;&mdash;Yes, all right" (turning
+to Colonel), "operator just received message from storming
+party 'so far so good.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so bad for thirty-seven minutes after opening
+of the operation," remarks the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"What is 'so far so good'?" inquires the French
+Major, whose knowledge of English did not extend to
+idioms. Some one explained.</p>
+
+<p>3:09. "Boston talking&mdash;Watson reports all quiet
+around 23 now."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess that barrage changed their minds," remarks
+the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>With gas mask at alert, I walked out for a breath of
+fresh air. The atmosphere in a crowded dugout is stifling.
+From guns still roaring in the rear and from in
+front came the trampling sound of shells arriving on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+German positions. The first hints of dawn were in the
+sky. I returned in time to note the hour and hear:</p>
+
+<p>3:18. "Boston talking&mdash;O-P reports enemy dropping
+line of shells from B-4 to B-8."</p>
+
+<p>"Trying to get the boys coming back, hey?" remarks
+the Colonel. "A fat chance. They're not coming back
+that way."</p>
+
+<p>3:21. "Boston talking&mdash;23 reports that the barrage
+called for in their sector was because the enemy had advanced
+within two hundred yards of his first position.
+Evidently they wanted to start something, but the barrage
+nipped them and they fell back fast."</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect," says the French Major.</p>
+
+<p>3:25. "Boston talking&mdash;two green and two red rockets
+were sent up by the enemy from behind Richecourt."</p>
+
+<p>"Hell with 'em, now," the Colonel remarks.</p>
+
+<p>3:28. "Boston talking&mdash;all O. K. in Z-2. Still waiting
+to hear from Michel."</p>
+
+<p>"I rather wish they had developed their counter attack,"
+says the Colonel. "I have a reserve that would
+certainly give them an awful wallop."</p>
+
+<p>3:30. "Boston talking&mdash;more gas in Bois des Seicheprey."</p>
+
+<p>3:33. "Boston talking&mdash;white stars reported from
+Richecourt."</p>
+
+<p>"They must be on their way back by this time," says
+the Colonel, looking at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>3:37. "Boston talking,&mdash;enemy now shelling on the
+north edge of the town. A little gas."</p>
+
+<p>3:40. "Boston talking&mdash;X-1 reports some enemy long
+range retaliation on our right.</p>
+
+<p>"They'd better come back the other way," says the
+Colonel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That was the intention, sir," the lieutenant reported
+from across the room.</p>
+
+<p>3:42. "Boston talking&mdash;signalman with the party reports
+everything O. K."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know yet whether they have had any losses
+or got any prisoners," the Colonel remarks. "But the
+mechanism seems to have functioned just as well as it
+did in the last raid. We didn't get a prisoner that time,
+but I sorter feel that the boys will bring back a couple
+with them to-night."</p>
+
+<p>3:49. "Boston talking&mdash;G-9 reports some of the raiding
+party has returned and passed that point."</p>
+
+<p>"Came back pretty quick, don't you think so, Major?"
+said the Colonel with some pride. "Must have returned
+over the top."</p>
+
+<p>It is 3:55 when we hear fast footsteps on the stone
+stairs leading down to the dugout entrance. There is a
+sharp rap on the door followed by the Colonel's command,
+"Come in."</p>
+
+<p>A medium height private of stocky build, with shoulders
+heaving from laboured breathing and face wet with
+sweat, enters. He removes his helmet, revealing disordered
+blonde hair. He faces the Colonel and salutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, Sergeant Ransom reports with message from
+Liaison officer. All groups reached the objectives. No
+enemy encountered on the right, but a party on the left is
+believed to be returning with prisoners. We blew up
+their dugouts and left their front line in flames."</p>
+
+<p>"Good work, boy," says the Colonel, rising and shaking
+the runner's hand. "You got here damn quick. Did
+you come by the Lincoln trench?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I came over the top from the battalion post.
+Would have been here quicker, but two of us had to carry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+back one boy to that point before I could get relieved."</p>
+
+<p>"Wounded?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir,&mdash;dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it?" asks the young lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Private Kater, sir, my squad mate."</p>
+
+<p>As the sergeant raised his hand in parting salute, all
+of us saw suspended from his right wrist a most formidable
+weapon, apparently of his own construction. It was
+a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one end and
+the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled
+up like a ball of yarn. He smiled as he noticed our gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the persuader, sir," he said. "We all carried
+them."</p>
+
+<p>He had hardly quitted the door when another heavily
+breathing figure with shirt half torn off by barbed wire
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"K Company got there, sir; beg pardon, sir. I mean
+sir, Sergeant Wiltur reports, sir, with message from Liaison
+officer. All groups reached the objectives. They left
+their dugouts blazing and brought back one machine gun
+and three prisoners."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, Sergeant," said the Colonel. "Orderly,
+get some coffee for these runners."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to see the doctor first, sir," said the runner
+with the torn shirt. "Got my hand and arm cut in the
+wire."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said the Colonel, turning to the rest of
+the party, "I knew my boys would bring back bacon."</p>
+
+<p>More footsteps on the entrance stairway and two men
+entered carrying something between them. Sweat had
+streaked through the charcoal coating on their faces leaving
+striped zebra-like countenances.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Burlon's compliments, sir," said the first
+man. "Here's one of their machine guns."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Who got it?" inquired the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Me and him, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We just rolled 'em off it and took it."</p>
+
+<p>"Rolled who off of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two Germans, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What were they doing all that time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, they weren't doing anything. They were
+dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well, then," said the Colonel. "How did
+you happen to find the machine gun?"</p>
+
+<p>"We knew where it was before we went over, sir," said
+the man simply. "We were assigned to get it and bring
+it back. We expected we'd have to fight for it, but I
+guess our barrage laid out the crew. Anyhow we rushed
+to the position and found them dead."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said the Colonel, "return to your platoon.
+Leave the gun here. It will be returned to you later and
+will be your property."</p>
+
+<p>I went out with the machine gun captors and walked
+with them to the road. There was the hum of motors
+high overhead and we knew that American planes were
+above, going forward to observe and photograph German
+positions before the effects of our bombardments
+could be repaired. A line of flame and smoke pouring up
+from the enemy's front line showed where their dugouts
+and shelters were still burning.</p>
+
+<p>Daylight was pouring down on a ruined village street,
+up which marched the returning raiders without thought
+of order. They were a happy, gleeful party, with helmets
+tipped back from their young faces wet and dirty,
+with rifles swung over their shoulders and the persuaders
+dangling from their wrists. Most of them were up to
+their knees and their wrap puttees were mostly in tatters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+from the contact with the entanglements through
+which they had penetrated.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached, I saw the cause for some of the
+jocularity. It was a chubby, little, boyish figure, who
+sat perched up on the right shoulder of a tall, husky Irish
+sergeant. The figure steadied itself by grasping the
+sergeant's helmet with his left hand. The sergeant
+steadied him by holding one right arm around his legs.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no smile on the face of the thus transformed
+object. His chubby countenance was one of
+easily understood concern. He was not a day over sixteen
+years and this was quite some experience for him.
+He was one of the German prisoners and these happy
+youngsters from across the seas were bringing him in
+almost with as much importance as though he had been
+a football hero. He was unhurt and it was unnecessary
+to carry him, but this tribute was voluntarily added, not
+only as an indication of extreme interest, but to reassure
+the juvenile captive of the kindly intentions of his captors.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiggers, here's the Colonel's dugout," one voice
+shouted. "Put him down to walk, now."</p>
+
+<p>The big sergeant acted on the suggestion and the little
+Fritz was lowered to the ground. He immediately
+caught step with the big sergeant and took up the latter's
+long stride with his short legs and feet encased in
+clumsy German boots. His soiled uniform had been the
+German field grey green. His helmet was gone but he
+wore well back on his head the flat round cloth cap.
+With his fat cheeks he looked like a typical baker's boy,
+and one almost expected to see him carrying a tray of
+rolls on his head.</p>
+
+<p>"For the luva Mike, Tim," shouted an ambulance man,
+"do you call that a prisoner?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sure he does look like a half portion," replied
+Sergeant Tim with a smile. "We got two hundred
+francs for a whole one. I don't know what we can cash
+this one in for."</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to be worth more," some one said; "that
+barrage cost a million dollars. He's the million dollar
+baby of the raid."</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant, I'm not kidding," came one serious voice.
+"Why turn him in as a prisoner? I like the kid's looks.
+Why can't we keep him for the company mascot?"</p>
+
+<p>The discussion ended when the Sergeant and his small
+charge disappeared in the Colonel's quarters for the inevitable
+questioning that all prisoners must go through.
+Several wounded were lying on the stretchers in front of
+the first aid dugout waiting for returning ambulances
+and passing the time meanwhile by smoking cigarettes
+and explaining how close each of them had been to the
+shell that exploded and "got 'em."</p>
+
+<p>But little of the talk was devoted to themselves. They
+were all praise for the little chaplain from New England
+who, without arms, went over the top with "his
+boys" and came back with them. It was their opinion
+that their regiment had some sky pilot. And it was
+mine, also.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>ON LEAVE IN PARIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"So this&mdash;is Paris,"&mdash;this observation spoken in mock
+seriousness, in a George Cohan nasal drawl and accompanied
+by a stiff and stagy wave of the arm, was the customary
+facetious pass-word with which American soldiers
+on leave or on mission announced their presence
+in the capital of France.</p>
+
+<p>Paris, the beautiful&mdash;Paris, the gay&mdash;Paris, the historical&mdash;Paris,
+the artistic&mdash;Paris, the only Paris, opened
+her arms to the American soldier and proceeded toward
+his enlightenment and entertainment on the sole policy
+that nothing was too good for him.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the first American soldiers under arms reach
+Paris. It was early in the morning of July 3rd, 1917,
+when this first American troop train pulled into the Gare
+d'Austerlitz. It was early in the morning, yet Paris was
+there to give them a welcome. The streets outside the
+station were jammed with crowds. They had seen
+Pershing; they had seen our staff officers and headquarters details,
+but now they wanted to see the type of our actual
+fighting men&mdash;they wanted to see the American poilus&mdash;the
+men who were to carry the Stars and Stripes over
+the top.</p>
+
+<p>The men left the cars and lined up in the station yard.
+It had been a long, fifteen hour night ride and the
+cramped quarters of the troop train had permitted but
+little sleep. There was no opportunity for them to breakfast
+or wash before they were put on exhibition.
+Naturally, they were somewhat nervous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The standing line was ordered to produce its mess cups
+and hold them forward. Down the line came a bevy of
+pretty French girls, wearing the uniform of Red Cross
+nurses. They carried canisters of black coffee and baskets
+of cigarettes. They ladled out steaming cupfuls of the
+black liquid to the men. The incident gave our men their
+first surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Rum or alcohol has never been a part of the United
+States army ration. In the memory of the oldest old-timers
+in the ranks of our old regular army, "joy
+water" had never been issued. On the other hand, its
+use had always been strictly forbidden in the company
+messes. Our men never expected it. Thus it was that,
+with no other idea occurring to them, they extended their
+mess cups to be filled with what they thought was simply
+strong hot coffee. Not one of them had the slightest
+suspicion that the French cooks who had prepared that
+coffee for their new American brothers in arms, had put
+a stick in it&mdash;had added just that portion of cognac
+which they had considered necessary to open a man's
+eyes and make him pick up his heels after a long night
+in a troop train.</p>
+
+<p>I watched one old-timer in the ranks as he lifted the
+tin cup to his lips and took the initial gulp. Then he
+lowered the cup. Across his face there dawned first an
+expression of curious suspicion, then a look of satisfied
+recognition, and then a smile of pleased surprise, which
+he followed with an audible smacking of the lips. He
+finished the cup and allowed quite casually that he could
+stand another.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is Paris,"&mdash;well, it wasn't half bad to start
+with. With that "coffee" under their belts, the men responded
+snappily to the march order, and in column of
+four, they swung into line and moved out of the station<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+yard, at the heels of their own band, which played a
+stirring marching air.</p>
+
+<p>Paris claimed them for her own. All that the war had
+left of Paris' gay life, all the lights that still burned, all
+the music that still played, all the pretty smiles that had
+never been reduced in their quality or quantity, all that
+Paris had to make one care-free and glad to be alive&mdash;all
+belonged that day to that pioneer band of American
+infantrymen.</p>
+
+<p>The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed
+men removed their hats to them and shook their hands
+and street boys followed in groups at their heels making
+the air ring with shrill "Vive's." There were not
+many of them, only three companies. The men looked
+trim and clean-cut. They were tall and husky-looking
+and the snap with which they walked was good to the
+eyes of old Paris that loves verve.</p>
+
+<p>With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their following
+admirers stretch their legs, the boys in khaki marched
+from the Austerlitz station to the Neuilly barracks over
+a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris was
+in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the
+following day, the shop windows and building fronts
+were decked with American flags.</p>
+
+<p>Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street
+intersections and the gendarmes were unable to prevent
+the crowds from overflowing the sidewalks and pressing
+out into the streets where they could smile their greetings
+and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking
+a column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the
+curb reached out, grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A
+snicker ran through the platoon as the sergeant, with face
+red beneath the tan, withdrew his hand and recaught his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes
+front!" and tried to look at ease.</p>
+
+<p>How the bands played that day! How the crowds
+cheered! How the flags and handkerchiefs and hats
+waved in the air, and how thousands of throats volleyed
+the "Vive's!" This was the reception of our first fighting
+men. But on the following day they received even a
+greater demonstration, when they marched through the
+streets of the city on parade, and participated in the first
+Parisian celebration of American Independence Day.</p>
+
+<p>Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so
+many flags, not even during the days three years before,
+when the sons of France had marched away to keep the
+Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary
+clusters of Allied flags had been almost entirely replaced
+for the day by groups composed solely of the
+French tri-colour and the Stars and Stripes. Taxis and
+fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable places.
+Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded
+streets. Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogising
+Uncle Sam and his nephews, and garnered harvests
+of sous for their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>The three companies of our regulars marched with a
+regiment of French colonials, all veterans of the war
+and many of them incapacitated for front service through
+wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the
+trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle
+front life, cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of middinettes
+waved their aprons from the windows of millinery
+shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les Teddies!"
+America&mdash;the great, good America&mdash;the sister republic
+from across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day
+long. Paris capitulated unconditionally to three companies
+of American infantry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From that day on, every American soldier visiting
+Paris has been made to feel himself at home. And the
+unrestricted hospitality did not seem to be the result of
+an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For
+months afterward, any one wearing an American uniform
+along the boulevards could hear behind him dulcet
+whispers that carried the words <i>très gentil</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed
+for work in the city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie
+Barracks, where other soldiers from all of the Allied
+armies in the world were quartered. Our men mingled
+with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese,
+tall blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians
+and New Zealanders. At considerable expense to these
+comrades in arms, our men instructed them in the all-American
+art of plain and fancy dice rolling.</p>
+
+<p>Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other arrangements
+for housing were made. The American
+policing of Paris, under the direction of the Expeditionary
+Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was
+turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our
+men conducted themselves in Paris with the orderliness
+of a guest at the home of his host, or whether it was
+that the Marines with their remarkable discipline suppressed
+from all view any too hearty outbursts of American
+exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and
+the bearing of American soldiers in Paris were always
+above reproach.</p>
+
+<p>I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in
+Paris, in spite of the fact that more opportunities presented
+themselves for drinking than had ever before been
+presented to an American army. The privilege of sitting
+at a table in front of a sidewalk café on a busy boulevard
+and drinking a small glass of beer unmolested, was one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+that our men did not take advantage of. It was against
+the law to serve any of the stronger liqueurs to men in
+uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all the
+time. All cafés closed at 9:30. In spite of the ever present
+opportunity to obtain beverages of the above character,
+there was many and many an American soldier who
+tramped the boulevards and canvassed the cafés, drug
+stores and delicatessen shops in search of a much-desired
+inexistent, ice cream soda.</p>
+
+<p>Many of our men spent their days most seriously and
+most studiously, learning the mysteries of transportation
+on the busses and the Paris underground system, while
+they pored over their guide books and digested pages of
+information concerning the points of interest that Paris
+had to offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the
+tiled corridors of the Invalides or looking down into the
+deep crypt at the granite tomb of the great Napoleon. In
+the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuilleries,
+or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever
+present. At least one day out of every ten day leave was
+spent in the palace and the grounds at Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of
+amusement. One of the most popular among these was
+the Folies Bergères. Some of our men didn't realise until
+after they entered the place that it was a French theatre.
+Due to the French pronunciation of the name, some of
+the American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon
+run by an Irishman by the name of Foley. "Bergère" to
+some was unpronounceable, so the Folies Bergères was
+most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley's place."</p>
+
+<p>Another popular amusement place was the Casino de
+Paris, where an echo from America was supplied by an
+American negro jazz band, which dispensed its questionable
+music in the <i>promenoir</i> during the intermission.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one
+of them seemed to have an ardent dislike for the remaining
+four. Individually they manifested their mutual contempt
+by turning their backs on one another while they
+played. Strange as it may seem, a most fascinating type
+of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of shoulders,
+nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among
+the American soldiers in the crowd. French men and
+women, with their old world musical taste, would consider
+the musical gymnastics of the demented drummer
+in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and
+come to the conclusion that the world had gone plumb
+to hell.</p>
+
+<p>All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca
+as soon as the desired permissions had been granted. One
+day I sat opposite a remarkable type whom I found dining
+in a small restaurant. I noticed the absence of either
+beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained
+that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked
+me, but refused to accept a cigarette I offered, saying
+without aside that he had yet his first one to smoke.
+When I heard him tell Madame that he did not care for
+coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother
+had always told him it was injurious and he had never
+tasted it.</p>
+
+<p>I became more interested in this ideal, young American
+soldier and questioned him about his life. I found that
+he and his father had worked in the copper mines in
+Michigan. They were both strong advocates of union
+labour and had participated vigorously in the bloody
+Michigan strikes.</p>
+
+<p>"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he
+said. "Our union demands were just. Here in this war
+I am fighting just the same way as we fought against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that
+Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable
+working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is
+the world's greatest scab. I am over here to help get
+him."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining
+with an American Brigadier General, when an American
+soldier of the ranks approached the table. At a respectful
+distance of five feet, the soldier halted, clicked
+his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the
+orderly desires permission to take the General's car to
+headquarters and deliver the packages."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Smith," replied the General, looking at his
+watch. "Find out if my other uniform is back yet and
+then get back here yourself with the car in half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, executed
+a snappy right about face and strode out of the
+dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said
+the General to me. "I had a lot of extra work yesterday
+on his account. I had to make out his income tax returns.
+He and his dad own almost all the oil in Oklahoma.
+When he paid his income tax, Uncle Sam got a
+little over a hundred thousand dollars. He went in the
+army in the ranks. He is only an enlisted private now,
+but he's a good one."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man
+in an American uniform and a French Gendarme vainly
+trying to talk with each other. The Frenchman was
+waving his arms and pointing in various directions and
+the American appeared to be trying to ask questions.
+With the purpose of offering my limited knowledge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+French to straighten out the difficulty, I approached the
+pair and asked the American soldier what he wanted. He
+told me but I don't know what it was to this day. He
+spoke only Polish.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our
+soldiers spread the fame of America. In the peaceful
+countrysides far behind the flaming fronts, the Yankee
+fighting men won their way into the hearts of the French
+people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebration
+in a little French village in the Vosges.</p>
+
+<p>Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the
+murky half-light of the village street. A long line of
+soldiers wound their way past flaming stoves of the
+mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out
+of the cold morning stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on
+the snow-clad furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for
+centuries, the village of Saint Thiébault has drowsed
+more or less happily beside its ancient canal and in the
+shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint
+Thiébault.</p>
+
+<p>Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal-helmeted,
+know the huts and stables of Saint Thiébault
+as their billets, and the seventy little boys and girls of the
+parish know those same thousand men as their new
+big brothers&mdash;<i>les bons Américains</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those
+seventy youngsters have been away from Saint Thiébault
+for a long time now&mdash;yes, this is the fourth Christmas
+that the urgent business in northern France has kept
+them from home. They may never return but that is unknown
+to the seventy young hopefuls.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs11.jpg" width="500" height="344" alt="MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON
+ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON
+ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs12.jpg" width="500" height="318" alt="BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHÂTEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED BY
+GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN" title="" />
+<span class="caption">BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHÂTEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED BY
+GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was great activity in the colonel's quarters during<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+the morning, and it is said that a sleuthing seventy
+were intent on unveiling the mystery of these unusual
+American preparations. They stooped to get a peep
+through the windows of the room, and Private Larson,
+walking his post in front of the sacred precincts, had to
+shoo them away frequently with threatening gestures and
+Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay
+veet&mdash;Allay veet t'ell outer here."</p>
+
+<p>An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook
+shack indicated that one juvenile investigator had come
+to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul Laurent, who
+could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold
+hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding
+the seat of his breeches.</p>
+
+<p>Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the
+cook shack shaking a soup ladle after the departing Paul
+and shouting imprecations in Italian-American.</p>
+
+<p>"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the
+low camp stove and removed a hot pan, the surface of
+whose bubbling contents bore an unmistakable imprint.
+"Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de finger
+in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He
+fall over de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He
+spoila de mess. He burn heese pants. Tam good!"</p>
+
+<p>And over there in front of the regimental wagon train
+picket line, a gesticulating trio is engaged in a three
+cornered Christmas discussion. One is M. Lecompte,
+who is the uniformed French interpreter on the Colonel's
+staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster,
+the tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the
+triangle is little Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte's
+hand and looks up in awe at the huge Irish
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+pointing to the enormous hip boots which Moriarity is
+wearing.</p>
+
+<p>"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the
+Irishman. "And for the love of heavin, what would he
+be after doin' wid it? Sure and the top of it is higher
+than the head of him."</p>
+
+<p>"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter.
+"The French children do not hang up their stockings for
+Christmas. Instead they place their wooden shoes on
+the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them.
+You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."</p>
+
+<p>"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one
+boot and hopping on one foot toward the stables. "Take
+it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it filled wid dimonds
+and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near the
+fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a
+oyster."</p>
+
+<p>The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace
+of red-whiskered ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking
+his lips. Then little Pierre was off to his mother's
+cottage, dragging the seven league boot after him.</p>
+
+<p>With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had
+been tied with red cords and labelled, and the interior of
+the Colonel's quarters looked like an express office in the
+rush season. The packages represented the purchases
+made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battalion
+had contributed for the purpose of having Christmas
+come to Saint Thiébault in good style.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white
+covering which is to be worn by "Hindenburg," the most
+docile mule in the wagon train, upon whom has fallen the
+honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the
+Christmas saint.</p>
+
+<p>"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+in the battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red
+garments, trimmed with white fur and tassels, all made
+out of cloth by hands whose familiarity with the needle
+has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has
+donned his white wig and whiskers and his red cap,
+tasseled in white. He is receiving his final instructions
+from the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"You may grunt, Powers," the colonel is saying, "but
+don't attempt to talk French with that Chicago accent.
+We don't want to frighten the children. And remember,
+you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel. That's
+what the French children call Santa Claus."</p>
+
+<p>It is three o'clock, and the regimental band, assembled
+in marching formation in the village street, blares out
+"I Wish I Were in the Land of Cotton," and there is
+an outpouring of children, women and soldiers from
+every door on the street. The colonel and his staff stand
+in front of their quarters opposite the band, and a
+thousand American soldiers, in holiday disregard for
+formation, range along either side of the street.</p>
+
+<p>The large wooden gate of the stable yard, next to the
+commandant's quarters, swings open; there is a jingle of
+bells, and "Hindenburg," resplendent in his fittings, and
+Papa Noel Powers sitting high on the package-heaped
+sleigh, move out into the street. Their appearance is
+met with a crash of cymbals, the blare of the band's
+loudest brass, and the happy cries of the children and the
+deeper cheers of the men.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas had come to Saint Thiébault. Up the street
+went the procession, the band in the lead playing a lively
+jingling piece of music well matched to the keenness of
+the air and the willingness of young blood to tingle with
+the slightest inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Hindenburg," with a huge pair of tin spectacles goggling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+his eyes, tossed his head and made the bells ring all
+over his gala caparison. Papa Noel, mounted on the
+pyramid of presents, bowed right and left and waved his
+hands to the children, to the soldiers, to the old men and
+the old women.</p>
+
+<p>As the youngsters followed in the wake of the sleigh,
+the soldiers picked them up and carried them on their
+shoulders, on "piggy" back, or held them out so they
+could shake hands with Papa Noel and hear that dignitary
+gurgle his appreciation in wonderful north pole
+language.</p>
+
+<p>When Papa Noel found out that he could trust the
+flour paste and did not have to hold his whiskers on by
+biting them, he gravely announced, "Wee, wee," to all the
+bright-eyed, red-cheeked salutations directed his way.</p>
+
+<p>The band halted in front of the ancient church of
+Saint Thiébault, where old Father Gabrielle stood in the
+big doorway, smiling and rubbing his hands. Upon his
+invitation the children entered and were placed in the
+first row of chairs, the mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers,
+and young women sat in back of them, and further
+back sat the regimental officers. The soldiers filled
+the rest of the church to the doors.</p>
+
+<p>The brief ceremony ended with a solemn benediction
+and then the curtains were drawn back from one of the
+arches in front of and to the left of the main altar.</p>
+
+<p>There stood Saint Thiébault's first Christmas tree, or
+at least the first one in four years. It was lighted with
+candles and was resplendent with decorations that represented
+long hours of work with shears and paste on the
+part of unaccustomed fingers. Suggestions from a thousand
+Christmas minds were on that tree, and the result
+showed it. The star of Bethlehem, made of tinsel,
+glistened in the candlelight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not even the inbred decorum of the church was sufficient
+to restrain the involuntary expressions of admiration
+of the saint by the seventy youngsters. They oh-ed
+and ah-ed and pointed, but they enjoyed it not a whit
+more than did the other children in the church, some of
+whose ages ran to three score and more.</p>
+
+<p>Papa Noel walked down the centre aisle leading a file
+of soldiers, each of whom carried a heaping armful of
+packages. Young necks craned and eyes bulged as the
+packages were deposited on the tables in front of the
+communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for
+silence and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"These Americans," he said, "have come to our
+country to march and to fight side by side with your
+fathers and your big brothers and your uncles and all
+the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiébault
+so long. These Americans want to take their places for
+you to-day. These Americans in doing these things for
+you are thinking of their own little girls and little boys
+away back across the ocean who are missing their fathers
+and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you
+miss yours."</p>
+
+<p>There were wet eyes among the women and some of
+the older men in khaki closed their eyes and seemed to
+be transporting themselves thousands of miles away to
+other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only
+for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribution
+of gifts and the children of Saint Thiébault began
+their excited progress toward the tables. Here Papa
+Noel delivered the prized packages.</p>
+
+<p>"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a
+hair ribbon of gold and black with a tortoise bandeau."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six
+German soldiers at least to shoot."</p>
+
+<p>"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with
+a collar of wool."</p>
+
+<p>"For Alphonse Bénois, an aeroplane that flies on a
+string."</p>
+
+<p>"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks."</p>
+
+<p>"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather
+soles and tops."</p>
+
+<p>"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheepskin
+muff."</p>
+
+<p>"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the
+American flag."</p>
+
+<p>It continued for more than an hour. The promoters
+of the celebration were wise to their work. There was
+more than one present for each child. They did not know
+how many. Time after time, their names were called and
+they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each
+new surprise.</p>
+
+<p>The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games,
+candies and nuts, but the joy was in sitting there and
+waiting for one's name to be called and going forward to
+partake of that most desirable "more."</p>
+
+<p>Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served
+as a climax to the distribution. He had whispered something
+to M. Lecompte and the result was that one little
+duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and hugged an
+enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to
+hear the name "Pierre Lafite" called out.</p>
+
+<p>All the other names had been called once and not his.
+He waited. All the names had been called twice and still
+not his. He waited through the third and the fourth calling
+in vain, and his chin was beginning to tremble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the
+sound of his name.</p>
+
+<p>The piles of packages on the tables had been getting
+smaller all the time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced
+the very last name.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre Lafite," he called.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and
+started up the aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The
+rest of the children had returned to their seats. All the
+elders in the church were watching his progress.</p>
+
+<p>"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up
+the enormous boot. "A pair of real leather shoes to fit in
+the foot of the boot." He placed them there.</p>
+
+<p>"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He
+so placed them.</p>
+
+<p>"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a
+general commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured
+them into the boot.</p>
+
+<p>"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top
+of the soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs,
+and sweets. <i>Voilà</i>, Pierre," and with these words, he
+had poured the sweetmeats in overflowing measure into
+the biggest hip boot in the regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity,
+Pierre started toward his seat, struggling with the seven
+league boot and the wholesale booty, and satisfied with
+the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more
+than his companions in five.</p>
+
+<p>Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and
+then, as the band struck up outside the church, all moved
+to the street. The sun had gone down, the early winter
+night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four
+comets of flame sprang up from the ground. They broke
+far overhead in lurid green.</p>
+
+<p>"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next
+command, and four more rockets mounted and ended
+their flights in balls of luminous red. Other commands,
+other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and
+pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which
+was economically combined with signal practice.</p>
+
+<p>The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of
+American and French together. Our men learned to love
+the French people. The French people learned to love us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>CHÂTEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the
+development of the young American army in France
+from a mere handful of new troops up to the creation of
+units capable of independent action on the front. Only
+that intense and thorough training made it possible for
+our oversea forces to play the veteran part they did play
+in the great Second Battle of the Marne.</p>
+
+<p>The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's
+Western Front offensives of the year. The increasing
+strength of the American forces overseas forced Germany
+to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn hope
+of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines
+could have the advantage of America's weight.</p>
+
+<p>On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first
+powerful offensive on a front of fifty miles from Arras
+to Noyon in Picardy and had advanced their lines from
+St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens.</p>
+
+<p>On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in
+Flanders on a front of twenty miles from Lens northward
+to the River Lys and had cut into the Allied front
+as far as Armentières.</p>
+
+<p>There followed what was considered an abnormal delay
+in the third act of the demonstration. It was known
+that the Germans were engaged in making elaborate arrangements
+for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy
+hope in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow
+against the hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising
+power could be thrown into the fight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front
+selected for the assault was twenty-five miles in width,
+extending from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne
+Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown Prince
+was the titular chief of the group of armies used in the
+assault. One of these forces was the army of General
+von Boehm, which before the attack had numbered only
+nine divisions and had extended from the Oise at Noyon
+to east of Craconne. The other army was that of General
+Fritz von Bülow, previously composed of eight divisions
+and supporting a front that extended from
+Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near Auberive.
+On the day of the attack, these armies had been
+strengthened to twice their normal number of divisions,
+and subsequently captured German plans revealed that
+the enemy expected to use forty-five divisions or practically
+half a million men in the onslaught.</p>
+
+<p>The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the
+weakly held French positions on the Chemin des Dames.
+It was preceded by a three hour bombardment of terrific
+intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered
+four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage
+that was two miles deep. It destroyed all wire communications
+and flooded battery emplacements and machine
+gun posts with every brand of poison gas known to German
+kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated
+the defenders into small groups and screened the attacking
+waves until they had actually penetrated the French
+positions.</p>
+
+<p>The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood
+across the Chemin des Dames with its ground sacred with
+tragic memories, but a withdrawal was necessary. The
+French command was forced to order a retreat to the
+Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+of the British Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in
+Picardy in March, made an orderly withdrawal southward.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day of the fight the enemy made a
+strong thrust toward Soissons, and after keeping the city
+under continual bombardment, succeeded in overcoming
+all resistance and occupying the city on May 29th. On
+the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand explosive,
+incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in
+amongst the hospitals in Soissons. American ambulance
+units did heroic work in the removal of the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the
+following day, May 30th, they had crossed the Vesle
+River and had captured Fère-en-Tardenois. On the following
+day their victorious hordes had reached the Marne
+and were closing in on Château-Thierry.</p>
+
+<p>Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offensive
+may be gained from a recapitulation which would
+show that in five days the Germans had pushed through
+five successive lines of Allied defence, and had penetrated
+more than twenty-five miles. On the first day,
+they had captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second
+day, they had overcome all resistance on the Aisne, on
+the third day, their forces, pushing southward, had
+crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had
+destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the
+fifth day, they had reached the Marne.</p>
+
+<p>It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle
+with the apex pointing southward toward Paris. The
+west side of the triangle extended fifty miles northward
+from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east side
+of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims.
+The point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north
+bank of the Marne at Château-Thierry. The enemy had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+advanced to within forty miles of the capital of France;
+the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that
+I know the real reason why the German hordes stopped
+at Château-Thierry on the north bank of the Marne. To
+me that reason will always be this&mdash;because on the south
+bank of the Marne stood the Americans.</p>
+
+<p>On that day and in that event there materialised the
+German fears which had urged them on to such great
+speed and violence. In the eleventh hour, there at the
+peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of Germany's
+triumphant advances, there at the point where a
+military decision for the enemy seemed almost within
+grasp, there and then the American soldier stepped into
+the breech to save the democracy of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Marne River makes a loop at this place and
+Château-Thierry lies on both banks. The Marne there
+is called a river, but it would hardly come up to the
+American understanding of the word. The waterway
+is more like a canal with banks built up with stone blocks.
+There are streets on either bank, and these being the
+principal streets of the town, are bordered with comparatively
+high buildings.</p>
+
+<p>While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city,
+American forces had made brilliant counter attacks on
+both sides. To the west of Château-Thierry the German
+advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly Wood,
+had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east
+of Château-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing
+the Marne in the vicinity of Jaulgonne.</p>
+
+<p>This operation was carried out by the German 36th
+Division. On the night of May 30th, at a point where
+the Marne looped northward eight miles to the east of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+Château-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few
+men across the river.</p>
+
+<p>Along the south bank of the river at that place, the
+Paris-Châlons ran through a number of deep cuts and one
+tunnel. The enemy took shelter in these natural protections.
+They suffered serious losses from the Allied
+artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons
+across the river, but in spite of this, the Germans succeeded
+in re-enforcing the units on the south bank to
+the strength of about a battalion.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this
+place received re-enforcements from the Americans.
+Units of the 3rd United States Regular Division and the
+28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of Pennsylvania
+National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training
+areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in
+fitting themselves for line duty. These incompletely
+trained American units abandoned their bayonet-stabbing
+of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare to rush forward
+into the real thing.</p>
+
+<p>On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of
+French officers, began the counter attack to sweep the
+Germans back from the south bank. By that time the
+enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges
+across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead
+position with a number of machine guns and a
+strong force of men in the railway station on the south
+bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.</p>
+
+<p>This position was attacked frontally by the Americans
+and French. Our novices in battle were guilty of numerous
+so-called strategical blunders, but in the main
+purpose of killing the enemy, they proved irresistible.
+The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the
+French artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+crossing the river, with the result that many of the fleeing
+enemy were killed and more drowned. Only thirty
+or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them
+threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder
+of the battalion was wiped out. At the close of the engagement
+the Americans and the French were in full
+command of the south bank.</p>
+
+<p>But it was in Château-Thierry itself that the Germans
+made their most determined effort to cross the river and
+get a footing on the south bank, and it was there, again,
+that their efforts were frustrated by our forces. On May
+31st, American machine gun units, then in training seventy-five
+kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly
+bundled into motor lorries and rushed northward into
+Château-Thierry.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans were advancing their patrols into the
+north side of the city. They were pouring down the
+streets in large numbers, with the evident purpose of
+crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on the
+south bank.</p>
+
+<p>It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that
+those American machine gunners got their first glimpse
+of real war. That night while the German artillery raked
+the south bank of the river with high explosive shells,
+those Americans, shouldering their machine guns,
+marched into the city and took up defensive positions on
+the south bank of the river.</p>
+
+<p>During the night many houses were turned into ruins.
+Shells striking the railroad station had caused it to burn.
+In the red glare our men saw the houses about them collapse
+under clouds of dust and débris. Under cover of
+darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the
+north side of the river. The American machine gunners
+went into position in the windows of houses on the south<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+bank and in gardens between the houses, and from these
+positions it was possible to command all of the bridge
+approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite
+side.</p>
+
+<p>During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young
+Pittsburgher but recently graduated from West Point,
+started across one of the bridges and reached the north
+bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine guns.
+This little unit went into position in a place commanding
+the forked highways which converged not far from the
+northern approach of the iron bridge crossing the river.
+It was this unit's function to prevent the enemy advance
+from this direction. The unit was separated from its
+comrades on the south bank by the river and about two
+hundred yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy artillery
+intensified its shelling of the south bank, the American
+machine gunners remained at their posts without
+firing and played a waiting game.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make
+their rushes for the bridges. Small compact forces would
+dart forward carrying light machine guns and ammunition
+with them. They encountered a terrific burst of
+American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that survived
+crawled back to the shelter of protecting walls,
+where they were re-enforced with fresh units, and again
+the massed formations charged down the streets toward
+the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until
+the approaches were dotted with bodies of the enemy
+slain.</p>
+
+<p>On June 1st, the Germans having consolidated positions
+on the hills commanding the city from the north,
+they directed a terrific artillery and machine gun fire into
+our exposed positions on the south bank, as well as the
+small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position
+held by the little American group had long been considered
+untenable, the members of it stuck it out until nightfall,
+when they received orders to retire to the south
+bank. At the same time, French colonials which had
+held a position throughout the day on the north bank on
+the edge of the town, withdrew in accordance with the
+same plan. The retirement of both parties was covered
+by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured
+a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began
+occupying them.</p>
+
+<p>By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement
+was signalised by a terrific explosion, as the French
+colonials blew up one of the stone bridges over which
+they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge
+had cut off the little band of Americans and left them
+almost surrounded by the enemy on the north bank of
+the river, which was now becoming strongly populated
+by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard
+the sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above
+the crack of the guns there came the weird swish of
+the grey coats as they pushed forward in mass formations.</p>
+
+<p>The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their
+guns and, with each man carrying his allotted piece, they
+began working their way along the river bank toward
+the main bridge, where they discovered that the enemy
+was almost upon them. They immediately went into
+position behind the stone parapet on the very brink of
+the river, and, although in constant danger from the
+American fire that poured out from the south bank, they
+poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing
+German ranks.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans on the south bank were not aware of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+the plight of the little party on the north bank. In spite
+of their losses, the Germans continued their grewsome
+rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge across
+which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating
+fire. Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to
+cross the bridge, but were forced to crawl back to shelter
+on the north bank, carrying with them three of their
+wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire.
+Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and
+the first intimation that the Americans on the south bank
+had of the fact that Americans were in front of them
+was when Lieutenant Cobey heard Bissell's voice calling
+his name. A cease fire order was immediately given and
+Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying
+their wounded with them.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day the Germans were in occupation
+of all the houses facing the north bank of the river, and
+could be seen from time to time darting from one shelter
+to another. Throughout the day their artillery maintained
+a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held
+by our men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle
+fire and activity of snipers, that it meant death to appear
+in the open. The Americans manned their guns throughout
+the day, but refrained from indulging in machine gun
+fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations
+of the guns. Nightfall approached with a quiet that was
+deadly ominous of impending events.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward
+to the attack. Their dense masses charged down the
+streets leading toward the river. They sang as they advanced.
+The orders, as revealed in documents captured
+later, came straight from the high command and demanded
+the acquisition of a foothold on the south bank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+at all costs. They paid the costs, but never reached the
+south bank.</p>
+
+<p>The American machine gun fire was withering. Time
+after time, in the frequent rushes throughout the night,
+the remnants of enemy masses would reach sometimes
+as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them
+succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge became
+carpeted with German dead and wounded. They
+lay thick in the open streets near the approaches. By
+morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and
+subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the
+bodies of their fallen comrades. In this battle of the
+bridges and the streets, our men showed a courage and
+determination which aroused the admiration of the
+French officers, who were aware by this time that forty-eight
+hours before these same American soldiers had seen
+battle for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the
+river into a No Man's Land. Their vigilance was unrelenting
+and every enemy attempt to elude it met with
+disaster. There were serious American casualties during
+that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with
+the thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets
+and clogged the runways of the big bridge in piles. The
+last night of the fight enormous charges of explosive were
+placed beneath the bridge and discharged.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge was destroyed. High into the air were
+blown bits of stone, steel, timber, débris, wreckage and
+the bodies of German dead, all to fall back into the river
+and go bobbing up and down in the waters of the Marne.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did the Americans save the day at Château-Thierry,
+but it became immediately necessary for the
+French high command to call upon our young forces for
+another great effort. In response to this call, the Second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+United States Division, including one brigade of the
+United States Marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments,
+started for the front. The division was then occupying
+support positions in the vicinity of Gisors behind the
+Picardy line. At four o'clock on the morning of May
+31st the Marine brigade and regiments of United States
+infantry, the 9th and the 23rd Regulars, boarded camions,
+twenty to thirty men and their equipment in each vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne.
+The road took them through the string of pretty villages
+fifteen miles to the north of Paris. The trucks loaded
+with United States troops soon became part of the endless
+traffic of war that was pouring northward and eastward
+toward the raging front. Our men soon became
+coated with the dust of the road. The French people in
+the villages through which they passed at top speed
+cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries.</p>
+
+<p>Between Meaux and Château-Thierry, where the road
+wound along the Marne, our men encountered long
+trains of French refugees, weary mothers carrying hungry
+babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household
+belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses
+on which rode grey-haired grandfathers and
+grandmothers. This pitiful procession was moving
+toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and
+herds of cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim
+war, moved in the opposite direction.</p>
+
+<p>The Second Division was bound for the line to the
+northwest of Château-Thierry. On June 1st, the 6th
+Marines relieved the French on the support lines. The
+sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the sector
+held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right
+was held by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed
+French line, weak and weary from continual rear guard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+actions, over a hard fighting period of almost a week,
+fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the
+support positions which we held. To fill gaps between
+units, the Marines extended their brigade sector to between
+twelve and fourteen kilometres. As the French
+withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the
+Marines held the new first line.</p>
+
+<p>The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located
+in a stone farmhouse at a cross-roads called La Voie
+Châtel, situated between the villages of Champillon and
+Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that
+point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon
+on that day of clear visibility, the Germans renewed their
+attacks from the north and northeast toward a position
+called Hill 165, which was defended by the 5th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a
+field of golden wheat. More than half of the two columns
+had left the cover of the trees and were moving
+in perfect order across the field when the shrapnel fire
+from the American artillery in the rear got range on
+the target. Burst after burst of white smoke suddenly
+appeared in the air over the column, and under each
+burst the ground was marked with a circle of German
+dead. It was not barrage fire: it was individual firing
+against two individual moving targets and its success
+spoke well for the training which that brigade of American
+artillery had received.</p>
+
+<p>French aviators from above directed the fire of our
+guns, and from high in the air signalled down their
+"bravos" in congratulation on the excellent work. At
+the same time, the machine gunners of the 5th covered
+the ravines and wooded clumps with a hot fire to prevent
+small bodies of the enemy from infiltrating through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+our lines. The French marvelled at the deliberateness
+and accuracy of our riflemen.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans, unaware that a change had taken
+place in the personnel that faced them, reeled back demoralised
+and unable to understand how such a sudden
+show of resistance had been presented by the weakened
+French troops which they had been driving before them
+for a week. The enemy's advance had been made openly
+and confidently in the mistaken flush of victory. Their
+triumphant advances of the previous week had more than
+supported the statements of the German officers, who
+had told their men that they were on the road to Paris&mdash;the
+end of the war and peace. It was in this mood of
+victory that the enemy encountered the Marines' stone
+wall and reeled back in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>That engagement, in addition to lowering the enemy
+morale, deprived them of their offensive spirit and placed
+them on the defensive. The next few days were spent
+in advancing small strong points and the strengthening of
+positions. In broad daylight one group of Marines
+rushed a German machine gun pit in the open, killed or
+wounded every man in the crew, disabled the gun and
+got back to their lines in safety.</p>
+
+<p>It was at five o'clock on the bright afternoon of June
+6th that the United States Marines began to carve their
+way into history in the battle of the Bois de Belleau.
+Major General Harbord, former Chief of Staff to General
+Pershing, was in command of the Marine brigade.
+Orders were received for a general advance on the brigade
+front. The main objectives were the eastern edge of the
+Bois de Belleau and the towns of Bussiares, Torcy and
+Bouresches.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the difficulty of liaison in the thickets of the
+wood, and because of the almost impossible task of directing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+it in conjunction with the advancing lines, the
+artillery preparation for the attack was necessarily brief.
+At five o'clock to the dot the Marines moved out from
+the woods in perfect order, and started across the wheat
+fields in four long waves. It was a beautiful sight, these
+men of ours going across those flat fields toward the
+tree clusters beyond from which the Germans poured
+a murderous machine gun fire.</p>
+
+<p>The woods were impregnated with nests of machine
+guns, but our advance proved irresistible. Many of our
+men fell, but those that survived pushed on through the
+woods, bayoneting right and left and firing as they
+charged. So sweeping was the advance that in some
+places small isolated units of our men found themselves
+with Germans both before and behind them.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the left,
+and it was not until later in the evening that this part of
+the line reached the northeast edge of the woods, after it
+had completely surrounded a most populous machine gun
+nest which was located on a rocky hill. During the
+fighting Colonel Catlin was wounded and Captain Laspierre,
+the French liaison officer, was gassed, two casualties
+which represented a distinct blow to the brigade, but
+did not hinder its further progress.</p>
+
+<p>On the right Lieutenant Robertson, with twenty survivors
+out of his entire platoon, emerged from the terrific
+enemy barrage and took the town of Bouresches at
+the point of the bayonet. Captain Duncan, receiving
+word that one Marine company, with a determination to
+engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, had gone two
+hundred yards in advance, raced forward on the double
+quick with the 96th Marine Company, and was met by a
+terrific machine gun barrage from both sides of Bouresches.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Robertson, looking back, saw Duncan and
+the rest of his company going down like flies as they
+charged through the barrage. He saw Lieutenant Bowling
+get up from the ground, his face white with pain,
+and go stumbling ahead with a bullet in his shoulder.
+Duncan, carrying a stick and with his pipe in his mouth,
+was mowed down in the rain of lead. Robertson saw
+Dental Surgeon Osborne pick Duncan up. With the
+aid of a Hospital Corps man, they had just gained the
+shelter of some trees when a shell wiped all three of them
+out.</p>
+
+<p>In the street fighting that ensued in Bouresches, Lieutenant
+Robertson's orderly, Private Dunlavy, who was
+later killed in the defence of the town, captured one of
+the enemy's own machine guns and turned it against
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In the dense woods the Germans showed their mastery
+of machine gun manipulation and the method of infiltration
+by which they would place strong units in our
+rear and pour in a deadly fire. Many of these guns were
+located on rocky ridges, from which they could fire to
+all points. These Marines worked with reckless courage
+against heavy odds, and the Germans exacted a heavy
+toll for every machine gun that was captured or disabled,
+but in spite of losses the Marine advance continued.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Overton, commanding the 76th Company,
+made a brilliant charge against a strong German position
+at the top of a rocky hill. He and his men captured all
+of the guns and all of their crews. Overton was hit
+later when the Germans retaliated by a concentration of
+fire against the captured position for forty-eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Robertson, according to the report brought
+back by a regimental runner, was last seen flat on a rock
+not twenty yards away from one enemy gun, at which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+he kept shooting with an automatic in each hand. He
+was hit three times before he consented to let his men
+carry him to the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"There was not an officer left in the 82nd Company,"
+according to a letter by Major Frank E. Evans, Adjutant
+of the Sixth. "Major Sibley and his Adjutant reorganised
+them under close fire and led them in a charge
+that put one particular machine gun nest out of business
+at the most critical time in all the fighting. I heard later
+that at that stage some one said: 'Major Sibley ordered
+that&mdash;' and another man said: 'Where in hell is Sibley?'
+Sibley was twenty yards away at that time and a hush
+went down the line when they saw him step out to lead
+the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"And when the word got around through that dead-tired,
+crippled outfit that 'the Old Man' was on the line,
+all hell could not have stopped that rush."</p>
+
+<p>In such fashion did the Marines go through the Bois
+de Belleau. Their losses were heavy, but they did the
+work. The sacrifice was necessary. Paris was in danger.
+The Marines constituted the thin line between the
+enemy and Paris. The Marines not only held that line&mdash;they
+pushed it forward.</p>
+
+<p>The fighting was terrific. In one battalion alone the
+casualties numbered sixty-four per cent. officers and
+sixty-four per cent. men. Several companies came out
+of the fighting under command of their first sergeants, all
+of the officers having been killed or wounded.</p>
+
+<p>I witnessed some of that fighting. I was with the
+Marines at the opening of the battle. I never saw men
+charge to their death with finer spirit. I am sorry that
+wounds prevented me from witnessing the victorious conclusion
+of the engagement. In view of my subsequent
+absence from the fight, I wish to give credit and thanks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+at this place to Major Frank E. Evans, who as Adjutant
+of the 6th Regiment of Marines, provided me with
+much of the foregoing material which occurred while
+I was in the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The bravery of that Marine brigade in the Bois de
+Belleau fight will ever remain a bright chapter in the
+records of the American Army. For the performance
+of deeds of exceptional valour, more than a hundred
+Marines were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses.
+General Pershing, in recognition of the conduct of the
+Second Division, issued the following order:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"It is with inexpressible pride and satisfaction that
+your commander recounts your glorious deeds on the field
+of battle. In the early days of June on a front of twenty
+kilometres, after night marches and with only the reserve
+rations which you carried, you stood like a wall
+against the enemy advance on Paris. For this timely
+action you have received the thanks of the French people
+whose homes you saved and the generous praise of your
+comrades in arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the organisation of our sector, in the face of
+strong opposition, you have advanced your lines two
+kilometres on a front of eight kilometres. You have
+engaged and defeated with great loss three German divisions
+and have occupied important strong points&mdash;Belleau
+Wood, Bouresches, and Vaux. You have taken
+about 1,400 prisoners, many machine guns, and much
+other material. The complete success of the infantry
+was made possible by the splendid co-operation of the
+artillery, by the aid and assistance of the engineer and
+signal troops, by the diligent and watchful care of the
+medical and supply services, and by the unceasing work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+of the well-organised staff. All elements of the division
+have worked together as a well-trained machine.</p>
+
+<p>"Amid the dangers and trials of battle, every officer
+and every man has done well his part. Let the stirring
+deeds, hardships, and sacrifices of the past month remain
+forever a bright spot in our history. Let the sacred
+memory of our fallen comrades spur us on to renewed
+effort and to the glory of American arms."</p></div>
+
+<p>All of the German prisoners captured by the Marines
+in the Bois de Belleau could express only surprise over
+the fighting capacity of their captors. Prisoners' statements
+are not entirely trustworthy, but here is one that
+was not intended for American consumption. It was written
+by a German soldier, who was killed in the Bois de
+Belleau before he had an opportunity to mail it. It was
+removed from his body. It reads:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p class='quotdate'>
+"France, June 21, 1918.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"We are now in the battle zone and canteens dare not
+come to us on account of the enemy, for the Americans
+are bombarding the villages fifteen kilometres behind the
+present front with long-range guns, and you will know
+that the canteen outfit and the others who are lying in
+reserve do not venture very far, for it is not 'pleasant to
+eat cherries' with the Americans. The reason for that
+is that they have not yet had much experience. The
+American divisions are still too fiery. They are the first
+divisions that the French have entered.... We will also
+show the Americans how good we are, for the day before
+yesterday we bombarded them heavily with our
+gas. About 400 of us are lying around here. We have
+one corner of the woods and the American has the other
+corner. That is not nice, for all of a sudden he rushes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+forward and one does not know it beforehand. Therefore,
+one must shoot at every little noise, for one cannot
+trust them. Here always two men have dug a hold for
+themselves. Here one lies day and night without a blanket,
+only with a coat and a shelter-half. One freezes at
+night like a tailor, for the nights are fiercely cold. I hope
+that I will be lucky enough to escape from this horrible
+mess, for up to now I have always been lucky. Many of
+my comrades are already buried here. The enemy sweeps
+every evening the whole countryside with machine gun
+and rifle fire, and then artillery fire. But we in front line
+are safer than in the support position. At present our
+food is miserable. We are now fed upon dried vegetables
+and marmalade and when at night we obtain more food
+it is unpalatable. It is half sour and all cold. In the
+daytime we receive nothing."</p></div>
+
+<p>But it might be wise to support this statement from a
+German soldier in the ranks by excerpts from an official
+German army report which was captured July 7th on a
+German officer. The document was a carefully weighed
+treatise on the fighting capacity of the United States
+Marines. The document had the following heading:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p><i>"Intelligence Officer of the Supreme Command at Army
+Headquarters, Number 7, J. Number 3,528, Army
+Headquarters, June 17, 1917.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Second American Infantry Division.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Examination of Prisoners from the 5th, 6th, 9th and
+23rd Regiments, captured from June 5th to 14th, in the
+Bouresches Sector."</i></p></div>
+
+<p>After setting forth all information gained, concerning
+the purpose of attack and the arrival of the American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+units on the line, the German Intelligence Report continues,
+as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"The Second American Division may be classed as a
+very good division, perhaps even as assault troops. The
+various attacks of both regiments on Belleau Wood were
+carried out with dash and recklessness. The moral effect
+of our firearms did not materially check the advances
+of the enemy. The nerves of the Americans are
+still unshaken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">"Value of the individual</span>&mdash;the individual soldiers
+are very good. They are healthy, vigorous, and physically
+well-developed men, of ages ranging from eighteen
+to twenty-eight, who at present lack only necessary training
+to make them redoubtable opponents. The troops
+are fresh and full of straightforward confidence. A remark
+of one of the prisoners is indicative of their spirit:
+'We kill or get killed.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">"Morale</span>&mdash;the prisoners in general make an alert and
+pleasing impression. Regarding military matters, however,
+they do not show the slightest interest. Their superiors
+keep them purposely without knowledge of the
+military subjects. For example, most of them have never
+seen a map. They are no longer able to describe the villages
+and roads through which they marched. Their idea
+of the organisation of their unit is entirely confused.
+For example, one of them told us that his brigade had
+six regiments and his division twenty-four. They still
+regard the war from the point of view of the 'big
+brother' who comes to help his hard-pressed brethren
+and is therefore welcomed everywhere. A certain moral
+background is not lacking. The majority of the prisoners
+simply took as a matter of course that they have come
+to Europe to defend their country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only a few of the troops are of pure American origin;
+the majority is of German, Dutch and Italian parentage,
+but these semi-Americans, almost all of whom
+were born in America and never have been in Europe before,
+fully feel themselves to be true born sons of their
+country.</p>
+
+<p class='quotsig'>
+(Signed) "<span class="smcap">Von Berg</span>,<br />
+"Lieutenant and Intelligence Officer."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Since the days I read Hugo's chapters on the Battle
+of Waterloo in "Les Misérables," I always considered as
+an ideal of fighting capacity and the military spirit of
+sacrifice the old sergeant of Napoleon's Old Guard.
+Hugo made me vividly see that old sergeant standing on
+a field with a meagre remnant of the Old Guard gathered
+around him. Unable to resist further, but unwilling to
+accept surrender, he and his followers faced the British
+cannon. The British, respecting this admirable demonstration
+of courage, ceased firing and called out to them,
+"Brave Frenchmen, surrender."</p>
+
+<p>The old sergeant, who was about to die, refused to accept
+this offer of his life from the enemy. Into the
+very muzzles of the British cannon the sergeant hurled
+back the offer of his life with one word. That word
+was the vilest epithet in the French language. The cannons
+roared and the old sergeant and his survivors died
+with the word on their lips. Hugo wisely devoted an
+entire chapter to that single word.</p>
+
+<p>But I have a new ideal to-day. I found it in the Bois
+de Belleau. A small platoon line of Marines lay on their
+faces and bellies under the trees at the edge of a wheat
+field. Two hundred yards across that flat field the enemy
+was located in trees. I peered into the trees but could
+see nothing, yet I knew that every leaf in the foliage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+screened scores of German machine guns that swept the
+field with lead. The bullets nipped the tops of the young
+wheat and ripped the bark from the trunks of the trees
+three feet from the ground on which the Marines lay.
+The minute for the Marine advance was approaching.
+An old gunnery sergeant commanded the platoon in the
+absence of the lieutenant, who had been shot and was out
+of the fight. This old sergeant was a Marine veteran.
+His cheeks were bronzed with the wind and sun of the
+seven seas. The service bar across his left breast showed
+that he had fought in the Philippines, in Santo Domingo,
+at the walls of Pekin, and in the streets of Vera Cruz.
+I make no apologies for his language. Even if Hugo
+were not my precedent, I would make no apologies. To
+me his words were classic, if not sacred.</p>
+
+<p>As the minute for the advance arrived, he arose from
+the trees first and jumped out onto the exposed edge of
+that field that ran with lead, across which he and his
+men were to charge. Then he turned to give the charge
+order to the men of his platoon&mdash;his mates&mdash;the men he
+loved. He said:</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Come on, you sons-o'-bitches! do you want to
+live forever?</span></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>WOUNDED&mdash;HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Just how does it feel to be shot on the field of battle?
+Just what is the exact sensation when a bullet
+burns its way through your flesh or crashes through your
+bones?</p>
+
+<p>I always wanted to know. As a police reporter I
+"covered" scores of shooting cases, but I could never
+learn from the victims what the precise feeling was as
+the piece of lead struck. For long years I had cherished
+an inordinate curiosity to know that sensation, if possible,
+without experiencing it. I was curious and eager
+for enlightenment just as I am still anxious to know how
+it is that some people willingly drink buttermilk when it
+isn't compulsory.</p>
+
+<p>I am still in the dark concerning the inexplicable taste
+for the sour, clotted product of a sweet, well-meaning
+cow and the buttery, but I have found out how it feels to
+be shot. I know it now by experience.</p>
+
+<p>Three Germans bullets that violated my person left
+me as many scars and at the same time completely satisfied
+my curiosity. I think now if I can ever muster up
+enough courage to drink a glass of buttermilk, I shall
+have bereft myself of my last inquisitiveness.</p>
+
+<p>It happened on June 6th just to the northwest of
+Château-Thierry in the Bois de Belleau. On the morning
+of that day I left Paris by motor for a rush to the front.
+The Germans were on that day within forty miles of the
+capital of France. On the night before, the citizens of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+Paris, in their homes and hotels, had heard the roll of the
+guns drawing ever nearer. Many had left the city.</p>
+
+<p>But American divisions were in the line between the
+enemy and their goal, and the operation of these divisions
+was my object in hustling to the front. On the broad,
+paved highway from Paris to Meaux, my car passed miles
+and miles of loaded motor trucks bound frontward. Long
+lines of these carried thousands of Americans. Other
+long lines were loaded down with shells and cartridge
+boxes. On the right side of the road, bound for Paris
+and points back of the line, was an endless stream of
+ambulances and other motor trucks bringing back
+wounded. Dense clouds of dust hung like a pall over
+the length of the road. The day was hot, the dust was
+stifling.</p>
+
+<p>From Meaux we proceeded along the straight highway
+that borders the south banks of the Marne to LaFerte,
+at which place we crossed the river and turned north to
+Montreuil, which was the newly occupied headquarters
+of the Second United States Army Division, General
+Omar Bundy commanding. On the day before, the two
+infantry brigades of that division, one composed of the
+5th and 6th U. S. Marines, under command of Brigadier
+General Harbord, the other composed of the 9th and
+23rd U. S. Infantry, had been thrown into the line which
+was just four miles to the north and east.</p>
+
+<p>The fight had been hot during the morning. The
+Marines on the left flank of the divisional sector had
+been pushing their lines forward through triangle woods
+and the village of Lucy-le-Bocage. The information of
+their advances was given to me by the Divisional Intelligence
+officer, who occupied a large room in the rear
+of the building that was used as Divisional Headquarters.
+The building was the village <i>Mairie</i>, which also included<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+the village school-house. Now the desks of the school
+children were being used by our staff officers and the
+walls and blackboards were covered with maps.</p>
+
+<p>I was accompanied by Lieutenant Oscar Hartzell, formerly
+of the <i>New York Times</i> staff. We learned that
+orders from the French High Command called for a continuation
+of the Marine advance during the afternoon
+and evening, and this information made it possible for
+us to make our plans. Although the Germans were
+shelling roads immediately behind the front, Lieutenant
+Hartzell and I agreed to proceed by motor from Montreuil
+a mile or so to a place called La Voie du Châtel,
+which was the headquarters of Colonel Neveille of the
+5th Marines. Reaching that place around four o'clock,
+we turned a despatch over to the driver of our staff car
+with instructions that he proceed with all haste to Paris
+and there submit it to the U. S. Press Bureau.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Hartzell and I announced our intentions of
+proceeding at once to the front line to Colonel Neveille.</p>
+
+<p>"Go wherever you like," said the regimental commander,
+looking up from the outspread maps on the
+kitchen table in the low-ceilinged stone farm-house that
+he had adopted as headquarters. "Go as far as you like,
+but I want to tell you it's damn hot up there."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later found us in the woods to the west of
+the village of Lucy le Bocage, in which German shells
+were continually falling. To the west and north another
+nameless cluster of farm dwellings was in flames. Huge
+clouds of smoke rolled up like a smudge against the
+background of blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>The ground under the trees in the wood was covered
+with small bits of white paper. I could not account for
+their presence until I examined several of them and found
+that these were letters from American mothers and wives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+and sweethearts&mdash;letters&mdash;whole packages of them,
+which the tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to
+remove from their packs and destroy in order to ease the
+straps that cut into aching grooves in their shoulders.
+Circumstances also forced the abandonment of much other
+material and equipment.</p>
+
+<p>Occasional shells were dropping in the woods, which
+were also within range from a long distance, indirect machine
+gun fire from the enemy. Bits of lead, wobbling in
+their flight at the end of their long trajectory, sung
+through the air above our heads and clipped leaves and
+twigs from the branches. On the edge of the woods we
+came upon a hastily dug out pit in which there were
+two American machine guns and their crews.</p>
+
+<p>The field in front of the woods sloped gently down
+some two hundred yards to another cluster of trees.
+This cluster was almost as big as the one we were in.
+Part of it was occupied by the Germans. Our machine
+gunners maintained a continual fire into that part held
+by the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes before five o'clock, the order for the
+advance reached our pit. It was brought there by a
+second lieutenant, a platoon commander.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at the
+green brassard and red "C" on my left arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking for the big story," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were you I'd be about forty miles south of this
+place," said the Lieutenant, "but if you want to see the
+fun, stick around. We are going forward in five
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>That was the last I saw of him until days later, when
+both of us, wounded, met in the hospital. Of course, the
+first thing he said was, "I told you so."</p>
+
+<p>We hurriedly finished the contents of the can of cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+"Corned Willy" which one of the machine gunners and
+I were eating. The machine guns were taken down
+and the barrels, cradles and tripods were handed over to
+the members of the crew whose duties it was to carry
+them.</p>
+
+<p>And then we went over. There are really no heroics
+about it. There is no bugle call, no sword waving, no
+dramatic enunciation of catchy commands, no theatricalism&mdash;it's
+just plain get up and go over. And it is done
+just the same as one would walk across a peaceful wheat
+field out in Iowa.</p>
+
+<p>But with the appearance of our first line, as it stepped
+from the shelter of the woods into the open exposure of
+the flat field, the woods opposite began to cackle and rattle
+with the enemy machine gun fire. Our men advanced
+in open order, ten and twelve feet between men. Sometimes
+a squad would run forward fifty feet and drop.
+And as its members flattened on the ground for safety
+another squad would rise from the ground and make
+another rush.</p>
+
+<p>They gained the woods. Then we could hear shouting.
+Then we knew that work was being done with the bayonet.
+The machine gun fire continued in intensity and
+then died down completely. The wood had been won.
+Our men consolidated the position by moving forward in
+groups ever on the watch-out for snipers in the trees.
+A number of these were brought down by our crack pistol
+shots.</p>
+
+<p>At different times during the advance runners had come
+through the woods inquiring for Major John Berry, the
+battalion commander. One of these runners attached
+himself to Lieutenant Hartzell and myself and together
+the three of us located the Major coming through the
+woods. He granted permission for Lieutenant Hartzell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+and me to accompany him and we started forward, in all
+a party of some fifteen, including ten runners attached
+to the battalion commander.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the continual evidences of German snipers
+in the trees, every one in our party carried a revolver
+ready in his hand, with the exception of myself. Correspondents,
+you will remember, are non-combatants and
+must be unarmed. I carried a notebook, but it was loaded.
+We made our way down the slope of the wooded hillside.</p>
+
+<p>Midway down the slope, the hill was bisected by a
+sunken road which turned forward on the left. Lying
+in the road were a number of French bodies and several
+of our men who had been brought down but five minutes
+before. We crossed that road hurriedly knowing that it
+was covered from the left by German machine guns.</p>
+
+<p>At the bottom of the slope there was a V-shaped field.
+The apex of the V was on the left. From left to right
+the field was some two hundred yards in width. The
+point where we came out of the woods was about one
+hundred yards from the apex. At that point the field was
+about one hundred yards across. It was perfectly flat and
+was covered with a young crop of oats between ten and
+fifteen inches high.</p>
+
+<p>This V-shaped oat field was bordered on all sides by
+dense clusters of trees. In the trees on the side opposite
+the side on which we stood, were German machine
+guns. We could hear them. We could not see them but
+we knew that every leaf and piece of greenery there vibrated
+from their fire and the tops of the young oats
+waved and swayed with the streams of lead that swept
+across.</p>
+
+<p>Major Berry gave orders for us to follow him at intervals
+of ten or fifteen yards. Then he started across the
+field alone at the head of the party. I followed. Behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+me came Hartzell. Then the woods about us began
+to rattle fiercely. It was unusually close range. That
+lead travelled so fast that we could not hear it as it
+passed. We soon had visual demonstration of the hot
+place we were in when we began to see the dust puffs
+that the bullets kicked up in the dirt around our feet.</p>
+
+<p>Major Berry had advanced well beyond the centre of
+the field when I saw him turn toward me and heard him
+shout:</p>
+
+<p>"Get down everybody."</p>
+
+<p>We all fell on our faces. And then it began to come
+hot and fast. Perfectly withering volleys of lead swept
+the tops of the oats just over us. For some reason it
+did not seem to be coming from the trees hardly a hundred
+yards in front of us. It was coming from a new
+direction&mdash;from the left.</p>
+
+<p>I was busily engaged flattening myself on the ground.
+Then I heard a shout in front of me. It came from Major
+Berry. I lifted my head cautiously and looked forward.
+The Major was making an effort to get to his feet. With
+his right hand he was savagely grasping his left wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"My hand's gone," he shouted. One of the streams of
+lead from the left had found him. A ball had entered
+his left arm at the elbow, had travelled down the side
+of the bone, tearing away muscles and nerves of the forearm
+and lodging itself in the palm of his hand. His pain
+was excruciating.</p>
+
+<p>"Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he
+dropped to the ground. I did not know the extent of his
+injuries at that time but I did know that he was courting
+death every minute he stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to get out of here," said the Major. "We've
+got to get forward. They'll start shelling this open field
+in a few minutes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I lifted my head for another cautious look.</p>
+
+<p>I judged that I was lying about thirty yards from the
+edge of the trees in front of us. The Major was about
+ten yards in front of me.</p>
+
+<p>"You are twenty yards from the trees," I shouted to
+the Major. "I am crawling over to you now. Wait until
+I get there and I'll help you. Then we'll get up and
+make a dash for it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," replied the Major, "hurry along."</p>
+
+<p>I started forward, keeping as flat on the ground as it
+was possible to do so and at the same time move. As far
+as was feasible, I pushed forward by digging in with my
+toes and elbows extended in front of me. It was my
+object to make as little movement in the oats as possible.
+I was not mistaken about the intensity of fire that swept
+the field. It was terrific.</p>
+
+<p>And then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette
+touched me in the fleshy part of my upper left arm. That
+was all. It just felt like a sudden burn and nothing worse.
+The burned part did not seem to be any larger in area
+than that part which could be burned by the lighted end
+of a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>At the time there was no feeling within the arm,
+that is, no feeling as to aches or pain. There was nothing
+to indicate that the bullet, as I learned several days later,
+had gone through the bicep muscle of the upper arm
+and had come out on the other side. The only sensation
+perceptible at the time was the burning touch at the spot
+where the bullet entered.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced down at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and
+could not even see the hole where the bullet had entered.
+Neither was there any sudden flow of blood. At the time
+there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm and I
+continued to use it to work my way forward.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then the second one hit. It nicked the top of my left
+shoulder. And again came the burning sensation, only
+this time the area affected seemed larger. Hitting as it
+did in the meaty cap of the shoulder, I feared that there
+would be no further use for the arm until it had received
+attention, but again I was surprised when I found upon
+experiment that I could still use it. The bone seemed to
+be affected in no way.</p>
+
+<p>Again there was no sudden flow of blood, nor stiffness.
+It seemed hard for me to believe at the time, but I had
+been shot twice, penetrated through by two bullets and
+was experiencing not any more pain than I had experienced
+once when I dropped a lighted cigarette on the
+back of my hand. I am certain that the pain in no way
+approached that sensation which the dentist provides
+when he drills into a tooth with a live nerve in it.</p>
+
+<p>So I continued to move toward the Major. Occasionally
+I would shout something to him, although, at this
+time, I am unable to remember what it was. I only
+wanted to let him know I was coming. I had fears, based
+on the one look that I had obtained of his pain-distorted
+face, that he had been mortally shot in the body.</p>
+
+<p>And then the third one struck me. In order to keep as
+close to the ground as possible, I had swung my chin
+to the right so that I was pushing forward with my left
+cheek flat against the ground and in order to accommodate
+this position of the head, I had moved my steel helmet
+over so that it covered part of my face on the right.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like some
+one had dropped a glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub.
+A barrel of whitewash tipped over and it seemed that
+everything in the world turned white. That was the sensation.
+I did not recognise it because I have often been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+led to believe and often heard it said that when one receives
+a blow on the head everything turns black.</p>
+
+<p>Maybe I am contrarily constructed, but in my case
+everything became pure white. I remember this distinctly
+because my years of newspaper training had been
+in but one direction&mdash;to sense and remember. So it
+was that, even without knowing it, my mind was making
+mental notes on every impression that my senses registered.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know yet where I had been hit or what the
+bullet had done. I knew that I was still knowing things.
+I did not know whether I was alive or dead but I did
+know that my mind was still working. I was still mentally
+taking notes on every second.</p>
+
+<p>The first recess in that note-taking came when I asked
+myself the following question:</p>
+
+<p>"Am I dead?"</p>
+
+<p>I didn't laugh or didn't even smile when I asked myself
+the question without putting it in words. I wanted
+to know. And wanting to know, I undertook to find out.
+I am not aware now that there was any appreciable
+passage of time during this mental progress. I feel certain,
+however, that I never lost consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>How was I to find out if I was dead? The shock had
+lifted my head off the ground but I had immediately
+replaced it as close to the soil as possible. My twice
+punctured left arm was lying alongside my body. I
+decided to try and move my fingers on my left hand. I
+did so and they moved. I next moved my left foot. Then
+I knew I was alive.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs13.jpg" width="500" height="341" alt="HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING
+DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL" title="" />
+<span class="caption">HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING
+DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then I brought my right hand up toward my face
+and placed it to the left of my nose. My fingers rested
+on something soft and wet. I withdrew the hand and
+looked at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
+at it, I was not aware that my entire vision was confined
+to my right eye, although there was considerable pain in
+the entire left side of my face.</p>
+
+<p>This was sufficient to send me on another mental investigation.
+I closed my right eye and&mdash;all was dark. My
+first thought following this experiment was that my left
+eye was closed. So I again counselled with myself and
+tried to open my left eye&mdash;that is, tried to give the mental
+command that would cause the muscles of the left eye
+to open the lid and close it again.</p>
+
+<p>I did this but could not feel or verify in any way
+whether the eye lid responded or not. I only knew that
+it remained dark on that side. This brought me to another
+conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I
+simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had
+struck me in the eye and had closed it.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet striking
+the ground immediately under my left cheek bone,
+had ricocheted upward, going completely through the
+left eye and then crashing out through my forehead,
+leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved,
+the lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of
+the skull.</p>
+
+<p>Further progress toward the Major was impossible.
+I must confess that I became so intensely interested in the
+weird sensations and subjective research, that I even
+neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer that I
+would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held
+this view in spite of the fact that my original intentions
+were strong. Lying there with my left cheek flat on the
+ground, I was able to observe some minutes later the
+wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail of
+lead rush forward and out of my line of vision.</p>
+
+<p>It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+that he reached the shelter of the woods beyond without
+being hit again, and in that place, although suffering
+intense pain, was able to shout back orders which resulted
+in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun nest
+that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort,
+General Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished
+Service Cross.</p>
+
+<p>I began to make plans to get out of the exposed position
+in which I was lying. Whereas the field when I
+started across it had seemed perfectly flat, now it impressed
+me as being convex and I was further impressed
+with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost
+and most exposed curvature of it. There is no doubt
+that the continued stream of machine gun lead that swept
+the field superinduced this belief. I got as close to the
+ground as a piece of paper on top of a table. I remember
+regretting sincerely that the war had reached the stage
+of open movement and one consequence of which was
+that there wasn't a shell hole anywhere to crawl into.</p>
+
+<p>This did not, however, eliminate the dangerous possibility
+of shelling. With the fatalism that one acquires
+along the fronts, I was ready to take my chances with the
+casual German shell that one might have expected, but I
+devoted much thought to a consideration of the French
+and American artillery some miles behind me. I considered
+the possibility of word having been sent back
+that our advancing waves at this point had been cut down
+by enemy machine gunners who were still in position
+preventing all progress at this place. I knew that such
+information, if sent back, would immediately be forwarded
+to our guns and then a devastating concentration
+of shells would be directed toward the location of
+the machine gun nests.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that I was lying one hundred yards from one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+of those nests and I knew that I was well within the
+fatal bursting radius of any shells our gunners might
+direct against that German target. My fear was that
+myself and other American wounded lying in that field
+would die by American guns. That is what would have
+happened if that information had reached our artillery
+and it is what should have happened.</p>
+
+<p>The lives of the wounded in that field were as nothing
+compared with the importance of wiping out that machine
+gun nest on our left which was holding up the entire
+advance.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to see what time it was and my watch was
+attached to my left wrist. In endeavouring to get a look
+at it, I found out that my left arm was stiff and racked
+with pain. Hartzell, I knew, had a watch, but I did not
+know where he was lying, so I called out.</p>
+
+<p>He answered me from some distance away but I could
+not tell how far or in what direction. I could see dimly
+but only at the expense of great pain. When he answered
+I shouted back to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hit?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, are you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, what time is it?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hit badly?" he asked in reply.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think I'm all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you hit?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"In the head," I said; "I think something hit my eye."</p>
+
+<p>"In the head, you damn fool," he shouted louder with
+just a bit of anger and surprise in his voice. "How the
+hell can you be all right if you are hit in the head? Are
+you bleeding much?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said. "What time is it, will you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm coming over to get you," shouted Hartzell.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move, you damn fool, you want to kill both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+of us?" I hastened to shout back. "If you start moving,
+don't move near me. I think they think I'm dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Well you can't lie there and bleed to death," Hartzell
+replied. "We've got to do something to get to hell out
+of here. What'll we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what time it is and how long it will be before
+it's dark," I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It's six o'clock now," Hartzell said, "and it won't be
+dark 'til nine; this is June. Do you think you can stick
+it out?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him that I thought I could and we were silent
+for some time. Both of us had the feeling that other ears&mdash;ears
+working in conjunction with eyes trained along
+the barrels of those machine guns a hundred yards on our
+left&mdash;would be aroused to better marksmanship if we
+continued to talk.</p>
+
+<p>I began to take stock of my condition. During my
+year or more along the fronts I had been through many
+hospitals and from my observations in those institutions
+I had cultivated a keen distaste for one thing&mdash;gas gangrene.
+I had learned from doctors its fatal and horrible
+results and I also had learned from them that it was
+caused by germs which exist in large quantities in any
+ground that has been under artificial cultivation for a
+long period.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the character of the very field I was lying
+in and I came to the realisation that the wound in the
+left side of my face and head was resting flatly on the
+soil. With my right hand I drew up my British box
+respirator or gas mask and placed this under my head.
+Thus I rested with more confidence, although the machine
+gun lead continued to pass in sheets through the tops
+of the oats not two or three inches above my head.</p>
+
+<p>All of it was coming from the left,&mdash;coming from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
+German nests located in the trees at the apex of the V-shaped
+field. Those guns were not a hundred yards away
+and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.
+Twenty feet away on my left a wounded
+Marine was lying. Occasionally I would open my right
+eye for a painful look in his direction.</p>
+
+<p>He was wounded and apparently unconscious. His
+pack, "the khaki doll," was still strapped between his
+shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing that which all
+wounded men do&mdash;that is, to assume the position that
+is the most comfortable. He was trying to roll over on
+his back.</p>
+
+<p>But the pack was on his back and every time he would
+roll over on this it would elevate his body into full view
+of the German gunners. Then a withering hail of lead
+would sweep the field. It so happened that I was lying
+immediately in line between those German guns and this
+unconscious moving target. As the Marine would roll
+over on top of the pack his chest would be exposed to the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>I could see the buttons fly from his tunic and one of
+the shoulder straps of the back pack part as the sprays of
+lead struck him. He would limply roll off the pack over on
+his side. I found myself wishing that he would lie still,
+as every movement of his brought those streams of bullets
+closer and closer to my head. I even considered the
+thickness of the box respirator on which I had elevated
+my head off the ground. It was about two inches thick.</p>
+
+<p>I remembered my French gas mask hanging from my
+shoulder and recalled immediately that it was much flatter,
+being hardly half an inch in thickness. I forthwith
+drew up the French mask to my head, extracted the British
+one and rested my cheek closer to the ground on the
+French one. Thus, I lowered my head about an inch and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+a half&mdash;an inch and a half that represented worlds of
+satisfaction and some optimism to me.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes there were lulls in the firing. During those
+periods of comparative quiet, I could hear the occasional
+moan of other wounded on that field. Very few of them
+cried out and it seemed to me that those who did were
+unconscious when they did it. One man in particular
+had a long, low groan. I could not see him, yet I felt
+he was lying somewhere close to me. In the quiet
+intervals, his unconscious expression of pain reminded
+me of the sound I had once heard made by a calf which
+had been tied by a short rope to a tree. The animal had
+strayed round and round the tree until its entanglements
+in the rope had left it a helpless prisoner. The groan of
+that unseen, unconscious wounded American who laid
+near me on the field that evening sounded exactly like
+the pitiful bawl of that calf.</p>
+
+<p>Those three hours were long in passing. With the
+successive volleys that swept the field, I sometimes lost
+hope that I could ever survive it. It seemed to me that
+if three German bullets had found me within the space
+of fifteen minutes, I could hardly expect to spend three
+hours without receiving the fatal one. With such
+thoughts on my mind I reopened conversation with
+Hartzell.</p>
+
+<p>"How's it coming, old man?" I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"They're coming damn close," he said; "how is it with
+you? Are you losing much blood?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm all right as far as that goes," I replied, "but
+I want you to communicate with my wife, if its 'west'
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"What's her address?" said Hartzell.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long one," I said. "Are you ready to take it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot," said Hartzell.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, No. 12 Bis, Rue de la Chevalier
+de la Barre, Dijon, Côte d'Or, France.'" I said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"My God," said Hartzell, "say it again."</p>
+
+<p>Back and forth we repeated the address correctly and
+incorrectly some ten or twelve times until Hartzell informed
+me that he knew it well enough to sing it. He
+also gave me his wife's address. Then just to make
+conversation he would shout over, every fifteen minutes,
+and tell me that there was just that much less time that
+we would have to lie there.</p>
+
+<p>I thought that hour between seven and eight o'clock
+dragged the most, but the one between eight and nine
+seemed interminable. The hours were so long, particularly
+when we considered that a German machine gun
+could fire three hundred shots a minute. Dusk approached
+slowly. And finally Hartzell called over:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think they can see us now," he said; "let's start
+to crawl back."</p>
+
+<p>"Which way shall we crawl?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Into the woods," said Hartzell.</p>
+
+<p>"Which woods?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The woods we came out of, you damn fool," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Which direction are they in?" I said, "I've been moving
+around and I don't know which way I am heading.
+Are you on my left, or on my right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell whether I'm on your left or your right,"
+he replied. "How are you lying, on your face or on
+your back?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my face," I said, "and your voice sounds like
+it comes from in back of me and on the left."</p>
+
+<p>"If that's the case," said Hartzell, "your head is lying
+toward the wrong woods. Work around in a half circle
+and you'll be facing the right direction."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I did so and then heard Hartzell's voice on my right.
+I started moving toward him. Against my better judgment
+and expressed wishes, he crawled out toward me
+and met me half way. His voice close in front of me
+surprised me.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your head up a little," he said, "I want to see
+where it hit you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it looks very nice," I replied, lifting my
+head. I wanted to know how it looked myself, so I painfully
+opened the right eye and looked through the oats
+eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the look of
+horror on it as he looked into mine.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through
+the interminable yards of young oats, we reached the edge
+of the woods and safety.</p>
+
+<p>That's how it feels to be shot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>"GOOD MORNING, NURSE"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Weakness from the loss of blood began to grow on
+me as Lieutenant Hartzell and I made our way through
+the deepening shadows of the wooded hillside in the
+rear of the field on which I had been shot. In an upright
+position of walking the pains in my head seemed to increase.
+We stopped for a minute and, neither of us having
+first aid kits with us, I resurrected a somewhat soiled
+silk handkerchief with which Hartzell bound up my head
+in a manner that applied supporting pressure over my
+left eye and brought a degree of relief.</p>
+
+<p>Hartzell told me later that I was staggering slightly
+when we reached a small relief dugout about a mile
+back of the wood. There a medical corps man removed
+the handkerchief and bound my head with a white gauze
+bandage. I was anxious to have the wound cleaned
+but he told me there was no water. He said they had
+been forced to turn it over to the men to drink. This
+seemed to me to be as it should be because my thirst was
+terrific, yet there was no water left.</p>
+
+<p>We stumbled rearward another half mile and, in the
+darkness, came upon the edge of another wooded area.
+A considerable number of our wounded were lying on
+stretchers on the ground. The Germans were keeping
+up a continual fire of shrapnel and high explosive shell
+in the woods, apparently to prevent the mobilisation of
+reserves, but the doctors, taking care of the wounded,
+proceeded with their work without notice to the whine
+of the shells passing overhead or the bursting of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+that landed nearby. They went at their work just as
+though they were caring for injured men on a football
+field.</p>
+
+<p>Hartzell stretched me out on the ground and soon
+had a doctor bending over me. The doctor removed the
+eye bandage, took one look at what was beneath it and
+then replaced it. I remember this distinctly because at
+the time I made the mental note that the doctor apparently
+considered my head wound beyond anything he could
+repair. He next turned his attention to my arm and
+shoulder. He inserted his scissors into my left sleeve at
+the wrist and ripped it up to the shoulder. He followed
+this operation by cutting through my heavy khaki tunic
+from the shoulder to the collar. A few more snips of
+the nickel-plated blades and my shirt and undershirt
+were cut away. He located the three bullet holes, two
+in the arm and one across the top of the shoulder, and
+bound them up with bandages.</p>
+
+<p>"We're awful shy on ambulances," he said; "you will
+have to lie here a while."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel that I can walk all right if there is no reason
+why I shouldn't," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be in an ambulance," said the doctor,
+"but if you feel that you can make it, you might take a
+try at it."</p>
+
+<p>Then turning to Lieutenant Hartzell, he said, "Keep
+right with him, and if he begins to get groggy, make
+him lie down."</p>
+
+<p>So Hartzell and I resumed our rearward plodding
+or staggering. He walked at my right side and slightly
+in front of me, holding my right arm over his right
+shoulder and thereby giving me considerable support.
+We had not proceeded far before we heard the racing
+motor of an automobile coming from behind us. An<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+occasional shell was dropping along the road we were
+now on.</p>
+
+<p>A stick struck my legs from behind in the darkness.
+And then an apologetic voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Beg your pardon, sir, just feeling along the road for
+shell holes. Ambulance right behind me, sir. Would
+you mind stepping to one side? Come on, Bill," to the
+driver of the ambulance, "it looks all clear through
+here."</p>
+
+<p>The automobile with the racing motor turned out
+to be a light ambulance of a popular Detroit make. Its
+speeding engine was pure camouflage for its slow progress.
+It bubbled and steamed at the radiator cap as it
+pushed along at almost a snail's pace.</p>
+
+<p>"All full?" Hartzell shouted into the darkness of the
+driver's seat.</p>
+
+<p>"To the brim," responded the driver. "Are you
+wounded?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I have a wounded man with me," said Hartzell.
+"He can sit beside you on the seat if you have room."</p>
+
+<p>"Get right in," said the driver, and Hartzell boosted me
+into the front seat. We pushed along slowly, Hartzell
+walking beside the car and the driver's assistant proceeding
+ahead of us, searching the dark road with his
+cane for new shell craters.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally, when our wheels would strike in one of
+these, groans would come from the ambulance proper.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it easy," would come a voice through pain-pressed
+lips; "for Christ's sake, do you think you are
+driving a truck?"</p>
+
+<p>I heard the driver tell Hartzell that he had three men
+with bullet splintered legs in the ambulance. Every jolt
+of the car caused their broken bones to jolt and increased
+the pounding of their wearied nerves to an extremity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>
+agony. The fourth occupant of the ambulance, he said,
+had been shot through the lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Some distance along, there came a knock on the wooden
+partition behind my back,&mdash;the partition that separates
+the driver's seat from the ambulance proper. The car
+stopped and the driver and Hartzell went to the rear door
+and opened it. The man with the shot through the lungs
+was half sitting up on his stretcher. He had one hand
+to his mouth and his lips, as revealed in the rays of the
+driver's flashlight, were red wet.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick&mdash;get me&mdash;to a doctor," the man said between
+gulps and gurgles.</p>
+
+<p>The driver considered. He knew we were ten miles
+from the closest doctor. Then he addressed himself
+to the other three stretcher-cases&mdash;the men with the torture-torn
+legs.</p>
+
+<p>"If I go fast, you guys are going to suffer the agonies
+of hell," he said, "and if I go slow this guy with the
+hemorrhage will croak before we get there. How do you
+want me to drive?"</p>
+
+<p>There was not a minute's silence. The three broken
+leg cases responded almost in unison.</p>
+
+<p>"Go as fast as you can," they said.</p>
+
+<p>And we did. With Hartzell riding the running board
+beside me and the crater finder clinging to the mud
+guards on the other side, we sped through the darkness
+regardless of the ruts and shell holes. The jolting was
+severe but never once did there come another complaint
+from the occupants of the ambulance.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner did we arrive in time at the first medical
+clearing station. I learned later that the life of the
+man with the hemorrhage was saved and he is alive
+to-day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The clearing station was located in an old church on
+the outskirts of a little village. Four times during this
+war the flow and ebb of battle had passed about this old
+edifice. Hartzell half carried me off the ambulance seat
+and into the church. As I felt my feet scrape on the flagstoned
+flooring underneath the Gothic entrance arch, I
+opened my right eye for a painful survey of the interior.</p>
+
+<p>The walls, grey with age, appeared yellow in the light
+of the candles and lanterns that were used for illumination.
+Blankets, and bits of canvas and carpet had been
+tacked over the apertures where once stained glass windows
+and huge oaken doors had been. These precautions
+were necessary to prevent the lights from shining outside
+the building and betraying our location to the hospital-loving
+eyes of German bombing 'planes whose motors we
+could hear even at that minute, humming in the black
+sky above us.</p>
+
+<p>Our American wounded were lying on stretchers all
+over the floor. Near the door, where I entered, a number
+of pews had been pushed to one side and on these our
+walking wounded were seated. They were smoking cigarettes
+and talking and passing observations on every
+fresh case that came through the door. They all seemed
+to be looking at me.</p>
+
+<p>My appearance must have been sufficient to have
+shocked them. I was hatless and my hair was matted
+with blood. The red-stained bandage around my forehead
+and extending down over my left cheek did not
+hide the rest of my face, which was unwashed, and consequently
+red with fresh blood.</p>
+
+<p>On my left side I was completely bare from the shoulder
+to the waist with the exception of the strips of white-cloth
+about my arm and shoulder. My chest was splashed
+with red from the two body wounds. Such was my entrance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+I must have looked somewhat grewsome because
+I happened to catch an involuntary shudder as it passed
+over the face of one of my observers among the walking
+wounded and I heard him remark to the man next to
+him:</p>
+
+<p>"My God, look what they're bringing in."</p>
+
+<p>Hartzell placed me on a stretcher on the floor and
+went for water, which I sorely needed. I heard some
+one stop beside my stretcher and bend over me, while
+a kindly voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like a cigarette, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied. He lighted one in his own lips
+and placed it in my mouth. I wanted to know my benefactor.
+I asked him for his name and organisation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not a soldier," he said; "I am a non-combatant,
+the same as you. My name is Slater and I'm from the
+Y. M. C. A."</p>
+
+<p>That cigarette tasted mighty good. If you who read
+this are one of those whose contributions to the Y. M. C. A.
+made that distribution possible, I wish to herewith
+express to you my gratefulness and the gratefulness
+of the other men who enjoyed your generosity that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>In front of what had been the altar in the church,
+there had been erected a rudely constructed operation
+table. The table was surrounded with tall candelabrum
+of brass and gilded wood. These ornate accessories had
+been removed from the altar for the purpose of providing
+better light for the surgeons who busied themselves
+about the table in their long gowns of white&mdash;stained
+with red.</p>
+
+<p>I was placed on that table for an examination and I
+heard a peculiar conversation going on about me. One
+doctor said, "We haven't any more of it." Then another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+doctor said, "But I thought we had plenty." The
+first voice replied, "Yes, but we didn't expect so many
+wounded. We have used up all we had." Then the
+second voice said, "Well, we certainly need it now. I
+don't know what we're going to do without it."</p>
+
+<p>From their further conversation I learned that the
+subject under discussion was anti-tetanus serum&mdash;the
+all-important inoculation that prevents lockjaw and is
+also an antidote for the germs of gas gangrene. You
+may be sure I became more than mildly interested in the
+absence of this valuable boon, but there was nothing I
+could say that would help the case, so I remained quiet. In
+several minutes my composure was rewarded. I heard
+hurried footsteps across the flagstoned flooring and a
+minute later felt a steel needle penetrating my abdomen.
+Then a cheery voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, now, we've got plenty of it. We've
+got just piles of it. The Red Cross just shot it out from
+Paris in limousines."</p>
+
+<p>After the injection Hartzell informed me that the
+doctors could do nothing for me at that place and that
+I was to be moved further to the rear. He said ambulances
+were scarce but he had found a place for me in a
+returning ammunition truck. I was carried out of the
+church and somewhere in the outer darkness was lifted
+up into the body of the truck and laid down on some straw
+in the bottom. There were some fifteen or twenty other
+men lying there beside me.</p>
+
+<p>The jolting in this springless vehicle was severe, but
+its severity was relieved in some of our cases by the quieting
+injections we had received. The effects of these narcotics
+had worn off in some of the men and they suffered
+the worse for it. One of them continually called out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+to the truck driver to go slower and make less jolting.
+To each request the driver responded that he was going
+as slow as he could. As the jolting continued the man
+with the complaining nerves finally yelled out a new
+request. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you can't make it easier by going slow, then
+for God's sake throw her into high and go as fast as you
+can. Let's get it over as quick as we can."</p>
+
+<p>Lying on my back in the truck with a raincoat as a
+pillow, I began to wonder where we were bound for.
+I opened my eye once and looked up toward the roof of
+the leafy tunnel which covered the road. Soon we passed
+out from beneath the trees bordering the roadside and
+I could see the sky above. The moon was out and
+there were lots of stars. They gave one something to
+think about. After all, how insignificant was one little
+life.</p>
+
+<p>In this mood, something in the jolting of the camion
+brought to my mind the metre and words of George
+Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion Caravan," and I
+repeat it from memory:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Winding down through sleeping town<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Pale stars of early dawn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like ancient knight with squire by side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Driver and helper now we ride&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The camion caravan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"In between the rows of trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glare of the mid-day sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Creeping along the highway wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slowly in long defile, we ride&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The camion caravan.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Homeward to <i>remorque</i> and rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Pale stars of early night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through stillness of the eventide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back through the winding town we ride&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The camion caravan."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Sometime during the dark hours of the early morning
+we stopped in the courtyard of a hospital and I was taken
+into another examination room illuminated with painfully
+brilliant lights. I was placed on a table for an
+examination, which seemed rather hurried, and then the
+table was rolled away some distance down a corridor.
+I never understood that move until some weeks later
+when a Lieutenant medical officer told me that it was he
+who had examined me at that place.</p>
+
+<p>"You're looking pretty fit, now," he said, "but that
+night when I saw you I ticketed you for the dead pile.
+You didn't look like you could live till morning."</p>
+
+<p>His statement gave me some satisfaction. There is
+always joy in fooling the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Hartzell, who still accompanied me, apparently rescued
+me from the "dead pile" and we started on another
+motor trip, this time on a stretcher in a large, easier-riding
+ambulance. In this I arrived shortly after dawn
+at the United States Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine,
+on the outskirts of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>There were more hurried examinations and soon I
+was rolled down a corridor on a wheeled table, into an
+elevator that started upward. Then the wheeled table
+raced down another long corridor and I began to feel
+that my journeyings were endless. We stopped finally
+in a room where I distinctly caught the odour of ether.
+Some one began removing my boots and clothes. As
+that some one worked he talked to me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know you, Mr. Gibbons," he said. "I'm from Chicago
+also. I am Sergeant Stephen Hayes. I used to go
+to Hyde Park High School. We're going to fix you up
+right away."</p>
+
+<p>I learned from Hayes that I was lying in a room adjoining
+the operating chamber and was being prepared
+for the operating table. Some information concerning
+the extent of my injuries and the purpose of the operation
+would have been comforting and would have relieved
+the sensation of utter helpless childishness that I was
+experiencing.</p>
+
+<p>I knew I was about to go under the influence of
+the anesthetic and that something was going to be done
+to me. I had every confidence that whatever was done
+would be for the best but it was perfectly natural that I
+should be curious about it. Was the operation to be
+a serious one or a minor one? Would they have to remove
+my eye? Would they have to operate on my skull?
+How about the arm? Would there be an amputation?
+How about the other eye? Would I ever see again?
+It must be remembered that in spite of all the examinations
+I had not been informed and consequently had no
+knowledge concerning the extent of my injuries. The
+only information I had received had been included in
+vague remarks intended as soothing, such as "You're all
+right, old man." "You'll pull through fine." "You're
+coming along nicely." But all of it had seemed too professionally
+optimistic to satisfy me and my doubts still
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>They were relieved, however, by the pressure of a hand
+and the sound of a voice. In the words spoken and in
+the pressure of the hand, there was hardly anything different
+from similar hand pressures and similar spoken
+phrases that had come to me during the night, yet there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
+was everything different. This voice and this hand carried
+supreme confidence. I could believe in both of them.
+I felt the hand pressure on my right shoulder and the
+mild kindly voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Son, I am going to operate on you. I have examined
+you and you are all right. You are going to come
+through fine. Don't worry about anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, very much," I said, "I like your voice.
+It sounds like my father's. Will you tell me your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Major Powers," the kindly voice said. "Now
+just take it easy, and I will talk to you again in a couple
+of hours when you feel better."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker, as I learned later, was Major Charles
+Powers, of Denver, Colorado, one of the best-known and
+best-loved surgeons in the West. A man far advanced
+in his profession and well advanced in his years, a man
+whose life has not been one of continual health, a man
+who, upon America's entry of the war, sacrificed the
+safety of the beneficial air rarity of his native Denver
+to answer the country's call, to go to France at great
+personal risk to his health&mdash;a risk only appreciated by
+those who know him well. It was Major Powers who
+operated upon the compound fracture in my skull that
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>My mental note-taking continued as the anesthetist
+worked over me with the ether. As I began breathing
+the fumes I remember that my senses were keenly making
+observations on every sensation I experienced. The
+thought even went through my mind that it would be
+rather an unusual thing to report completely the impressions
+of coma. This suggestion became a determination
+and I became keyed up to everything going on
+about me.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation of the young doctor who was administering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>
+the anesthetic interested me unusually. He
+was very busy and business-like and although I considered
+myself an important and most interested party
+in the entire proceedings, his conversation ignored me
+entirely. He not only did not talk to me, but he was not
+even talking about me. As he continued to apply the
+ether, he kept up a running fire of entirely extraneous
+remarks with some other person near the table. I did
+not appreciate then, as I do now, that I was only one
+of very, very many that he had anesthetised that morning
+and the night before, but at the time his seeming lack
+of all interest in me as me, piqued me considerably.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you feeling my pulse?" I said. I could not
+feel his hand on either of my wrists, but I asked the
+question principally to inject myself into the conversation
+in some way or other, preferably in some way that
+would call him to account, as I had by this time aroused
+within me a keen and healthy dislike for this busy little
+worker whom I could not see but who stood over me
+and carried on conversations with other people to my
+utter and complete exclusion. And all the time he was
+engaged in feeding me the fumes that I knew would soon
+steal away my senses.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, never you mind about your pulse," he replied
+somewhat peevishly. "I'm taking care of this."
+It seemed to me from the tone of his voice that he implied
+I was talking about something that was none of
+my business and I had the distinct conviction that if
+the proceedings were anybody's business, they certainly
+were mine.</p>
+
+<p>"You will pardon me for manifesting a mild interest
+in what you are doing to me," I said, "but you see I
+know that something is going to be done to my right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+eye and inasmuch as that is the only eye I've got on that
+side, I can't help being concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you just forget it and take deep breaths, and
+say, Charlie, did you see that case over in Ward 62?
+That was a wonderful case. The bullet hit the man in
+the head and they took the lead out of his stomach.
+He's got the bullet on the table beside him now. Talk
+about bullet eaters&mdash;believe me, those Marines sure are."</p>
+
+<p>I hurled myself back into the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take deep breaths if you'll loosen the straps over
+my chest," I said, getting madder each minute. "How
+can I take a full breath when you've got my lungs
+strapped down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how's that?" responded the conversational
+anesthetist, as he loosened one of the straps. "Now,
+take one breath of fresh air&mdash;one deep, long breath,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>I turned my head to one side to escape the fumes from
+the stifling towel over my face and made a frenzied gulp
+for fresh air. As I did so, one large drop of ether fell
+on the table right in front of my nose and the deep
+long breath I got had very little air in it. I felt I had
+been tricked.</p>
+
+<p>"You're pretty cute, old timer, aren't you?" I remarked
+to the anesthetist for the purpose of letting him
+know that I was on to his game, but either he didn't
+hear me, or he was too interested in telling Charlie about
+his hopes and ambitions to be sent to the front with a
+medical unit that worked under range of the guns. He
+returned to a consideration of me with the following
+remark:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, he's under now; where's the next one?"</p>
+
+<p>"The hell I am," I responded hastily, as visions of
+knives and saws and gimlets and brain chisels went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+through my mind. I had no intention or desire of being
+conscious when the carpenters and plumbers started to
+work on me.</p>
+
+<p>I was completely ignored and the table started moving.
+We rolled across the floor and there commenced a clicking
+under the back of my head, not unlike the sound made
+when the barber lowers or elevates the head-rest on his
+chair. The table rolled seemingly a long distance down
+a long corridor and then came to the top of a slanting
+runway.</p>
+
+<p>As I started riding the table down the runway I began
+to see that I was descending an inclined tube which
+seemed to be filled with yellow vapour. Some distance
+down, the table slowed up and we came to a stop in
+front of a circular bulkhead in the tunnel.</p>
+
+<p>There was a door in the centre of the bulkhead and
+in the centre of the door there was a small wicket window
+which opened and two grotesquely smiling eyes
+peered out at me. Those eyes inspected me from head
+to foot and then, apparently satisfied, they twinkled and
+the wicket closed with a snap. Then the door opened
+and out stepped a quaint and curious figure with gnarled
+limbs and arms and a peculiar misshapen head, completely
+covered with a short growth of black hair.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed outright, laughed hilariously. I recognised
+the man. The last time I had seen him was when he
+stepped out of a gas tank on the 18th floor of an office
+building in Chicago where I was reclining at the time
+in a dentist chair. He was the little gas demon who
+walked with me through the Elysian fields the last time
+I had a tooth pulled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well you poor little son-of-a-gun," I said, by way of
+greeting. "What are you doing way over here in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
+France? I haven't seen you for almost two years, since
+that day back in Chicago."</p>
+
+<p>The gas demon rolled his head from one side to the
+other and smiled, but I can't remember what he said.
+My mental note-taking concluded about there because
+the next memory I have is of complete darkness, and lying
+on my back in a cramped position while a horse
+trampled on my left arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Back off of there," I shouted, but the animal's hoofs
+didn't move. The only effect my shouting had was
+to bring a soft hand into my right one, and a sweet
+voice close beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"You're all right, now," said the sweet voice, "just
+try to take a little nap and you'll feel better."</p>
+
+<p>Then I knew it was all over, that is, the operation was
+over, or something was over. Anyhow my mind was
+working and I was in a position where I wanted to know
+things again. I recall now, with a smile, that the first
+things that passed through my mind were the threadbare
+bromides so often quoted "Where am I?" I recall feeling
+the urge to say something at least original, so I
+enquired:</p>
+
+<p>"What place is this, and will you please tell me what
+day and time it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is the Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine
+just on the outskirts of Paris, and it is about
+eleven o'clock in the morning and to-day is Friday, June
+the seventh."</p>
+
+<p>Then I went back to sleep with an etherised taste in
+my mouth like a motorman's glove.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>There were fourteen wounded American soldiers in
+my ward&mdash;all men from the ranks and representing
+almost as many nationalistic extractions. There was an
+Irishman, a Swede, an Italian, a Jew, a Pole, one man
+of German parentage, and one man of Russian extraction.
+All of them had been wounded at the front and
+all of them now had something nearer and dearer to them
+than any traditions that might have been handed down to
+them from a mother country&mdash;they had fought and
+bled and suffered for a new country, <i>their</i> new country.</p>
+
+<p>Here in this ward was the new melting pot of America.
+Not the melting pot of our great American cities where
+nationalistic quarters still exist, but a greater fusion
+process from which these men had emerged with unquestionable
+Americanism. They are the real and the
+new Americans&mdash;born in the hell of battle.</p>
+
+<p>One night as we lay there, we heard an automobile
+racing through a street in this sleepy, warm little
+<i>faubourg</i> of Paris. The motor was sounding on its
+siren a call that was familiar to all of us. It was the
+alarm of a night attack from the air. It meant that
+German planes had crossed the front line and were on
+their way with death and destruction for Paris.</p>
+
+<p>A nurse entered the room and drew the curtains of
+the tall windows to keep from our eyes the flash and the
+glitter of the shells that soon began to burst in the sky
+above us as the aerial defences located on the outer circle
+of the city began to erect a wall of bursting steel around<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+the French capital. We could hear the guns barking
+close by and occasionally the louder boom that told us
+one of the German bombs had landed. Particles of
+shrapnel began falling in the garden beneath the windows
+of our ward and we could hear the rattle of the pieces
+on the slate roof of a pavilion there. It is most unpleasant,
+it goes without saying, to lie helpless on one's
+back and grapple with the realisation that directly over
+your head&mdash;right straight above your eyes and face&mdash;is
+an enemy airplane loaded with bombs. Many of us
+knew that those bombs contained, some of them, more
+than two hundred pounds of melilite and some of us
+had witnessed the terrific havoc they wrought when they
+landed on a building. All of us knew, as the world
+knows, the particular attraction that hospitals have for
+German bombs.</p>
+
+<p>The aerial bombardment subsided after some ten or
+fifteen minutes and soon we heard the motor racing back
+through the streets while a musician in the car sounded
+on a bugle the "prologue" or the signal that the raid
+was over. The invaders had been driven back. All of
+us in the ward tried to sleep. But nerves tingled from
+this more or less uncomfortable experience and wounds
+ached and burned. Sleep was almost out of the question,
+and in the darkened ward I soon noticed the red
+glow of cigarette after cigarette from bed to bed as the
+men sought to woo relief with tobacco smoke.</p>
+
+<p>We began to discuss a subject very near and very dear
+to all wounded men. That is, what they are going to
+do as soon as they get out of the hospital. It is known,
+of course, that the first consideration usually is, to return
+to the front, but in many instances in our ward,
+this was entirely out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with Dan Bailey who occupied a bed two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
+beds on my right. His left leg was off above the knee.
+He lost it going over the top at Cantigny.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what I'm going to do when I get home," he
+said, "I am going to get a job as an instructor in a
+roller skating rink."</p>
+
+<p>In a bed on the other side of the ward was a young
+man with his right arm off. His name was Johnson
+and he had been a musician. In time of battle, musicians
+lay aside their trombones and cornets and go over the
+top with the men, only they carry stretchers instead of
+rifles. Johnson had done this. Something had exploded
+quite close to him and his entire recollection of
+the battle was that he had awakened being carried back
+on his own stretcher.</p>
+
+<p>"I know where I can sure get work," he said, glancing
+down at the stump of his lost arm. "I am going to
+sign up as a pitcher with the St. Louis Nationals."</p>
+
+<p>Days later when I looked on Johnson for the first time,
+I asked him if he wasn't Irish, and he said no. Then
+I asked him where he lost his arm and he replied, "At
+the yoint." And then I knew where he came from.</p>
+
+<p>But concerning after-the-war occupations, I endeavoured
+that night to contribute something in a similar
+vein to the general discussion, and I suggested the possibility
+that I might return to give lessons on the monocle.</p>
+
+<p>The prize prospect, however, was submitted by a man
+who occupied a bed far over in one corner of the room.
+He was the possessor of a polysyllabic name&mdash;a name
+sprinkled with k's, s's and z's, with a scarcity of vowels&mdash;a
+name that we could not pronounce, much less remember.
+On account of his size we called him "Big
+Boy." His was a peculiar story.</p>
+
+<p>He had been captured by three Germans who were
+marching him back to their line. In telling me the story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>
+Big Boy said, "Mr. Gibbons, I made up my mind as I
+walked back with them that I might just as well be dead
+as to spend the rest of the war studying German."</p>
+
+<p>So he had struck the man on the right and the one on
+the left and had downed both of them, but the German
+in back of him, got him with the bayonet. A nerve
+centre in his back was severed by the slash of the steel
+that extended almost from one shoulder to the other, and
+Big Boy had fallen to the ground, his arms and legs
+powerless. Then the German with the bayonet robbed
+him. Big Boy enumerated the loss to me,&mdash;fifty-three
+dollars and his girl's picture.</p>
+
+<p>Although paralysed and helpless, there was nothing
+down in the mouth about Big Boy&mdash;indeed, he provided
+most of the fun in the ward. He had an idea all of
+his own about what he was going to do after the war
+and he let us know about it that night.</p>
+
+<p>"All of you guys have told what you're going to do,"
+he said, "now I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going
+back to that little town of mine in Ohio and go down
+to the grocery store and sit there on a soap box on the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm going to gather all the little boys in the
+neighbourhood round about me and then I'm going to
+outlie the G. A. R."</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing in that ward that nobody could lie
+about and that was the twitches of pain we suffered in
+the mornings when the old dressings of the day before
+were changed and new ones applied.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and his woman assistant who had charge
+of the surgical dressings on that corridor would arrive
+in the ward shortly after breakfast. They would be
+wheeling in front of them a rubber-tired, white-enamelled
+vehicle on which were piled the jars of antiseptic gauze<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
+and trays of nickel-plated instruments, which both the
+doctor and his assistant would handle with rubber-gloved
+hands. In our ward that vehicle was known as the
+"Agony Cart," and every time it stopped at the foot of
+a bed you would be pretty sure to hear a groan or a stifled
+wail in a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>We had various ways of expressing or suppressing the
+pain. You who have had a particularly vicious mustard
+plaster jerked off that tender spot in the back, right
+between the shoulders, have some small conception of
+the delicate sensation that accompanies the removal of old
+gauze from a healing wound.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the men would grit their teeth and grunt,
+others would put their wrists in their mouths and bite
+themselves during the operation. Some others would
+try to keep talking to the doctor or the nurse while the
+ordeal was in progress and others would just simply
+shout. There was little satisfaction to be gained from
+these expressions of pain because while one man was
+yelling the other thirteen in the ward were shouting with
+glee and chaffing him, and as soon as his wounds had
+been redressed he would join in the laughs at the expense
+of those who followed him.</p>
+
+<p>There was a Jewish boy in the ward and he had a particularly
+painful shell wound in his right leg. He was
+plucky about the painful treatment and used to say to
+the doctor, "Don't mind me yelling, doc. I can't help it,
+but you just keep right on."</p>
+
+<p>The Jew boy's cry of pain as near as I can reproduce
+it went something like this, "Oy! Oy!! Oy!!! YOY!!!
+Doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>The Jew boy's clear-toned enunciation of this Yiddish
+lullaby, as the rest of the ward called it, brought many
+a heartless, fiendish laugh from the occupants of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>
+other beds. We almost lost one of our patients on
+account of that laugh. He nearly laughed himself to
+death&mdash;in fact.</p>
+
+<p>This near victim of uncontrollable risibilities was an
+Italian boy from the East Side of New York. A piece
+of shrapnel had penetrated one of his lungs and pleurisy
+had developed in the other one. It had become necessary
+to operate on one of the lungs and tape it down.
+The boy had to do his best to breathe with one lung that
+was affected by pleurisy. Every breath was like the
+stab of a knife and it was quite natural that the patient
+would be peevish and garrulous. The whole ward called
+him the "dying Wop." But his name was Frank.</p>
+
+<p>When the Jew boy would run the scale with his torture
+cry, the "dying Wop" would be forced to forget his
+laboured breathing and give vent to laughter. These
+almost fatal laughs sounded something like this:</p>
+
+<p>"He! Hee!! Hee!!! (on a rising inflection and then
+much softer) Oh, Oh, Oh! Stop him, stop him, stop
+him!" The "He-Hee's" were laughs, but the "Oh-oh's"
+were excruciating pain.</p>
+
+<p>Frank grew steadily worse and had to be removed
+from the ward. Weeks afterward I went back to see
+him and found him much thinner and considerably
+weaker. He occupied a bed on one of the pavilions in
+the garden. He was still breathing out of that one
+lung and between gasps he told me that six men had
+died in the bed next to him. Then he smiled up at
+me with a look in his eyes that seemed to say, "But
+they haven't croaked the 'dying Wop' yet."</p>
+
+<p>"This here&mdash;hospital stuff&mdash;&mdash;" Frank told me slowly,
+and between gasps, "is the big fight after all. I know&mdash;I
+am fighting here&mdash;against death&mdash;and am going to win
+out, too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to win out even though it is harder to
+fight&mdash;than fighting&mdash;the Germans&mdash;up front. We Italians
+licked Hell out of them&mdash;a million years ago. Old
+General Cæsar did it and he used to bring them back
+to Rome and put 'em in white-wing suits on the streets."</p>
+
+<p>For all his quaint knowledge of Cæsar's successes
+against the progenitors of Kulturland of to-day, Frank
+was all American. Here was a rough-cut young American
+from the streets of New York's Little Italy. Here
+was a man who had almost made the supreme sacrifice.
+Here was a man who, if he did escape death, faced long
+weakened years ahead. It occurred to me that I would
+like to know, that it would be interesting to know, in
+what opinion this wounded American soldier, the son
+of uneducated immigrant parents, would hold the Chief
+Executive of the United States, the man he would most
+likely personify as responsible for the events that led
+up to his being wounded on the battlefield.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank," I asked, "what do you think about the President
+of the United States?"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to be considering for a minute, or maybe
+he was only waiting to gather sufficient breath to make
+an answer. He had been lying with his eyes directed
+steadfastly toward the ceiling. Now he turned his face
+slowly toward me. His eyes, sunken slightly in their
+sockets, shone feverishly. His pinched, hollow cheeks
+were still swarthy, but the background of the white pillow
+made them look wan. Slowly he moistened his lips,
+and then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Say&mdash;say&mdash;that guy&mdash;that guy's&mdash;got hair&mdash;on his
+chest."</p>
+
+<p>That was the opinion of the "dying Wop."</p>
+
+<p>After Frank's removal from our ward, the rest of us
+frequently sent messages of cheer down to him. These<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>
+messages were usually carried by a young American
+woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not
+strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing
+uniform on the same day that most of us arrived in that
+ward. She was one of the American women who
+brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She
+wrote letters for us to our mothers. She worked long
+hours, night and day, for us. In her absence, one day,
+the ward went into session and voted her its guardian
+angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Present"
+instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was
+and is my wife.</p>
+
+<p>As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife's duties
+to handle the matter of visitors, of which there were
+many. It seemed, during those early days in June, that
+every American woman in France dropped whatever war
+work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals
+to be of whatever service she could. And it was not
+easy work these women accomplished. There was very
+little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving picture nursing."
+Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan cleaning.
+They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to perform.
+Many of them worked themselves sick during
+the long hours of that rush period.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy
+of some of the visitors produced humourous little incidents
+in our hospital life. Nearly all of the women entering
+our ward would stop at the foot of "Big Boy's"
+bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from
+the chart attached to the foot of the bed. Then they
+would mournfully shake their heads and slowly pronounce
+the words "Poor boy."</p>
+
+<p>And above all things in the world distasteful to Big
+Boy was that one expression "Poor boy" because as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>
+soon as the kindly intentioned women would leave the
+room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy"
+chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however,
+before leaving the ward the woman visitor would take
+from a cluster of flowers on her arm, one large red rose
+and this she would solemnly deposit on Big Boy's defenceless
+chest.</p>
+
+<p>Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would
+accept and interpret as one of deep, undying gratitude.
+The kindly-intentioned one surrounding herself with
+that benediction that is derived from a sacred duty well
+performed, would walk slowly from the room and as
+the door would close behind her, Big Boy's gruff drawling
+voice would sing out in a call for the orderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would
+order.</p>
+
+<p>Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in
+the hospital. Big Boy liked to smoke, but, being paralysed,
+he required assistance. At regular intervals during
+the day the ward room door, which was close to Big
+Boy's bed, would open slowly and through the gap four
+or six inches wide the rest of the ward would get a
+glimpse of Dan standing in the opening with his arms
+piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging
+from the corner of his mouth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs14.jpg" width="500" height="326" alt="THE NEWS FROM THE STATES" title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE NEWS FROM THE STATES</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/gs15.jpg" width="500" height="323" alt="SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert
+hand and arm through the opening in the door until it
+hovered above Big Boy's face. Then the hand would
+descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big Boy's
+mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion.
+Big Boy would lie back comfortably and puff away like
+a Mississippi steamboat for four or five minutes and
+then the door would open just a crack again, the mysterious
+hand and arm would reach in once more and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
+cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big
+Boy got his "smokes."</p>
+
+<p>If Big Boy's voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer
+voice that used to come from a man in the corner of
+the ward to the left of my bed. During the first four
+or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was most
+interested in all the voices I heard because I lay in total
+darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of
+my head to my upper lip, and I did not know whether or
+not I ever would see again. I would listen carefully to
+all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from doctors,
+nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from
+them I might learn whether or not there was a possibility
+of my regaining vision. But all of their remarks with
+regard to my condition were ambiguous and unsatisfactory.
+But from this I gained a listening habit and that
+was how I became particularly interested in the very
+gruff voice that came from the corner on my left.</p>
+
+<p>Other patients directing remarks into that corner would
+address them to a man whom they would call by name
+"Red Shannahan." I was quick to connect the gruff
+voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had
+lots of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my
+mind's eye a picture of a tall, husky, rough and ready,
+tough Irishman, with red hair&mdash;a man of whom it
+would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two
+or three German regiments before they got him. To find
+out more about this character, I called over to him one
+day.</p>
+
+<p>"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I'm here," came the reply, and I
+was immensely surprised because it was not the gruff voice
+at all. It was the mild, unchanged voice of a boy, a boy
+whose tones were still in the upper register. The reply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
+seemed almost girlish in comparison with the gruffer
+tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner
+of this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be
+known by any such name as "Red Shannahan." I determined
+upon further investigation.</p>
+
+<p>"Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you
+became a United States soldier?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, "I
+am from Baltimore. I drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop,
+the canary bird and gold fish man."</p>
+
+<p>All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and
+gold fish tamer was that he had killed two Germans and
+captured three before they got him.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there
+appeared one day a man I had not seen in many years.
+When I knew him last he had been a sport-loving fellow-student
+of mine at college and one of the fastest, hardest-fighting
+ends our 'Varsity football squad ever had.
+Knowing this disposition of the man, I was quite surprised
+to see on the sleeve of his khaki service uniform
+the red shield and insignia of the Knights of Columbus.</p>
+
+<p>I was well aware of the very valuable work done by
+this institution wherever American soldiers are in France,
+but I could not imagine this former college chum of
+mine being engaged in such work instead of being in
+the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib,
+do you remember that game with the Indians on
+Thanksgiving Day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might
+as well call MacDougal inasmuch as that was not his
+name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me three
+years later."</p>
+
+<p>I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C. and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>
+I wondered what service he would perform in our ward
+in the name of his organisation. I soon found out.
+Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bedside
+of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off,
+who was lying in a bed on my right. MacDougal walked
+back and forth two or three times past the foot of
+Bailey's bed.</p>
+
+<p>"How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I
+walk all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what's the
+matter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>MacDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping
+up and down and across the floor at the foot of Bailey's
+bed. Finishing these exercises breathlessly, he again addressed
+himself to the sufferer with one leg.</p>
+
+<p>"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything the matter with you," replied
+Bailey, "unless it is that you're in the wrong ward."</p>
+
+<p>Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey's bedside where
+the boy with one leg could watch him closely. MacDougal
+took his cane and struck his own right leg a
+resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of
+the blow that the leg he struck was wooden.</p>
+
+<p>In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the
+life of Dan Bailey new interest and new prospects. He
+proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of his life Dan
+Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump
+and skip and hop almost as well as people with two
+good legs. That was the service performed by the
+Knights of Columbus in our ward.</p>
+
+<p>There was one other organisation in that hospital that
+deserves mention. It was the most exclusive little clique
+and rather inclined towards snobbishness. I was a member<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
+of it. We used to look down on the ordinary
+wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either
+rightly or wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death
+comes mighty close when it nicks an eye out of your
+head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the no-eyed
+cases received attention in one certain ward, and it
+was to this ward after my release from the hospital that
+I used to go every day for fresh dressings for my
+wounds. Every time I entered the ward a delegation
+of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present
+me with a petition. In this petition I was asked and
+urged to betake myself to the hospital library, to probe
+the depths of the encyclopædias and from their wordy
+innards tear out one name for the organisation of the
+one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said,
+and the insistence was that the name above all should
+be a "classy" name. So it came to pass that after much
+research and debate one name was accepted and from that
+time on we became known as the Cyclops Club.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of
+the work in that ward. Hundreds of American soldiers
+for long years after the war will thank him for seeing.
+I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell.
+The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day
+when one of the doctor's assistants entered carrying
+several flat, hard wood cases, each of them about a yard
+square. The cases opened like a book and were laid flat
+on the table. Their interiors were lined with green velvet
+and there on the shallow receptacles in the green
+velvet were just dozens of eyes, gleaming unblinkingly
+up at us.</p>
+
+<p>A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclopians
+gathered around the table. There was a grand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>
+grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a handful.
+There was some difficulty reassorting the grabs. Of
+course, it happened, that fellows that really needed blue
+or grey ones, managed to get hold of black ones or
+brown ones, and some confusion existed while they
+traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades
+and sizes.</p>
+
+<p>One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition
+to having lost one eye, he had received about a pound
+and a half of assorted hardware in his back, and these
+flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been
+sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution
+of the glassware. He apparently became alarmed with
+the thought that he was going to be left out of consideration.
+I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he shouted
+clear across the ward:</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Doc, pass the grapes."</p>
+
+<p>When it became possible for me to leave that hospital,
+I went to another one three blocks away. This was
+a remarkable institution that had been maintained by
+wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I
+was assigned to a room on the third floor&mdash;a room adjoining
+a sun parlour, overlooking a beautiful Old World
+garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges, trees and shrubbery.</p>
+
+<p>In early June, when that flood of American wounded
+had come back from the Marne, it had become necessary
+to erect hospital ward tents in the garden and there a
+number of our wounded were cared for. I used to
+notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from
+one of the small tents a small white cot on which there
+lay an American soldier. They would place the cot
+on the green grass where the sunlight, finding its way
+through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>
+upon the form of this young&mdash;this very young&mdash;fighter
+from the U. S. A.</p>
+
+<p>He was just two months over seventeen years of age.
+He had deliberately and patriotically lied one year on
+his age in order that he might go to France and fight
+beneath our flag.</p>
+
+<p>He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate
+how badly. There were no bandages about his head,
+arms or body. There was nothing to suggest the severity
+of his injuries&mdash;nothing save his small round spot on
+the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away
+the hair&mdash;just a small round spot that marked the place
+where a piece of German hand-grenade had touched the
+skull.</p>
+
+<p>This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could
+not remember&mdash;all had slipped his mind save for the
+three or four lines of one little song, which was the sole
+remaining memory that bridged the gap of four thousand
+miles between him and his home across the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Over and over again he would sing it all day long as
+he lay there on the cot with the sunlight streaming all
+over him. His sweet boyish voice would come up
+through the leafy branches to the windows of my room.</p>
+
+<p>I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the
+window listening to him. Then I would notice that
+her shoulders would shake convulsively and she would
+walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the
+song the little fellow sang was this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Just try to picture me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back home in Tennessee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Right by my mother's knee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She thinks the world of me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She will be there to meet me<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">With a hug and kiss she'll greet me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I get back, when I get back<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To my home in Tennessee."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>American doctors and American nurses, both by their
+skill and care and tenderness, nursed that little fellow
+back to complete recovery, made him remember everything
+and shortly afterward, well and cured, he started
+back, safe and sound, to his home in Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing I can ever say will overstate my estimation
+of the credit that is deserved by our American doctors
+and nurses for the great work they are doing. I am not
+alone in knowing this. I call to witness any Canadian,
+Englishman or Frenchman, that, if he is wounded, when
+in the ambulance, he usually voices one request, "Take
+me to an American hospital."</p>
+
+<p>I knew of one man who entered that United States
+Military Base Hospital near Paris, with one bullet
+through the shoulder, another through an arm, an eye
+shot out and a compound fracture of the skull, and those
+American doctors and nurses by their attention and
+skilfulness made it possible for him to step back into
+boots and breeches and walk out of the hospital in ten
+days.</p>
+
+<p>It so happens that I am somewhat familiar with the
+details in that case because I am the man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>"JULY 18TH"&mdash;THE TURN OF THE TIDE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's reserves,
+by the speedy arrival of American forces, the
+fourth German offensive of 1918, the personally directed
+effort launched by the Crown Prince on May
+27th, had been brought to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped
+by the Americans at Château-Thierry and in the Bois
+de Belleau. It would be an injustice not to record the
+great part played in that fighting by the French Army
+attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify
+as the French have gallantly done, that it was the timely
+arrival of American strength that swung the balance
+against the enemy. For the remainder of that month
+of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was
+considered local in its character.</p>
+
+<p>The German offensive had succeeded in pushing forward
+the enemy front until it formed a loop extending
+southward from the Aisne to the Valley of the Marne.
+This salient was called the Château-Thierry pocket. The
+line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to
+Château-Thierry, where it touched the Marne, thence
+eastward along both sides of the river to the vicinity of
+Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and extended northward
+to points beyond Rheims.</p>
+
+<p>Château-Thierry was thus the peak of the German
+push&mdash;the apex of the triangle pointing toward Paris.
+The enemy supplied its forces in this peak principally
+by the road that ran southward from Soissons and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
+touched the Marne at Château-Thierry. To the west
+of this road and just south of the city of Soissons, is
+the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The enemy occupied the
+northern and eastern limits of the forest and the remainder
+of it was in the hands of the French.</p>
+
+<p>This forest has always been considered one of the sentinels
+of Paris. It was located on the right flank of
+the German salient. It was a menace to that flank, and
+offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied counter
+offensive from that direction. The Germans were
+not unmindful of this.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets
+it would be possible for Marshal Foch to mobilise
+his much-feared reserves by taking advantage of the
+natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch reserve
+still remained a matter for enemy consideration
+in spite of the fact that the successive German offensive
+since March 21st had met with considerable success with
+regard to the acquisition of territory. The Germans,
+however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch
+had been forced to bring his reserves into the fight.</p>
+
+<p>The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy
+of the possible use of this reserve at any time and they
+knew that their lines in Villers-Cotterets Forest offered
+an ever present invitation for the sudden application of
+this reserve strength. Their lines at that point were
+necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied position
+and, as a consequence, the Germans guarded this
+weak spot by holding in reserve behind the line a number
+of divisions of the Prussian Guard.</p>
+
+<p>For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant
+observation of the French position. Their planes would
+fly over the forest every day taking photographs. They
+sought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>
+might be preparing to strike a blow from that place.
+They made careful note of the traffic along the roads
+through the forest. They maintained a careful watch
+to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were being
+concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to
+ascertain whether any additional hospital arrangements
+had been made by the French at that point. Any of
+these things would have indicated that the French were
+preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans
+found nothing to support their suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum
+strength. A belief existed among the German High
+Command that an attack might be made on July 4th,
+out of consideration to American sentiment. When the
+attack did not develop on that day, they then thought
+that the French might possibly spring the blow on July
+14th, in celebration of their own national fête day. And
+again they were disappointed in their surmises.</p>
+
+<p>This protracted delay of an impending blow worried
+the enemy. The Germans realised full well that
+they were fighting against time. Their faith in the capacity
+of their submarines to prevent American strength
+from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now
+knew that every day that passed meant just that many
+more American soldiers arriving in France, and the consequent
+strengthening of the Allied forces during a season
+when the Germans, through their repeated offensives,
+were suffering terrible losses and were consequently
+growing weaker.</p>
+
+<p>So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive
+had still failed to materialise, the German forces, by the
+necessity for time, moved to a sudden and faulty decision.
+They convinced themselves that they had overestimated
+the Allied strength. They accepted the belief<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>
+that the reason Foch had not attacked was because
+he did not have sufficient strength to attack. With this,
+then, as a basis for their plans, they immediately
+launched another offensive, hoping that this might be
+the one in which they could deliver the final blow.</p>
+
+<p>This action began on Monday morning, July 15th,
+and extended from Château-Thierry eastward along the
+valley of the Maine, northward to Rheims and thence
+eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of
+French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element
+of surprise in the attack. On the morning of the previous
+day, this patrol successfully raided the enemy lines
+to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners from
+whom it was learned that the Germans intended striking
+on the following morning. The objectives of the
+offensive were the French cities of Épernay and Châlons.
+The accomplishment of this effort would have placed the
+Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought
+the German lines southward to positions straddling the
+Marne, down the valley of which they would thus be
+able to launch another offensive on a straight road to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans needed considerable strength for this
+new effort. To muster the shock divisions necessary for
+the attack, they had to weaken their lines elsewhere.
+The first reserves that they drew for this offensive were
+the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding
+in readiness in back of the weak spot in their line
+in the Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were
+hurriedly transported across the base of the V-shaped
+salient and thrown into the attack to the east and the
+southwest of Rheims.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans found the Allied line prepared to receive
+them. Their attacking waves were mowed down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>
+with terrific machine gun fire from French and American
+gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery
+barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly
+effect in the massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting
+was particularly vicious. It was destined to be the Germans'
+last action of a grand offensive nature in the entire
+war.</p>
+
+<p>On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was
+particularly strong in one sector where it encountered
+the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow Division of United
+States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more
+different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama
+and New York held the front line. Iowa and Ohio were
+close in support. In the support positions, sturdy
+youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota
+manned the American artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The French general commanding the sector had not
+considered it possible that this comparatively small
+American force could withstand the first onslaught of
+the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a withdrawal
+to high ground two or three miles southward,
+from which he hoped to be able to resist the enemy to
+greater advantage. But all day long, through the 15th
+and the 16th and the 17th of July, those American lines
+held, and the advancing waves of German storm troops
+melted before our guns. Anticipating a renewal of the
+attack on the next day, General Gouraud issued an order
+on the evening of July 17th. It read:</p>
+
+<p>
+"<i>To the French and American Soldiers of the Army.</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"We may be attacked from one moment to another.
+You all feel that a defensive battle was
+never engaged in under more favourable conditions.
+We are warned, and we are on our guard. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>
+have received strong reinforcements of infantry and
+artillery. You will fight on ground, which, by your
+assiduous labour, you have transformed into a formidable
+fortress, into a fortress which is invincible
+if the passages are well guarded.</p>
+
+<p>"The bombardment will be terrible. You will
+endure it without weakness. The attack in a cloud
+of dust and gas will be fierce but your positions and
+your armament are formidable.</p>
+
+<p>"The strong and brave hearts of free men beat
+in your breast. None will look behind, none will
+give way. Every man will have but one thought&mdash;'Kill
+them, kill them in abundance, until they
+have had enough.' And therefore your General
+tells you it will be a glorious day."</p></div>
+
+<p>And so the line held, although the French General had
+in preparation the plans for withdrawal. When, at the
+end of the third day, the American line still occupied
+the same position, the French General found that his
+labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been
+for nothing. He is reported to have thrown his hands
+up in the air and remarked, "There doesn't seem to be
+anything to do but to let the war be fought out where
+the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight
+it."</p>
+
+<p>There was one humorous incident worthy of record in
+that fighting. Great rivalry existed between the New
+York regiment and the Alabama regiment, both of which
+happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the
+New Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred
+for the German but, in addition to that, each of them
+was possessed with a mutual dislike for the other. There
+had been frequent clashes of a more or less sportsmanlike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>
+and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had
+sent over low-flying airplanes which skimmed the tops
+of our trenches and sprayed them with machine gun
+fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from
+childhood with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accomplished
+something that had never been done before in the
+war. From his position in a trench, he took careful
+aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German
+planes. It was the first time in the history of the Western
+Front that a rifleman on the ground had done this.</p>
+
+<p>When the colonel of the New York regiment heard
+this, he was wild with envy and let it be known that
+there would be trouble brewing unless his regiment at
+least equalled the feat. So, on the following day, an
+Irishman in the ranks stood up and brought one German
+plane down to the credit of the old Sixty-ninth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>To the southwest of Rheims, Germans, who succeeded
+in breaking through the lines at one place on the south
+banks of the Marne, encountered American reinforcements
+and were annihilated to the number of five thousand.
+At no place did the enemy meet with the success
+desired.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans had launched their attack at six o'clock
+on the morning of July 15th. At Vaux their demonstration
+was considered a feint, but along the Marne to
+the east of Château-Thierry, between Fossy and Mezy,
+the assaulting waves advanced with fury and determination.
+At one place, twenty-five thousand of the enemy
+crossed the river, and the small American forces in front
+of them at that place were forced to retire on Conde-en-Bire.
+In a counter attack, we succeeded in driving fifteen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
+thousand of them back to the north bank, the remaining
+ten thousand representing casualties with the
+exception of fifteen hundred, who were captured.</p>
+
+<p>Further eastward, the Germans established bridgehead
+positions on the south bank of the river at Dormas.
+The enemy enjoyed a minor success in an attack on the
+line near Bligny to the southwest of Rheims, where Italian
+troops fought with remarkable valour. Everywhere
+else the lines held solid and upon the close of that first
+night, Marshal Foch said, "I am satisfied&mdash;<i>Je suis content</i>."</p>
+
+<p>At dawn the following day, the enemy's futile efforts
+were resumed along the river east of Château-Thierry.
+The Germans suffered appalling losses in their efforts to
+place pontoon bridges at Gland and at Mareuil-le-Port.
+St. Agnan and La Chapelle Monthodon fell into the
+hands of Americans on the same day.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th, the enemy's endeavours to reach Festigny
+on both banks of the river came to naught, but to the
+southeast of Rheims, his assaulting waves reached the
+northern limits of Montagne Forest. The Germans were
+trying to pinch out the Rheims salient. This was the
+condition of the opposing lines on the night of July 17th,&mdash;the
+night that preceded the day on which the tide of
+victory turned for the Allies.</p>
+
+<p>Foch was now ready to strike. The Allied Commander-in-Chief
+had decided to deliver his blow on the
+right flank of the German salient. The line chosen for
+the Allied assault was located between a point south of
+Soissons and Château-Thierry. It represented a front
+of some twenty-five miles extending southward from the
+valley of the Aisne to the Marne. Villers-Cotterets
+Forest was the key position for the Allies.</p>
+
+<p>It was from out that forest that the full strength of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>
+the blow was to be delivered. To make the blow effective
+at that most vital point, Marshal Foch needed a
+strong and dependable assaulting force. He needed
+three divisions of the hardest fighting soldiers that he
+could get. He had a considerable army to select from.
+As Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied armies, he was
+in command of all of the British army, all of the French
+army, all of the American army, the Italian, the Belgian,&mdash;all
+of the military forces of the Allied nations of
+the world. Marshal Foch's command numbered eleven
+million bayonets.</p>
+
+<p>The Commander-in-Chief had all of these veteran
+fighting men from which he could select the three divisions
+necessary to deliver this blow upon which the civilisation
+of the world depended.</p>
+
+<p>The first division he chose was the Foreign Legion
+of the French army. In four years of bloody fighting,
+the Foreign Legion, composed of soldiers of fortune
+from every country in the world, had never been absent
+in an attack. It had lived up thoroughly to its reputation
+as the most fearless unit of shock troops in the
+French army.</p>
+
+<p>And then for the other two divisions that were needed,
+Marshal Foch selected, from all the eleven million men
+under his command, the First and the Second Regular
+United States Army Divisions. The Second Division
+included the immortal Brigade of United States Marines,
+that had covered themselves with glory in the
+Bois de Belleau.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great distinction for those two American divisions
+to have thus been selected to play such a vital
+part in the entire war. It was an honour that every
+officer and man in both divisions felt keenly.</p>
+
+<p>I have in my map case a torn and much folded little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>
+piece of paper. I received it that night of July 17th in
+Villers-Cotterets Forest. A similar piece of paper was
+received by every officer in those two American divisions.
+To me this piece of paper represents the order
+which resulted in victory for the Allied world. It reads:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p><i>Headquarters Third Army Corps American Expeditionary Forces</i>,</p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+<i>France, July 17, 1918</i></p>
+<p>
+<i>Memorandum</i>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary
+Forces has been created and consists of the 1st. and 2nd.
+Divisions, two divisions that are known throughout
+France.</p>
+
+<p>Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been
+deemed worthy to be placed beside the best veteran
+French troops. See that you prove worthy. Remember
+that in what is now coming you represent the whole
+American nation.</p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+<span class="smcap">R. L. Bullard</span>,<br />
+Major General,<br />
+Commanding 3rd. Corps.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets
+Forest all day during the 17th, had seen nothing.
+The appearance of all the myriad roads that cross and
+recross the forest in all directions was normal. But that
+night things began to happen in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>For once at least, the elements were favourable to
+our cause. There was no moon. The night was very
+dark and under the trees the blackness seemed impenetrable.
+A heavy downpour of rain began and although
+it turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of
+the forest held much of the moisture and offered some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
+protection to the thousands of men who spent the night
+beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard it roll
+in France before. The sound drowned the occasional
+boom of distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes
+would be followed by blinding flashes of lightning as
+nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in the sombre sky and
+vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate front was silent&mdash;comparatively silent
+if one considered the din of the belligerent elements.
+In the opposing front lines in the northern and
+eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen
+alike huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.</p>
+
+<p>Then, along every road leading through the forest to
+the north and to the east, streams of traffic began to
+pour. All of it was moving forward toward the front.
+No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every
+inch of available road space was vitally necessary for
+the forces in movement. The roads that usually accommodated
+one line of vehicles moving forward and
+one line moving to the rear, now represented two streams&mdash;solid
+streams&mdash;moving forward. In those streams
+were gun carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts
+and grunting tractors hauling large field pieces.</p>
+
+<p>In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of
+American infantry plodded forward through the mud
+and darkness. In the occasional flash of a light, I could
+see that they were equipped for heavy fighting. Many
+of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up, while
+beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown
+eager beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried,
+in addition to their cumbersome packs, extra shoes and
+extra bandoliers of cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>
+haversacks. Their waists were girded with loaded ammunition
+belts, with bayonet hanging at the left side.
+Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives.
+Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun
+parts slung across their backs as they leaned forward under
+their burdens and plunged wearily on into the mud
+and darkness, the thunder and lightning, the world destiny
+that was before them. Their lines were interspersed
+with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled,
+narrow gauge carts loaded down with machine
+gun ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>Under the trees to either side of the road, there was
+more movement. American engineers struggled forward
+through the underbrush carrying, in addition to
+their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts,
+picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them
+marched the swarthy, undersized, bearded veterans of
+the Foreign Legion. Further still under the trees,
+French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across
+their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the
+giant trunks.</p>
+
+<p>At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters
+with steel plated sides splotched with green and brown
+and red paint. These were the French tanks that were
+to take part in the attack. They groaned and grunted
+on their grinding gears as they man&oelig;uvred about for
+safer progress. In front of each tank there walked a
+man who bore suspended from his shoulders on his back,
+a white towel so that the unseen directing genius in the
+tank's turret could steer his way through the underbrush
+and crackling saplings that were crushed down
+under the tread of this modern Juggernaut.</p>
+
+<p>There was no confusion, no outward manifestations
+of excitement. There was no rattle of musketry, shouting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>
+of commands or waving of swords. Officers addressed
+their men in whispers. There was order and
+quiet save for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping
+of water from the wet leaves, punctuated now and
+then by the ear-splitting crashes that followed each
+nearby flash of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty
+mobilisation in the dark. Everything was moving in one
+direction&mdash;forward&mdash;all with the same goal, all with the
+same urging, all with the same determination, all with
+the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their
+forms. It seemed to me that night in the damp darkness
+of Villers-Cotterets Forest that every tree gave birth to
+a man for France.</p>
+
+<p>All night long the gathering of that sinister synod continued.
+All night long those furtive forces moved
+through the forest. They passed by every road, by
+every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the
+whispered commands of the officers. I heard the sloshing
+of the mud under foot and the occasional muffled
+curse of some weary marcher who would slip to the
+ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all
+of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the
+morning, all hell would land on the German line, and
+these men from the trees would move forward with the
+fate of the world in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>There was some suspense. We knew that if the Germans
+had had the slightest advance knowledge about that
+mobilisation of Foch's reserves that night, they would
+have responded with a downpour of gas shells, which
+spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of
+the forest, might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>But the enemy never knew. They never even suspected.
+And at the tick of 4:35 A.M., the heavens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>
+seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot metal
+sailed over the forest, bound for the German line.</p>
+
+<p>That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentration
+of all the guns of all calibres of all the Allies that
+Foch could muster. It was a withering blast and where
+it landed in that edge of the forest occupied by the Germans,
+the quiet of the dripping black night was suddenly
+turned into a roaring inferno of death.</p>
+
+<p>Giant tree trunks were blown high into the air and
+splintered into match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing
+delayed action fuses, penetrated the ground to great
+depth before exploding and then, with the expansion of
+their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dugouts as if
+they were egg shells.</p>
+
+<p>Then young America&mdash;your sons and your brothers
+and your husbands, shoulder to shoulder with the French&mdash;went
+over the top to victory.</p>
+
+<p>The preliminary barrage moved forward crashing the
+forest down about it. Behind it went the tanks ambling
+awkwardly but irresistibly over all obstructions. Those
+Germans that had not been killed in the first terrific blast,
+came up out of their holes only to face French and
+American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>Our assaulting waves moved forward, never hesitating,
+never faltering. Ahead of them were the tanks giving
+special attention to enemy machine gun nests that
+manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge
+those death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the
+Bois de Belleau. The tanks were there to take care of
+them. One of these would move toward a nest, flirt
+around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It
+would never be heard from thereafter.</p>
+
+<p>It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>
+swept the Germans in front of it early that morning.
+Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover over the advance
+and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging
+over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to
+locate the Divisional Headquarters to which they were
+supposed to make the reports. These dense clouds of
+vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the airmen,
+but with the rising sun the mists lifted.</p>
+
+<p>Being but a month out of the hospital and having
+spent a rather strenuous night, I was receiving medical
+attention at daybreak in front of a dressing station not
+far from the headquarters of Major General Harbord
+commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking
+up through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from
+the sky. Almost immediately I could hear the hum of
+its motors growing momentarily louder as it neared the
+earth. I thought the plane was out of control and expected
+to see it crash to the ground near me.</p>
+
+<p>Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened
+its wings and went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear
+seemed barely to skim the uppermost branches.
+The machine pursued a course immediately above one
+of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a
+metal cylinder that glistened in the rays of the morning
+sun. Attached to it was a long streamer of fluttering
+white material. It dropped easily to the ground nearby.
+I saw an American signalman, who had been following
+its descent, pick it up. He opened the metal container
+and extracted the message containing the first aerial observations
+of the advance of the American lines. It
+stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured
+and were bound for the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters
+moved forward on the jump. Long before noon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>
+General Harbord, close behind his advancing troops,
+opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of
+Verte Feuille, the first community centre that had been
+taken by our men that morning. Prisoners were coming
+back in droves.</p>
+
+<p>I encountered one column of disarmed Germans
+marching four abreast with the typical attitude of a
+"Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the prisoners
+carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters
+made from logs and blankets. A wounded American
+was on one litter and a wounded Frenchman on the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate
+the shoulders of both of the wounded men so that
+they occupied positions half sitting and half reclining.
+Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily
+as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their
+captives, while behind them stretched a regal retinue of
+eight hundred more.</p>
+
+<p>As this column proceeded along one side of the road,
+the rest of the roadway was filled with men, guns and
+equipment all moving forward. Scottish troops in kilts
+swung by and returned the taunts which our men laughingly
+directed at their kilts and bare knees.</p>
+
+<p>Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding convoys
+of prisoners. They returned loaded with relics of
+the fighting. It was said that day that German prisoners
+had explained that in their opinion, the British were
+in the war because they hated Germany and that the
+French were in the war because the war was in France,
+but that Americans seemed to be fighting to collect souveniers.</p>
+
+<p>I saw one of these American souvenier collectors
+bound for the rear. In stature he was one of the shortest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+men I had ever seen in our uniform. He must have
+spent long years in the cavalry, because he was frightfully
+bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two
+enormous German prisoners who towered head and
+shoulders above him.</p>
+
+<p>He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all
+prisoners and things German. Germans were "foreigners."
+"Foreigners" spoke a foreign language. Therefore
+to make a German understand you, it was only necessary
+to speak with them in a foreign language. French
+was a foreign language so the bowlegged American
+guard made use of his limited knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"Allay! Allay! Allay veet t'ell outer here," he urged
+his charges.</p>
+
+<p>He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that
+there was exposed a shock of black, blood-matted hair
+on his forehead. A white bandage ran around his forehead
+and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton
+gauze connected with another white bandage around his
+neck. There was a red stain on the white gauze over the
+right cheek.</p>
+
+<p>His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In
+one hand he carried a large chunk of the black German
+war bread&mdash;once the property of his two prisoners.
+With his disengaged hand he conveyed masses of the
+food to his lips which were circled with a fresco of
+crumbs.</p>
+
+<p>His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile&mdash;a smile
+of satisfaction that caused the corners of his mouth to
+turn upward toward his eyes. I also smiled when I
+made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with which
+he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from
+his right hip were five holsters containing as many German
+automatic pistols of the Lueger make, worth about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
+$35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder by straps
+to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German
+field glasses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a better
+understanding of his contagious smile of property
+possession when I inquired his name and his rank. He
+replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Harry Silverstein."</p>
+
+<p>Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profanity,
+I approached one of our men who was seated by the
+roadside. A bullet had left a red crease across his
+cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The hobnail
+sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was trying
+to fasten it back on with a combination of straps.
+His profane denunciations included the U. S. Quartermaster
+Department, French roads, barbed wire, hot
+weather and, occasionally, the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>"This sure is a hell of a mess," he said, "for a fellow
+to find himself in this fix just when I was beginning
+to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted in the army to come to
+France to kill Germans but I never thought for one minute
+they'd bring me over here and try to make me run
+'em to death. What we need is greyhounds. And as
+usual the Q. M. fell down again. Why, there wasn't a
+lassoe in our whole company."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence
+Department was flooded. The divisional intelligence officer
+asked me to assist in the interrogation of the captives.
+I questioned some three hundred of them.</p>
+
+<p>An American sergeant who spoke excellent German,
+interrogated. I sat behind a small table in a field and
+the sergeant would call the prisoners forward one by one.
+In German he asked one captive what branch of the service
+he belonged to. The prisoner wishing to display his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>
+knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to
+some pride, replied in English.</p>
+
+<p>"I am of the storm troop," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do
+you know what we are? We are from Kansas. We
+are Cycloners."</p>
+
+<p>Another German student of English among the prisoners
+was represented in the person of a pompous German
+major, who, in spite of being a captive, maintained
+all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and
+held his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his
+face, as though the surroundings were painful. His
+uniform was well pressed, his linen was clean, his boots
+were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was
+not a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a
+man who had gone through the hell of battle that morning.
+The American sergeant asked him in German to
+place the contents of his pockets on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with
+a strong accent, as he complied with the request. I noticed,
+however, that he neglected to divest himself of one
+certain thing that caught my interest. It was a leather
+thong that extended around his neck and disappeared between
+the first and second buttons of his tunic. Curiosity
+forced me to reach across the table and extract the
+hidden terminal of that thong. I found suspended on
+it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me
+and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I
+thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that he had once been an interne in a hospital
+in New York but happening to be in Germany at
+the outbreak of the war, he had immediately entered the
+army and had risen to the rank of a major in the Medical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span>
+Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it
+might have seemed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the
+American soldier?" I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," he replied in the accented but dignified
+tones of a superior who painfully finds himself in
+the hands of one considered inferior. "I have never
+seen him fight. He is persuasive&mdash;yes.</p>
+
+<p>"I was in a dugout with forty German wounded in
+the cellar under the Beaurepaire Farm, when the terrible
+bombardment landed. I presume my gallant comrades
+defending the position died at their posts, because
+soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar
+to the bottom of the stairs and looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"There in the little patch of white light on the level
+of the ground above me, I saw the first American soldier
+I have seen in the war. But he did not impress me
+much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or his
+bearing.</p>
+
+<p>"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he
+did not have his coat on. His collar was not buttoned;
+it was rolled back and his throat was bare. His sleeves
+were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in
+each hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me&mdash;saw
+me standing there&mdash;saw me, a major&mdash;and he
+shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you big Dutch
+B&mdash;&mdash;d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"</p>
+
+<p>All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines
+swept forward victoriously. The First Division fought
+it out on the left, the Foreign Legion in the centre and
+the Second Division with the Marines pushed forward
+on the right. Village after village fell into our hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>
+We captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>On through the night the Allied assault continued.
+Our men fought without water or food. All road space
+behind the lines was devoted to the forwarding of reserves,
+artillery and munitions. By the morning of the
+19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that
+we had crossed the road running southward from Soissons
+to Château-Thierry, thereby disrupting the enemy's
+communications between his newly established base
+and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping
+movement that might have surrounded large numbers,
+there was nothing left for the Germans to do but
+to withdraw.</p>
+
+<p>The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans
+on that glorious day, was General Joseph Mangin.
+His opinion of the immortal part played on that
+day by those two American divisions may be seen in the
+following order which he caused to be published:</p>
+
+<p><i>Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the
+American Army</i>:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you
+threw yourselves into the counter-offensive begun on
+July 18th. You ran to it as if going to a feast. Your
+magnificent dash upset and surprised the enemy, and
+your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his
+fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be
+worthy sons of your great country and have gained the
+admiration of your brothers in arms.</p>
+
+<p>Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty,
+and ten kilometres of reconquered territory are your
+share of the trophies of this victory. Besides this, you
+have acquired a feeling of your superiority over the barbarian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>
+enemy against whom the children of liberty are
+fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.</p>
+
+<p>American comrades, I am grateful to you for the
+blood you generously spilled on the soil of my country.
+I am proud of having commanded you during such
+splendid days and to have fought with you for the deliverance
+of the world.</p></div>
+
+<p>The Germans began backing off the Marne. From
+that day on, their movement to date has continued backward.
+It began July 18th. Two American Divisions
+played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their day. It
+was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DAWN OF VICTORY</h3>
+
+
+<p>The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of
+the German hordes had begun. Hard on their heels, the
+American lines started their northward push, backing
+the Boche off the Marne.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of July 21st I rode into Château-Thierry
+with the first American soldiers to enter
+the town. The Germans had evacuated hurriedly.
+Château-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces
+and those of the French.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, imperialistic
+longings for the great prize, Paris, ended
+here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of the world
+had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that
+America was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy
+crumpled at historic Château-Thierry.</p>
+
+<p>That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was comparatively
+quiet. Only an occasional German shell&mdash;a
+final parting spite shell&mdash;whined disconsolately overhead
+and landed in a cloud of dust and débris in some vacant
+ruin that had once been a home.</p>
+
+<p>For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupation
+of that part of the city on the north bank of the
+river. Now the streets were littered with débris. Although
+the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be
+in good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans had built barricades across the streets&mdash;particularly
+the streets that led down to the river&mdash;because
+it was those streets that were swept with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>
+terrific fire of American machine guns. At the intersections
+of those streets the Germans under cover of
+night had taken up the cobblestones and built parapets
+to protect them from the hail of lead.</p>
+
+<p>Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot.
+Along the north bank of the river on the Quai de la
+Poterne and the Promenade de la Levée, the invader had
+left his characteristic mark. Shop after shop had been
+looted of its contents and the fronts of the pretty sidewalk
+cafés along this business thoroughfare had been
+reduced to shells of their former selves.</p>
+
+<p>Not a single living being was in sight as we marched
+in. Some of the old townsfolk and some young children
+had remained but they were still under cover.
+Among these French people who had lived for seven
+weeks through the hell of battle that had raged about
+the town, was Madame de Prey, who was eighty-seven
+years old. To her, home meant more than life. She
+had spent the time in her cellar, caring for German
+wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The town had been systematically pillaged. The German
+soldiers had looted from the shops much material
+which they had made up into packages to be mailed back
+to home folks in the Fatherland. The church, strangely
+enough, was picked out as a depository for their larcenies.
+Nothing from the robes of the priests down to
+the copper faucet of a water pipe had escaped their
+greed.</p>
+
+<p>The advancing Americans did not linger in the town&mdash;save
+for small squads of engineers that busied themselves
+with the removal of the street obstructions and
+the supply organisations that perfected communication
+for the advancing lines. These Americans were Yankees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
+all&mdash;they comprised the 26th U. S. Division, representing
+the National Guard of New England.</p>
+
+<p>Our lines kept pushing to the north. The Germans
+continued their withdrawal and the Allied necessity was
+to keep contact with them. This, the Yankee Division
+succeeded in doing. The first obstacle encountered to
+the north of Château-Thierry was the stand that the
+Germans made at the town of Epieds.</p>
+
+<p>On July 23rd, our infantry had proceeded up a ravine
+that paralleled the road into Epieds. German machine
+guns placed on the hills about the village, swept them
+with a terrible fire. Our men succeeded in reaching the
+village, but the Germans responded with such a terrific
+downpour of shell that our weakened ranks were forced
+to withdraw and the Germans re-entered the town.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day we renewed the attack with the
+advantage of positions which we had won during the
+night in the Bois de Trugny and the Bois de Châtelet.
+We advanced from three sides and forced the Germans
+to evacuate. Trugny, the small village on the edge of
+the woods, was the scene of more bloody fighting which
+resulted in our favour.</p>
+
+<p>Further north of Epieds, the Germans having entrenched
+themselves along the roadway, had fortified
+the same with a number of machine guns which commanded
+the flat terrain in such a way as to make a
+frontal attack by infantry waves most costly. The security
+of the Germans in this position received a severe
+shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting one
+or two machine guns, started up the road toward the
+enemy, firing as they sped. It was something new. The
+Germans wanted to surrender, but the speed of the cars
+obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled before
+our gasoline cavalry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Germans were withdrawing across the river
+Ourcq, whose valley is parallel to that of the Marne and
+just to the north. The enemy's intentions of making a
+stand here were frustrated by violent attacks, which succeeded
+in carrying our forces into positions on the north
+side of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out
+the Allied line from the Ourcq on the west to Fère-en-Tardenois
+on the east, which had been taken the same
+day by French and American troops.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the German withdrawal was becoming
+speedier. Such strong pressure was maintained by our
+men against the enemy's rear guards that hundreds of
+tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and
+fell into our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences
+of a rout.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly
+contested every foot of ground he was forced to give.
+The American troops engaged in those actions had to
+fight hard for every advance. The German backed out
+of the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would
+back out of a saloon with an automatic pistol in each
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Those charges that our men made across the muddy
+flats of the Ourcq deserve a place in the martial history
+of America. They faced a veritable hell of machine
+gun fire. They went through barrages of shrapnel and
+high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that
+the enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific objectives
+were assigned. The principal order was "Up
+and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every man's determination
+to keep the enemy on the run now that they
+had been started.</p>
+
+<p>Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north
+of the river failed to hold back the men from New York,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota and
+Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees.
+These new American organisations went up against fresh
+German divisions that had been left behind with orders
+to hold at all cost. But nothing the enemy could do
+could prevent our crossing of the Ourcq.</p>
+
+<p>On July 30th the fighting had become most intense
+in character. The fact that the town of Sergy was
+captured, lost and recaptured nine times within twenty-four
+hours, is some criterion of the bitterness of the
+struggle. This performance of our men can be better
+understood when it is stated that the enemy opposing
+them there consisted of two fresh divisions of the
+Kaiser's finest&mdash;his Prussian Guard.</p>
+
+<p>After that engagement with our forces, the Fourth
+Prussian Guard Division went into an enforced retirement.
+When our men captured Sergy the last time, they
+did so in sufficient strength to withhold it against repeated
+fierce counter attacks by a Bavarian Guard division
+that had replaced the wearied Prussians.</p>
+
+<p>But before the crack Guard Division was withdrawn
+from the line, it had suffered terrible losses at our hands.
+Several prisoners captured said that their company had
+gone into the fight one hundred and fifty strong and only
+seven had survived. That seven were captured by our
+men in hand to hand fighting.</p>
+
+<p>While our engineer forces repaired the roads and
+constructed bridges in the wake of our advancing lines,
+the enemy brought to that part of the front new squadrons
+of air fighters which were sent over our lines for
+the purpose of observation and interference with communications.
+They continually bombed our supply depots
+and ammunition dumps.</p>
+
+<p>After the crossing of the Ourcq the American advance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+reached the next German line of resistance, which rested
+on two terminal strongholds. One was in the Forêt de
+Nesles and the other was in the Bois de Meunière.</p>
+
+<p>The fighting about these two strong points was particularly
+fierce. In the Bois de Meunière and around the
+town of Cièrges, the German resistance was most determined.
+About three hundred Jaegers held Hill 200,
+which was located in the centre of Cièrges Forest, just
+to the south of the village of the same name. They
+were well provided with machine guns and ammunition.
+They were under explicit orders to hold and they did.</p>
+
+<p>Our men finally captured the position at the point of
+the bayonet. Most of its defenders fought to the death.
+The capture of the hill was the signal for a renewal
+of our attacks against the seemingly impregnable
+Meunière woods. Six times our advancing waves
+reached the German positions in the southern edge of
+the woods and six times we were driven back.</p>
+
+<p>There were some American Indians in the ranks of
+our units attacking there&mdash;there were lumber jacks and
+farmer boys and bookkeepers, and they made heroic
+rushes against terrific barriers of hidden machine guns.
+But after a day of gallant fighting they had been unable
+to progress.</p>
+
+<p>Our efforts had by no means been exhausted. The
+following night our artillery concentrated on the
+southern end of the woods and literally turned it into an
+inferno with high explosive shells. Early in the morning
+we moved to the attack again. Two of the Kaiser's
+most reputable divisions, the 200th Jaegers and the 216th
+Reserve, occupied the wood. The fighting in the wood
+was fierce and bloody, but it was more to the liking of
+our men than the rushes across fire-swept fields. Our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+men went to work with the bayonet. And for six hours
+they literally carved their way through four kilometres
+of the forest. Before ten o'clock the next morning, our
+lines lay to the north of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>In consolidating the gains in the woods, our men surrounded
+in a small clearing some three hundred of the
+enemy who refused to surrender. American squads advanced
+with the bayonet from all sides. The Germans
+were fighting for their lives. Only three remained to
+accept the ignominy of capture.</p>
+
+<p>Our forward progress continued and by August 4th
+the Germans were withdrawing across the Vesle River.
+The immediate objective that presented itself to the
+Americans was the important German supply depot at
+Fismes. It was in and around Fismes that some of the
+bloodiest fighting in the second battle of the Marne took
+place. The capture of Fismes was the crowning achievement
+of one American division that so distinguished itself
+as to be made the subject of a special report to the
+French General Headquarters by the French army in
+which the Americans fought. In part, the report read:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"On Aug. 4th the infantry combats were localized with
+terrible fury. The outskirts of Fismes were solidly
+held by the Germans, where their advance groups were
+difficult to take. The Americans stormed them and
+reduced them with light mortars and thirty-sevens.
+They succeeded, though not without loss, and at the
+end of the day, thanks to this slow but sure tenacity,
+they were within one kilometre of Fismes and masters
+of Villes, Savoye and Chezelle Farm. All night long
+rains hindered their movements and rendered their following
+day's task more arduous. On their right the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>
+French had, by similar stages, conquered a series of
+woods and swamps of Meunière Woods, to the east of
+St. Gilles, and were on the plateau of Bonne Maison
+Farm. To the left another American unit had been able
+to advance upon the Vesle to the east of St. Thiébault.</p>
+
+<p>"On Aug. 5th the artillery prepared for the attack
+on Fismes by a bombardment, well regulated, and the
+final assault was launched. The Americans penetrated
+into the village and then began the mean task of clearing
+the last point of resistance. That evening this task was
+almost completed. We held all the northern part of the
+village as far as Rheims road, and patrols were sent into
+the northern end of the village. Some even succeeded
+in crossing the Vesle, but were satisfied with making a
+reconnaissance, as the Germans still occupied the right
+bank of the river in great strength. All that was left
+to be accomplished was to complete the mopping up of
+Fismes and the strengthening of our positions to withstand
+an enemy counter attack.</p>
+
+<p>"Such was the advance of one American division,
+which pushed the enemy forward from Roncheres on
+July 30th a distance of eighteen kilometres and crowned
+its successful advance with the capture of Fismes on
+Aug. 5th."</p></div>
+
+<p>The German line on the Vesle river fell shortly after
+the capture of Fismes. The enemy was forced to fall
+back to his next natural line of defence on the Aisne.
+Between the Vesle and the Aisne, the Americans assisted
+the French in the application of such persistent
+pressure that the enemy's stubborn resistance was overcome
+and in many places he was forced to withdraw
+before he had time to destroy his depots of supply.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On August 9th, General Degoutte, commanding the
+Sixth French Army, issued the following order:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"Before the great offensive of July 18th, the American
+troops, forming part of the 6th French Army, distinguished
+themselves by clearing the 'Brigade de Marine'
+Woods and the village of Vaux of the enemy and arresting
+his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy.</p>
+
+<p>"Since then they have taken the most glorious part in
+the second battle of the Marne, rivalling the French
+troops in ardour and valour.</p>
+
+<p>"During twenty days of constant fighting they have
+freed numerous French villages and made, across a difficult
+country, an advance of forty kilometres, which has
+brought them to the Vesle.</p>
+
+<p>"Their glorious marches are marked by names which
+will shine in future in the military history of the United
+States: Torcy, Belleau, Plateau d'Etrepilly, Epieds, Le
+Charmel, l'Ourcq, Seringeset Nesles, Sergy, La Vesle
+and Fismes.</p>
+
+<p>"These young divisions, who saw fire for the first
+time, have shown themselves worthy of the old war
+traditions of the regular army. They have had the same
+burning desire to fight the Boche, the same discipline
+which sees that the order given by their commander is
+always executed, whatever the difficulties to be overcome
+and the sacrifices to be suffered.</p>
+
+<p>"The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy
+and the skill of the commanders, to the bravery of the
+soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"I am proud to have commanded such troops."</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Through the month of August and up to the first days
+of September, the Americans participated in the important<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>
+operations to the north of Soissons, where on
+August 29th they played a big part in the capture of
+the Juvigny Plateau.</p>
+
+<p>In this fighting, which was marked by the desperate
+resistance of the enemy, the Americans were incorporated
+in the 10th French Army under the command of General
+Mangin. Violent counter attacks by German shock divisions
+failed to stem the persistent advances of our forces.</p>
+
+<p>A large hill to the north of Juvigny constituted a key
+and supporting position for the enemy. In spite of the
+large number of machine guns concealed on its slopes,
+the Americans succeeded in establishing a line between
+the hill and the town. At the same time the American
+line extended itself around the other side of the hill.
+With the consummation of this enveloping movement,
+the hill was taken by assault.</p>
+
+<p>On Labor Day, September 2nd, after bitterly engaging
+four German divisions for five days, the Americans
+advanced their lines to Terny-Sorny and the road running
+between Soissons and St. Quentin. This achievement,
+which was accomplished by driving the Germans
+back a depth of four miles on a two mile front, gave our
+forces a good position on the important plateau running
+to the north of the Aisne.</p>
+
+<p>Our observation stations now commanded a view
+across the valley toward the famous Chemin des Dames
+which at one time had been a part of the Hindenburg
+line. Before the invasion of the German hordes, France
+possessed no fairer countryside than the valley of the
+Aisne. But the Germans, retreating, left behind them
+only wreckage and ashes and ruin. The valley spread
+out before our lines was scarred with the shattered remains
+of what had once been peaceful farming communities.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>
+To the northwest there could be seen the
+spires above the city of Laon.</p>
+
+<p>The American units which took part in this bitter
+fighting that had continued without a day's cessation
+since July 18th, were mentioned specifically in an order
+issued on August 27th by General Pershing. The order
+read:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"It fills me with pride to record in general orders a
+tribute to the service achievements of the First and Third
+Corps, comprising the First, Second, Third, Fourth,
+Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty-second and Forty-second
+Divisions of the American Expeditionary Forces.</p>
+
+<p>"You came to the battlefield at a crucial hour for
+the Allied cause. For almost four years the most formidable
+army the world has yet seen had pressed its
+invasion of France and stood threatening its capital.
+At no time has that army been more powerful and
+menacing than when, on July 15th, it struck again to
+destroy in one great battle the brave men opposed to it
+and to enforce its brutal will upon the world and civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>"Three days later in conjunction with our Allies you
+counter-attacked. The Allied armies gained a brilliant
+victory that marks the turning point of the war. You
+did more than to give the Allies the support to which,
+as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that
+our altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice
+have not blunted our virility or our courage.</p>
+
+<p>"You have shown that American initiative and energy
+are as fit for the tasks of war as for the pursuits of
+peace. You have justly won unstinted praise from our
+Allies and the eternal gratitude of our countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>"We have paid for our successes with the lives of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
+many of our brave comrades. We shall cherish their
+memory always and claim for our history and literature
+their bravery, achievement and sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"This order will be read to all organisations at the
+first assembly formations following its receipt.</p>
+
+<p class='quotdate'>
+"<span class="smcap">Pershing</span>."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>August 10th marked a milestone in the military effort
+of the United States. On that day the organisation
+was completed of the First American Field Army. I
+have tried to show in this record how we began the
+organisation of our forces overseas. Our first troops to
+reach France were associated in small units with the
+French. Soon our regiments began to reach the front
+under French Division Commanders. Then with the
+formation of American divisions, we went into the line
+under French corps commanders. Later still, American
+corps operated under French Army Commanders.
+Finally, our forces augmented by additional divisions
+and corps were organised into the First American Field
+Army.</p>
+
+<p>Through these various stages of development, our
+forces had grown until on August 10th they had reached
+the stage where they became practically as independent
+an organisation as the British armies under Field Marshal
+Sir Douglas Haig and the French armies under
+General Petain. From now on the American Army was
+to be on a par with the French Army and the British
+Army, all three of them under the sole direction of the
+Allied Generalissimo, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.</p>
+
+<p>The personnel of this, the greatest single army that
+ever fought beneath the Stars and Stripes, is reproduced
+in the appendix. It might not be amiss to point out
+that an American division numbers thirty thousand men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span>
+and that an American corps consists of six divisions and
+auxiliary troops, such as air squadrons, tank sections,
+and heavy artillery, which bring the strength of an
+American army corps to between 225,000 and 250,000
+men. By the 1st of September, the United States of
+America had five such army corps in the field, martialling
+a strength of about one and one-half million bayonets.
+General Pershing was in command of this group
+of armies which comprised the First American Field
+Army.</p>
+
+<p>It was from these forces that General Pershing selected
+the strong units which he personally commanded
+in the first major operation of the First American Field
+Army as an independent unit in France. That operation
+was the beginning of the Pershing push toward the
+Rhine&mdash;it was the Battle of St. Mihiel.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great achievement. It signalised the full
+development of our forces from small emergency units
+that had reached the front less than a year before, to the
+now powerful group of armies, fighting under their
+own flag, their own generals, and their own staffs.</p>
+
+<p>The important material results of the Battle of St.
+Mihiel are most susceptible to civilian as well as military
+comprehension. The St. Mihiel salient had long constituted
+a pet threat of the enemy. The Germans called
+it a dagger pointed at the heart of eastern France. For
+three years the enemy occupying it had successfully resisted
+all efforts of the Allies to oust them.</p>
+
+<p>The salient was shaped like a triangle. The apex
+of the triangle&mdash;the point of the dagger&mdash;thrusting
+southward, rested on the town of St. Mihiel, on the river
+Meuse. The western flank of the triangle extended
+northward from St. Mihiel to points beyond Verdun.
+The eastern flank of the triangle extended in a northeasterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span>
+direction toward Pont-à-Mousson. It was the
+strongest position held by the Germans in Lorraine&mdash;if
+not on the entire front.</p>
+
+<p>The geographical formation of the salient was an invitation
+for the application of a pincers operation. The
+point of leverage of the opposing jaws of the pincers
+was, most naturally, the apex of the triangle at St.
+Mihiel.</p>
+
+<p>One claw of the pincers&mdash;a claw some eight miles
+thick, bit into the east side of the salient near Pont-à-Mousson
+on the west bank of the Moselle River. The
+other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick
+and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the
+vicinity of the little town of Haudiomont, on the heights
+of the Meuse and just a little distance to the east of the
+Meuse River.</p>
+
+<p>The distance across that part of the salient through
+which the pincer's claws were biting was about thirty
+miles, and the area which would be included in the bite
+would be almost a hundred and seventy-five square miles.
+This, indeed, was a major operation.</p>
+
+<p>The battle began at one o'clock on the morning of
+September 12th, when the concentrated ordnance of
+the heaviest American artillery in France opened a preparatory
+fire of unprecedented intensity.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock in the dim dawn of that September
+morning, our infantry waves leaped from their trenches
+and moved forward to the assault. The claw of the
+pincers on the eastern flank of the salient began to bite in.</p>
+
+<p>One hour later the claw of the pincers on the western
+flank of the salient began to move forward.</p>
+
+<p>On the east, our men went forward on the run over
+ground that we had looked upon with envious eyes from
+the day that the first American troops reached the front.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
+Before noon we had taken the villages of Lahayville, St.
+Baussant, Vilcey and the Bois de Mortmare and we were
+still advancing. By nightfall, our lines were still on the
+move beyond Essey and we were holding the important
+town of Thiaucourt and claimed Villers sur Penny for
+our own.</p>
+
+<p>The seemingly impregnable fortress of Mont Sec had
+been surrounded, our tanks had cleared the way through
+Pannes, we had taken Nonsard and the towns of Woinville
+and Buxières had fallen into our hands.</p>
+
+<p>On the west side of the salient the day had gone equally
+well for us. The western claw of the pincers had pushed
+due east through the towns of Spada and Lavigneville.
+Our men had swept on in the night through Chaillon, we
+had taken St. Remy and had cleared the Forêt de Montagne.
+By midnight their advanced patrols had reached
+the western part of the town of Vigneulles. In the
+meantime, our forces on the eastern side of the salient
+were pushing westward toward this same town of
+Vigneulles. At three o'clock in the morning the forces
+from the east were occupying the eastern part of the town.
+The pincers had closed; the St. Mihiel salient had been
+pinched off.</p>
+
+<p>Our forces actually met at nine o'clock on the morning
+of September 13th. The junction was made at
+the town of Heudicourt to the south of Vigneulles.
+We had pocketed all of the German forces to the south
+of that town. Our centre had moved forward at nine
+o'clock the night before and occupied St. Mihiel on the
+heels of the retreating Germans. But the withdrawal
+was too late. Large numbers of them found themselves
+completely surrounded in the forests between St. Mihiel
+on the south and Heudicourt on the north.</p>
+
+<p>We closed in during the afternoon and started to open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
+the prize package. Located in the area, encircled by our
+troops, was the Bois de Versel, the Bois de Gaumont
+and the Bois de Woeuvre. Each one of these little
+forests gave up its quota of prisoners, while much material
+and rich booty of war fell into our hands.</p>
+
+<p>The principal avenue that had been opened for the
+Germans to make a possible withdrawal led through
+Vigneulles and before our pincers had completely closed,
+the fleeing enemy had poured out through that gap at
+the rate of several thousand an hour. The roads were
+blocked for miles with their transportation, and when
+the American artillery turned its attention to these
+thoroughfares, crowded with confused Germans, the
+slaughter was terrific. For days after the battle our
+sanitation squads were busy at their grewsome work.</p>
+
+<p>In conception and execution the entire operation had
+been perfect. Confusion had been visited upon the
+method-loving enemy from the beginning. By reason
+of the disruption of their intercommunications, faulty
+liaison had resulted and division had called to division
+in vain for assistance, not knowing at the time that all of
+them were in equally desperate straits. The enemy
+fought hard but to no purpose.</p>
+
+<p>One entire regiment with its commander and his staff
+was captured. With both flanks exposed, it had suddenly
+been confronted by Americans on four sides. The
+surrender was so complete that the German commander
+requested that his roll should be called in order to ascertain
+the extent of his losses. When this was done, every
+one was accounted for except one officer and one private.</p>
+
+<p>As his command was so embarrassingly complete, the
+German commander asked permission to march it off in
+whatever direction desired by his captors. The request
+was granted, and there followed the somewhat amusing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
+spectacle of an entire German regiment, without arms,
+marching off the battlefield under their own officers.
+The captured regiment was escorted to the rear by
+mounted American guards, who smilingly and leisurely
+rode their horses cowboy fashion as they herded their
+captives back to the pens.</p>
+
+<p>Tons upon tons of ammunition fell into our hands in
+the woods. At one place twenty-two railroad cars loaded
+with large calibre ammunition had to be abandoned
+when an American shell had torn up the track to the
+north of them. But if the Germans had been unable to
+take with them their equipment, they had succeeded in
+driving ahead of them on the retreat almost all of the
+French male civilians between sixteen and forty-five
+years that had been used as German slaves for more than
+four years.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans were welcomed as deliverers by those
+French civilians that remained in the town. They were
+found to be almost entirely ignorant of the most commonly
+known historical events of the war. Secretary
+of War Baker and Generals Pershing and Petain visited
+the town of St. Mihiel a few hours after it was captured.
+They were honoured with a spontaneous demonstration
+by the girls and aged women, who crowded about them
+to express thanks and pay homage for deliverance.</p>
+
+<p>One of our bands began to play the "Marseillaise" and
+the old French civilians who, under German domination,
+had not heard the national anthem for four long years,
+broke down and wept. The mayor of the town told
+how the Germans had robbed it of millions of francs.
+First they had demanded and received one million five
+hundred thousand francs and later they collected five
+hundred thousand more in three instalments. In addition
+to these robberies, they had taken by "requisition"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
+all the furniture and mattresses and civilian comforts
+that they could find. They took what they wanted and
+usually destroyed the rest. They had stripped the towns
+of all metal utensils, bells, statues, and water pipes.</p>
+
+<p>The St. Mihiel salient thus went out of existence.
+The entire point in the blade of the dagger that had been
+thrust at the heart of France had been bitten off. Verdun
+with its rows upon rows of sacred dead was now
+liberated from the threat of envelopment from the right.
+The Allies were in possession of the dominating heights
+of the Meuse. The railroads connecting Commercy
+with Vigneulles, Thiaucourt and St. Mihiel were in our
+hands. Our lines had advanced close to that key of
+victory, the Briey iron basin to the north, and the German
+fortress of Metz lay under American guns.</p>
+
+<p>The battle only lasted twenty-seven hours. In that
+space of time, a German force estimated at one hundred
+thousand had been vanquished, if not literally cut to
+pieces, American soldiers had wrested a hundred and
+fifty square miles of territory away from the Germans,
+captured fifteen thousand officers and men and hundreds
+of guns. General Pershing on September 14th made the
+following report:</p>
+
+<div class='blockquot'>
+<p>"The dash and vigour of our troops, and of the valiant
+French divisions which fought shoulder to shoulder with
+them, is shown by the fact that the forces attacking on
+both faces of the salient effected a junction and secured
+the result desired within twenty-seven hours.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides liberating more than 150 square miles of territory
+and taking 15,000 prisoners, we have captured a
+mass of material. Over 100 guns of all calibres and
+hundreds of machine guns and trench mortars have been
+taken.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"In spite of the fact that the enemy during his retreat
+burned large stores, a partial examination of the battlefield
+shows that great quantities of ammunition, telegraph
+material, railroad material, rolling stock, clothing, and
+equipment have been abandoned. Further evidence of the
+haste with which the enemy retreated is found in the
+uninjured bridges which he left behind.</p>
+
+<p>"French pursuit, bombing and reconnaissance units,
+and British and Italian bombing units divided with our
+own air service the control of the air, and contributed
+materially to the successes of the operation."</p></div>
+
+<p>And while this great battle was in progress, the Allied
+lines were advancing everywhere. In Flanders, in
+Picardy, on the Marne, in Champagne, in Lorraine, in
+Alsace, and in the Balkans the frontier of freedom was
+moving forward.</p>
+
+<p>Surely the tide had turned. And surely it had been
+America's God-given opportunity to play the big part
+she did play. The German was now on the run. Suspicious
+whisperings of peace began to be heard in neutral
+countries. They had a decided German accent. Germany
+saw defeat staring her in the face and now, having
+failed to win in the field, she sought to win by a bluff at
+the peace table.</p>
+
+<p>The mailed fist having failed, Germany now resorted
+to cunning. The mailed fist was now an open palm that
+itched to press in brotherhood the hands of the Allies.
+But it was the same fist that struck down the peace of the
+world in 1914. It was the same Germany that had ravished
+and outraged Belgium. It was the same Germany
+that had tried to murder France. It was the same Germany
+that had covered America with her net of spies and
+had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>
+Japan. It was the same Germany that had ruthlessly destroyed
+the lives of women and children, American citizens,
+non-combatants, riding the free seas under the
+protection of the Stars and Stripes. It was the same
+Germany that had drugged Russia with her corrupting
+propaganda and had throttled the voice of Russian democracy.
+This Germany, this unrepentant Germany&mdash;this
+unpunished Germany, launched her drive for peace.</p>
+
+<p>Germany was willing to make any concessions to bring
+about negotiations that would save her from a defeat in
+the field. There was one thing, however, that Germany
+wanted to save from the ruin she had brought down upon
+herself. That thing was the German army and its strong
+auxiliary, the German navy. Neither one of them had
+been destroyed. The army was in general retreat and
+the navy was locked up in the Baltic, but both of them
+remained in existence as menaces to the future peace of
+the world. With these two forces of might, Germany
+could have given up her booty of war, offered reparation
+for her transgressions and drawn back behind the Rhine
+to await the coming of another <i>Der Tag</i> when she
+could send them once more crashing across friendly
+borders and cruising the seven seas on missions of piracy.</p>
+
+<p>Germany was in the position of a bully, who without
+provocation and without warning had struck down from
+behind a man who had not been prepared to defend himself.
+The victim's movements had been impeded by a
+heavy overcoat. He had been utterly and entirely unprepared
+for the onslaught. The bully had struck him
+with a club and had robbed him.</p>
+
+<p>The unprepared man had tried to free himself from the
+overcoat of pacifism that he had worn so long in safety
+and in kindliness to his fellows. The bully, taking advantage
+of his handicap, had beaten him brutally. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
+last the unprepared man had freed himself from the
+overcoat and then stood ready not only to defend himself,
+but to administer deserved punishment. Then the
+bully had said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, wait just a minute. Let's talk this thing over
+and see if we can't settle it before I get hurt."</p>
+
+<p>The bully's pockets bulge with the loot he has taken
+from the man. The victim's face and head are swollen
+and bloody and yet the bully invites him to sit down to a
+table to discuss the hold-up, the assault, and the terms of
+which the loot and the loot only will be returned. The
+bully takes it for granted that he is to go unpunished and,
+more important still, is to retain the club that he might
+decide to use again.</p>
+
+<p>The rule of common sense that deals with individuals
+should be the same rule that applies to the affairs of nations.
+No municipal law anywhere in the world gives
+countenance to a compromise with a criminal. International
+law could be no less moral than municipal law.
+Prussian militarism made the world unsafe for Democracy,
+and for that reason, on April 6th, 1917, the United
+States entered the war.</p>
+
+<p>We wanted a decent world in which to live. And the
+existence of the Prussian army and its conscienceless
+masters was incompatible with the free and peaceful life
+of the world. We entered the war for an ideal. That
+ideal was in the balance when Germany made her 1918
+drive for peace.</p>
+
+<p>Our army in France knew that if peace came with an
+unwhipped Prussian army in existence, the world would
+be just as unsafe for Democracy as it had ever been.
+Our army in France wanted no compromise that would
+leave Germany in possession of the instruments that had
+made possible her crimes against the world. Every man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>
+that had shed blood, every man that had paid the final
+price, every woman that had shed tears, every cherished
+ideal of our one hundred and forty years of national life,
+would have been sacrificed in vain, if we had condoned
+Germany's high crimes against civilisation and had made
+a compromise with the criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States,
+spokesman of the Allied world, sounded the true American
+note when, in his reply to the insincere German peace
+proposals, he referred the German Government to Marshal
+Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies.
+War by the sword was to bring peace by the sword.</p>
+
+<p>And as I write these lines in the last days of October,
+1918, unconditional surrender is the song of the dove
+of peace perched on our bayonets as we march into the
+dawn of victory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>APPENDIX</h2>
+
+<h3>PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY
+FORCES IN FRANCE</h3>
+
+
+<h4>1ST ARMY CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>Major Gen. Hunter Liggett, commanding.</p>
+
+<p>1st and 2nd Division, Regular Army; 26th, (New England),
+32d, (Michigan and Wisconsin), 41st, (Washington, Oregon,
+North and South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana,
+Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota), and 42d (<i>Rainbow</i>, troops
+from twenty-six States) Divisions, National Guard.</p>
+
+<p>1ST DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Charles P. Summerall, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Campbell King, Chief of Staff; Major H. K.
+Loughry, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">1st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Major John L. Hines; 16th and 18th
+Regiments; 2d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">2d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Major Gen. Beaumont B. Buck; 26th
+and 28th Regiments; 3d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">1st Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+5th, 6th, and 7th Regiments; 1st Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;1st Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;2nd Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;1st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>2ND DIVISION (U. S. M. C.)&mdash;Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune,
+commanding; Brig. Gen. Preston Brown, Chief of Staff.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">3rd Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Hanson E. Ely; 9th and
+23rd Regiments; 5th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">4th Brigade, Infantry</span> (<span class="smcap">Marines</span>)&mdash;Brig. Gen. John E.
+Le Jeune; 5th and 6th Regiments; 6th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">2d Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig Gen. A. J. Bowley; 12th,
+15th, and 17th Regiments; 2d Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;2d Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;1st Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;2d Division Headquarters Troops; 4th Machine
+Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>26TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Cassius M. Dowell, Chief of Staff; Major
+Charles A. Stevens, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">51st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. George H. Shelton; 101st
+and 102d Regiments; 102d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">52d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. C. H. Cole; 103d and 104th
+Regiments; 103d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">51st Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. D. E. Aultman;
+101st Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;101st Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;101st Field Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;26th Headquarters Troop; 101st Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>32ND DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. W. G. Haan, commanding; Lieut.
+Col. Allen L. Briggs, Chief of Staff; Major John H. Howard,
+Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">63d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. William D. Connor; 125th
+and 126th Regiments; 120th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">64th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. E. B. Winans; 127th and
+128th Regiments; 121st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">57th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. G. LeRoy Irwin;
+119th, 120th and 121st Regiments; 107th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;107th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;107th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;32d Headquarters Troops; 119th Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>41ST DIVISION (<i>Sunset</i>)&mdash;Major. Gen. Robert Alexander,
+commanding; Colonel Harry H. Tebbetts, Chief of Staff;
+Major Herbert H. White, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">81st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Wilson B. Burt; 161st
+and 162nd Regiments; 147th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">82d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Edward Vollrath; 163rd
+and 164th Regiments; 148th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">66th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not
+announced); 146th, 147th, and 148th Regiments; 116th
+Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;116th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;116th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;41st Division Headquarters Troop; 146th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>42D DIVISION (<i>Rainbow</i>)&mdash;Major Gen. C. T. Menoher,
+commanding; (Chief of Staff not announced); Major Walter
+E. Powers, Adjutant General.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">83d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. M. Lenihan; 165th and
+166th Regiments; 150th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">84th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. R. A. Brown; 167th and
+168th Regiments; 151st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">67th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. G. C. Gatley;
+149th, 150th and 151st Regiments; 117th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;117th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;117th Field Signal Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;42d Division Headquarters Troop; 149th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>2ND ARMY CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>Major Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, Commanding.</p>
+
+<p>4th Division, Regular Army; 28th, (Pennsylvania,) 30th,
+(Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and District of Columbia),
+and 36th (Missouri and Kansas) Divisions, National
+Guard; 77th (New York) and 82d (Georgia, Alabama, and
+Florida) Divisions, National Army.</p>
+
+<p>4TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. George H. Cameron, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Christian A. Bach, Chief of Staff; Major
+Jesse D. Elliott, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">7th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. B. A. Poore; 39th and 47th
+Regiments; 11th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">8th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. E. E. Booth; 58th and
+59th Regiments; 12th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">4th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. E. B. Babbitt; 13th,
+16th and 77th Regiments; 4th Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;4th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;-8th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;4th Division Headquarters Troop; 10th Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>28TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. H. Muir, commanding;
+(Chief of Staff not announced); Lieut. Col. David J. Davis,
+Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">55th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. T. W. Darrah; 109th
+and 110th Regiments; 108th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">56th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Major Gen. William Weigel; 111th
+and 112th Regiments; 109th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">53rd Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. G. Price, 107th,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
+108th, and 109th Regiments; 103rd Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;103d Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;103d Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;28th Division Headquarters Troop; 107th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p>30TH DIVISION (<i>Wild Cat</i>)&mdash;Major Gen. Edward M. Lewis,
+commanding; Lieut. Col. Robert B. McBride, Chief of Staff;
+Lieut. Col. Francis B. Hinkle, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">59th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Tyson;
+117th and 118th Regiments; 114th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">60th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Samuel L. Faison; 119th
+and 120th Regiments; 115th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">55th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+113th, 114th and 115th Regiments; 105th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;105th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;165th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;30th Division Headquarters Troop; 113th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>35TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Peter E. Traub, commanding;
+Colonel Robert McCleave, Chief of Staff; Major J. M. Hobson,
+Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">69th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Nathaniel McClure;
+137th and 138th Regiments; 129th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">70th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Charles I. Martin; 139th
+and 140th Regiments; 130th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">60th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. L. G. Berry;
+128th, 129th, and 130th Regiments; 110th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;110th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;35th Division Headquarters Troop; 128th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>77TH DIVISION (Upton)&mdash;Major Gen. George B. Duncan,
+commanding; (Chief of Staff not announced); Major
+W. N. Haskell, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">153d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Edward Wittenmeyer;
+205th and 306th Regiments; 305th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">154th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson; 307th
+and 308th Regiments; 306th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">152d Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Reeves;
+304th, 305th and 306th Regiments; 302d Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;302d Regiment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;302d Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;77th Division Headquarters Troop; 304th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>82D DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. W. P. Burnham, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Royden E. Beebe, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col.
+John R. Thomas, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">163d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Marcus D. Cronin; 325th
+and 326th Regiments; 320th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">164th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Julian R. Lindsay; 327th
+and 328th Regiments; 321st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">157th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Charles D.
+Rhodes; 319th, 320th and 321st Regiments; 307th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;307th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;307th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;319th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>3D ARMY CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>Major Gen. William M. Wright, commanding.</p>
+
+<p>3d and 5th Divisions, Regular Army; 27th (New York) and
+33d (Illinois) Divisions, National Guard; 78th (Delaware and
+New York) and 80th (New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware,
+and District of Columbia) Divisions, National Army.</p>
+
+
+<p>3D DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Joseph T. Dickman, commanding;
+Colonel Robert H. Kelton, Chief of Staff; Captain Frank
+L. Purndon, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">5th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. F. W. Sladen; 4th and
+7th Regiments; 8th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">8th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+30th and 38th Regiments; 9th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">3d Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. M. Cruikshank;
+10th, 76th and 18th Regiments; 3d Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;6th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;5th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;3d Division Headquarters Troop; 7th Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>5TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. John E. McMahon, commanding;
+Colonel Ralph E. Ingram, Chief of Staff; Major David
+P. Wood, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">9th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. J. C. Castner; 60th and
+61st Regiments; 14th Machine Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">10th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Major Gen. W. H. Gordon; 6th and
+11th Regiments; 15th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">5th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler;
+19th, 20th, and 21st Regiments; 5th Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;7th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;9th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;5th Division Headquarters Troop; 13th Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>27TH DIVISION (New York)&mdash;Major Gen. J. F. O'Ryan,
+commanding; Lieut. Col. Stanley H. Ford, Chief of Staff;
+Lieut. Col. Frank W. Ward, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">53d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Bjornstad;
+105th and 106th Regiments; 105th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">54th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Palmer E. Pierce; 107th
+and 108th Regiments; 106th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">52nd Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. George A. Wingate;
+104th, 105th and 106th Regiments; 102d Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;102d Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;102d Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;27th Division Headquarters Troop; 104th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>33D DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. George Bell, Jr., commanding;
+Colonel William K. Naylot, Chief of Staff; (Adjutant General
+not announced).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">65th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Edward L. King; 129th
+and 130th Regiments; 123d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">66th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Paul A. Wolff; 131st and
+132nd Regiments; 124th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">58th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. James A. Shipton;
+122d, 123d and 124th Regiments; 108th Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;108th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;108th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;33d Division Headquarters Troop; 112th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>78TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. James H. McRae, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Harry N. Cootes, Chief of Staff; Major
+William T. MacMill, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">155th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Mark L. Hersey; 309th
+and 310th Regiments; 308th Machine Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">156th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. James T. Dean; 311th
+and 312th Regiments; 309th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">153d Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Clint C. Hearn;
+307th, 308th and 309th Regiments; 303d Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;303d Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;303d Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;78th Division Headquarters Troop; 307th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>80TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Adelbert Cronkhite, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. William H. Waldron, Chief of Staff; Major
+Steven C. Clark, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">159th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. George H. Jamerson,
+317th and 318th Regiments; 314th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">160th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Lloyd M. Bratt; 319th
+and 320th Regiments; 315th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">155th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Gordon G.
+Heiner; 313th, 314th and 315th Regiments; 305th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;305th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;305th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;80th Division Headquarters Troop; 313th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>4TH ARMY CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>Major Gen. George W. Read, commanding.</p>
+
+<p>83d (Ohio and Pennsylvania), 89th (Kansas, Missouri
+South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona),
+90th (Texas and Oklahoma), and 92d (negro troops)
+Divisions, National Army; 37th (Ohio) and 29th (New Jersey,
+Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and District of Columbia) Divisions,
+National Guard.</p>
+
+
+<p>29TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. G. Morton, commanding;
+Colonel George S. Goodale, Chief of Staff; Major James
+A. Ulio, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">57th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Charles W. Barber; 113th
+and 114th Regiments; 111th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">58th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz; 115th
+and 116th Regiments; 112th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">54th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced)
+110th, 111th and 112th Regiments; 104th Trench
+Mortar Battery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;104th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;104th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;29th Division Headquarters Troop; 110th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>37TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. S. Farnsworth, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Dana T. Merrill, Chief of Staff; Major Edward
+W. Wildrick, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">73rd Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. C. F. Zimmerman; 145th
+and 146th Regiments; 135th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">74th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. P. Jackson; 147th and
+148th Regiments; 136th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">62d Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+134th, 135th and 136th Regiments; 112th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;112th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;112th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;37th Division Headquarters Troop; 134th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>83RD DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. E. F. Glenn, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. C. A. Trott, Chief of Staff; Major James L.
+Cochran, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">165th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Ora E. Hunt; 329th
+and 330th Regiments; 323d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">166th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Malin Craig; 331st and
+332d Regiments; 324th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">158th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Adrian S. Fleming;
+322d, 323d, and 324th Regiments; 308th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;308th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;308th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;83d Division Headquarters Troop; 322d Machine
+Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>89TH DIVISION&mdash;Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn, commanding;
+(Acting) Colonel C. E. Kilbourne, Chief of Staff; Major
+Jerome G. Pillow, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">177th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn; 353rd
+and 354th Regiments; 341st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">178th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Hanson;
+355th and 356th Regiments; 342d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">164th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Edward T. Donnelly;
+340th, 341st and 342d Regiments; 314th Trench
+Mortar Battery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;314th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;314th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;89th Division Headquarters Troop; 340th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>90TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding;
+Colonel John J. Kingman, Chief of Staff; Major Wyatt P.
+Selkirk, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">179th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. John T. O'Neill; 357th
+and 358th Regiments; 344th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">180th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. H. Johnston; 359th
+and 360th Regiments; 345th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">165th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Francis C. Marshall;
+343d, 344th, and 345th Regiments; 315th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;315th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;315th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;90th Division Headquarters Troop; 349th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>92ND DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. C. Ballou, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Allen J. Greer, Chief of Staff; Major Sherburne
+Whipple, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">183d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Malvern H. Barnum, 365th
+and 366th Regiments; 350th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">184th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. A. Hay; 367th and
+368th Regiments; 351st Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">167th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not
+announced); 349th, 350th and 351st Regiments; 317th
+Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;317th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;317th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;92d Division Headquarters Troop; 349th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<h4>5TH ARMY CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>Major Gen. Omar Bundy, commanding.</p>
+
+<p>6th Division, Regular Army; 36th (Texas and Oklahoma)
+Division, National Guard; 75th (New England), 79th (Pennsylvania,
+Maryland and District of Columbia), 85th (Michigan
+and Wisconsin), and 91st (Washington, Oregon, Alaska, California,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>
+Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Utah), Divisions,
+National Army.</p>
+
+
+<p>6TH DIVISION&mdash;Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, commanding;
+Colonel James M. Pickering, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col.
+Robert S. Knox, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">11th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. W. R. Dashiell; 51st and
+52d Regiments; 17th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">12th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. J. B. Erwin; 53d and 54th
+Regiments; 18th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">6th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. E. A. Millar; 3rd,
+11th, and 78th Regiments; 6th Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;318th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;6th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;6th Division, Headquarters Troop; 16th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>36TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. W. R. Smith, commanding;
+Colonel E. J. Williams, Chief of Staff; Major William R.
+Scott, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">71st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Henry Hutchings; 141st
+and 142d Regiments; 132d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">72d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. John A. Hulen; 143d and
+144th Regiments; 133d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">61st Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. John A. Stevens;
+131st, 132d and 133d Regiments, 111th Trench Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;111th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;111th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;36th Division Headquarters Troop; 131st
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>76TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Harry F. Hodges, commanding;
+(Chief of Staff not announced); Major George M.
+Peek, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">151st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Frank M. Albright; 301st
+and 302d Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">152d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. F. D. Evans; 303d and
+304th Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">151st Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Major Gen. William S.
+McNair; 301st, 302d, and 303d Regiments; 301st Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;301st Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;301st Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;76th Division Headquarters Troop; 301st
+Machine Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>79TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn, commanding;
+Colonel Tenny Ross, Chief of Staff; Major Charles B.
+Moore, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">157th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. William L. Nicholson;
+313th and 314th Regiments; 311th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">158th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+315th and 316th Regiments; 312th Machine Gun
+Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">154th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Andrew Hero,
+Jr., 310th, 311th and 312th Regiments; 304th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;304th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;304th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;79th Division Headquarters Troop; 310th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>85TH DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. W. Kennedy, commanding;
+Colonel Edgar T. Collins, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Clarence
+Lininger, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">169th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Thomas B. Dugan;
+337th and 338th Regiments; 329th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">170th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+339th and 340th Regiments; 330th Machine Gun
+Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">160th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Guy M. Preston;
+328th, 329th and 330th Regiments; 310th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;310th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;310th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;85th Division Headquarters Troop; 328th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>91ST DIVISION&mdash;Brig. Gen. F. H. Foltz, commanding; Colonel
+Herbert J. Brees, Chief of Staff; Major Frederick W.
+Manley, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">181st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. John B. McDonald; 361st
+and 362d Regiments; 347th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">182d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Frederick S. Foltz; 363d
+and 364th Regiments; 348th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">166th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Edward Burr;
+346th, 347th and 348th Regiments; 316th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;316th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;316th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;91st Division Headquarters Troop; 346th
+Machine Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>UNASSIGNED TO CORPS</h4>
+
+<p>81ST DIVISION&mdash;Major Gen. C. J. Bailey, commanding;
+Colonel Charles D. Roberts, Chief of Staff; Major Arthur
+E. Ahrends, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">161st Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. George W. McIver; 321st
+and 322nd Regiments; 317th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">162d Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Monroe McFarland;
+323d and 324th Regiments; 318th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">156th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. Andrew Moses;
+316th, 317th and 318th Regiments; 306th Trench Mortar
+Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;306th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;306th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;81st Division Headquarters Troop; 316th
+Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+
+<p>93RD DIVISION&mdash;(Commander not announced); Major Lee
+S. Tillotson, Adjutant General.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">185th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+369th and 370th Regiments; 333d Machine Gun
+Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">186th Brigade, Infantry</span>&mdash;Brig. Gen. George H. Harries;
+371st and 372d Regiments; 334th Machine Gun Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">168th Brigade, Field Artillery</span>&mdash;(Commanding officer not announced);
+332d, 333d and 334th Regiments; 318th Trench
+Mortar Battery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Engineer Troops</span>&mdash;318th Regiment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Signal Troops</span>&mdash;318th Battalion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Division Units</span>&mdash;332d Machine Gun Battalion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Transcribers Notes</p>
+
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors/omissions in original text have been repaired.</p>
+
+<p>Text contains spellings which were common at the time of its publication.</p>
+
+<p>ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT - Spelling, accent and hypenation corrections have been made to conform with text.</p>
+
+<p>pg. xi - FLOYS = FLOYD (M. FLOYS GIBBONS, Correspondant de Guerre du Chicago Tribune:) This error is on the original letter, a
+facsimile of which appears in the original book. For the purpose of the plain text version of this book it has been corrected.</p>
+
+<p>pg. xvii - Table of Contents - Chapter XVIII, pg. 328; the chapter correctly starts on Pg. 338 - this was retained in the plain text,
+however was corrected for the HTML version of this book.</p>
+
+
+<p>All possibly dialectic/phonetic phrases have been retained, including the following;</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>pg. 31 - "stear" (steer), (we can stear with an oar), quote<br />
+pg. 91 - "Sourkraut" (Sauerkraut), (German as Sourkraut), remembrance<br />
+pg. 276 - "dimonds" (diamonds), (filled wid dimonds), quote<br />
+pg. 370 - "Lueger" (Luger), (of the Lueger make), remembrance</p>
+
+
+<p>21 Spelling corrections: (x) shows no. of times word was already correctly spelled in text.</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>pg. xv - "citatation" to "citation" (he received a citation).<br />
+pg. 38 - "tatooed" to "tattooed" (tattooed arms of the).<br />
+pg. 50 - "Harboard" to "Harbord" (4) (Brigadier General Harbord).<br />
+pg. 73 - "practise" to "practice" (9), (began to practice).<br />
+pg. 99 - "surpised" to "surprised" (I was not surprised).<br />
+pg. 107 - "dicharge" to "discharge" (signal for the discharge).<br />
+pg. 139 - "aves-vous" to "avez-vous" (3) (Aves-vous de chevaux?) - Fr.<br />
+pg. 143 - "Nicholas" to "Nicolas" (2) (Saint-Nicolas-du-Port).<br />
+pg. 157 - "milimetre" to "millimetre" (2), (battery of 150 millimetre).<br />
+pg. 208 - "Ukelele" to "Ukulele" (tending the Ukulele crop).<br />
+pg. 222 - "perigrinations" to "peregrinations" (trace the peregrinations).<br />
+pg. 248 - "harrassed" to "harassed" (harassed the road intersections).<br />
+pg. 315 - "ricochetted" to "ricocheted" (had ricocheted upward).<br />
+pg. 346 - "desposit" to "deposit" (would solemnly deposit).<br />
+pg. 349 - "McDougal" to "MacDougal" (7), (MacDougal then began).<br />
+pg. 365 - "turrent" to "turret" (the tank's turret).<br />
+pg. 367 - "blow" to "blown" (trunks were blown high).<br />
+pg. 376 - "barracades" to "barricades" (built barracades across).<br />
+pg. 382 - "distingushed" to "distinguished" (that so distinguished itself).<br />
+pg. 383 - "reconnaisance" to "reconnaissance" (2), (making a reconnaissance).<br />
+pg. 391 - "knowng" to "knowing" (knowing at the time).</p>
+
+
+<p>17 hyphenation, Capitalization or diacritical accent corrections made as follows:</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>
+pg. xi - "ARMEES" to "ARMÉES" (2) (DES ARMÉES DU NORD) - Fr.<br />
+pg. 24 - "victrola" to "Victrola" ( a cabinet Victrola), (trademark of the Victrola company).<br />
+pg. 88 - "coryphees" to "coryphées" (male coryphées who hold) - Fr.<br />
+pg. 88 - "under-sized" to "undersized" (2), (toughest set of undersized).<br />
+pg. 111 - "zigzagging" to "zig-zagging" (3) (through zig-zagging avenues).<br />
+pg. 183 - "hand grenades" to "hand-grenades" (2), (post with hand-grenades).<br />
+pg. 194 - "counter-battery" to "counter battery" (3) (casual counter battery work).<br />
+pg. 232 - "debris" to "débris" (4) (person in the débris).<br />
+pg. 251 - "debris" to "débris (4) (the débris ceased falling).<br />
+pg. 269 - "tricolour" to "tri-colour" (2) (of the French tri-colour).<br />
+pg. 274 - "Americains" to "Américains" (les bons Américains) - Fr.<br />
+pg. 307 - "Chatel" to "Châtel"  (La Voie du Châtel) - Fr.<br />
+pg. 367 - "dug-outs"  to "dugouts" (10), (crushed the enemy dugouts).<br />
+pg. 370 - "t'-ell" to "t'ell" (Allay veet t'ell outer here), as on pg. 275.<br />
+pg. 373 - "dug-out" to "dugout" (24), (in a dugout with).<br />
+pg. 383 - "Thibault" to "Thiébault" (9) (east of St. Thiébault).<br />
+pg. 385 - "country-side" to "countryside" (5), (no fairer countryside).</p>
+
+
+<p>List of same word variations appearing in this text which have been retained.</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>
+"cooperation" (1) and "co-operation" (1)<br />
+"dockside" (1) and "dock-side" (1)<br />
+"farmhouse" (1) and "farm-house" (1)<br />
+"heartbroken" (1) and "heart-break" (1)<br />
+"manpower" (1) and "man-power" (1)<br />
+"midday" (1) and "mid-day" (1)<br />
+"old-timer" (1), "old-timers" (2), "old timer" (3)<br />
+"well kept" (1) and "well-kept" (1)<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>1 Printers error correction;</p>
+
+<p>pg 394: - two lines of text were exchanged as follows:</p>
+
+<p>original text;</p>
+
+<p class='blockquot'>
+"It was the same Germany<br />
+many that had covered America with her net of spies and<br />
+that had tried to murder France. It was the same Ger-<br />
+had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"<br />
+<br />
+as corrected;<br />
+<br />
+"It was the same Germany<br />
+that had tried to murder France. It was the same Germany<br />
+that had covered America with her net of spies and<br />
+had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by 
+Floyd Gibbons
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+Project Gutenberg's "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by Floyd Gibbons
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: "And they thought we wouldn't fight"
+
+Author: Floyd Gibbons
+
+Release Date: January 26, 2010 [EBook #31086]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Christine Aldridge, Suzanne Shell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribers Notes
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
+3. Minor printers errors have been corrected. A detailed list can be
+   found at the end of this text.
+4. Text spelling was common at the time of its publication.
+5. All dialect spelling has been retained.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"AND THEY THOUGHT WE WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+                      FLOYD GIBBONS
+
+[Illustration: FLOYD GIBBONS]
+
+
+
+
+                "AND THEY THOUGHT
+                WE WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+                       BY
+
+                  FLOYD GIBBONS
+
+  OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENT OF _THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE_,
+  ACCREDITED TO THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+
+
+                     NEW YORK
+
+                  [Illustration]
+
+              GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+                _Copyright, 1918,_
+           _By George H. Doran Company_
+
+
+
+
+      _Printed in the United States of America_
+
+
+
+
+                        TO
+
+              GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING
+
+                       AND
+
+         THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+
+    I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE THIS INADEQUATE RECORD
+                IN REVERENT MEMORY OF
+                  OUR SACRED DEAD
+                ON FIELDS IN FRANCE
+
+
+
+
+                   ACKNOWLEDGMENT
+
+        The author expresses his hearty thanks to
+        _The Chicago Tribune_ for the opportunity
+        he enjoyed as a correspondent of that paper,
+        in the service of which he secured the
+        material for these papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+    Personal.
+              AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
+             OFFICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
+
+                                         France, August 17, 1918.
+
+
+    Mr. Floyd Gibbons,
+      Care Chicago Tribune,
+        420 Sue Saint-Honore,
+           P a r i s.
+
+    Dear Mr. Gibbons:
+
+        At this time, when you are returning to America, I wish to
+    express to you my appreciation of the cordial cooperation and
+    assistance you have always given us in your important work as
+    correspondent of the Chicago Tribune in France. I also wish to
+    congratulate you on the honor which the French government has
+    done you in giving you the Croix de Guerre, which is but a just
+    reward for the consistent devotion to your duty and personal
+    bravery that you have exhibited.
+
+        My personal regrets that you are leaving us at this time are
+    lessened by the knowledge of the great opportunity you will have
+    of giving to our people in America a true picture of the work of
+    the American soldier in France and of impressing on them the
+    necessity of carrying on this work to the end, which can be
+    accomplished only by victory for the Allied arms. You have a
+    great opportunity, and I am confident that you will grasp it, as
+    you have grasped your past opportunities, with success. You have
+    always played the game squarely and with courage, and I wish to
+    thank you.
+
+                 Sincerely yours,
+
+                            John J. Pershing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                       G. Q. G. A. le July 28, 1918.
+
+    COMMANDEMENT EN CHEF
+      DES ARMEES ALLIES
+        LE GENERAL
+
+
+    MONSIEUR,
+
+      I understand that you are going to the United States
+    to give lectures on what you have seen on the French front.
+
+      No one is more qualified than you to do this, after your
+    brilliant conduct in the Bois de Belleau.
+
+      The American Army has proved itself to be magnificent
+    in spirit, in gallantry and in vigor; it has contributed largely
+    to our successes. If you can thus be the echo of my opinion
+    I am sure you will serve a good purpose.
+
+                          Very sincerely yours,
+
+                                         (_Signed_) F. FOCH.
+
+    MONSIEUR FLOYD GIBBONS,
+      War Correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                                      G.Q.G.A. _Le_ 28 Juillet 1918.
+
+    _Commandement en Chef_
+      _des Armies Allies_
+        _Le General_
+
+
+           Monsieur,
+
+
+          Je sais que vous allez donner des conferences aux
+    Etats-Unis pour raconter ce que vous avez vu sur le front
+    francais.
+
+          Personne n'est plus qualifie que vous pour le faire,
+    apres votre brillante conduite au Bois BELLEAU.
+
+          L'Armee Americaine se montre magnifique de sentiments,
+    de valeur et d'entrain, elle a contribue pour une large part
+    a nos succes. Si vous pouvez etre l'echo de mon opinion, je
+    n'y verrai qu'avantage.
+
+          Croyez, Monsieur, a mes meilleurs sentiments.
+
+
+                                F. Foch
+
+  Monsieur FLOYD GIBBONS
+Correspondant de Guerre du CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+         GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL
+    DES ARMEES DU NORD ET DU NORD EST
+               ETAT-MAJOR
+           BUREAU DU PERSONNEL
+             (Decorations)
+
+                                                    ORDER NO. 8809 D
+
+
+      The General Commander-in-Chief Cites for the _Croix
+    de Guerre_
+
+      M. FLOYD GIBBONS, War Correspondent of the Chicago
+    _Tribune_:
+
+      "Has time after time given proof of his courage and bravery by
+    going to the most exposed posts to gather information. On June 5,
+    1918, while accompanying a regiment of marines who were attacking
+    a wood, he was severely wounded by three machine gun bullets in
+    going to the rescue of an American officer wounded near
+    him--demonstrating, by this action, the most noble devotion.
+    When, a few hours later, he was lifted and transported to the
+    dressing station, he begged not to be cared for until the wounded
+    who had arrived before him had been attended to."
+
+                 General Headquarters, August 2, 1918
+                     THE GENERAL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
+                                       (_Signed_) PETAIN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+       GRAND QUARTIER GENERAL
+    DES ARMEES DU NORD ET DU NORD-EST
+
+             ETAT-MAJOR
+
+         BUREAU DU PERSONNEL
+            (Decorations)
+
+                                        ORDRE No 8809 D
+
+
+    Le General Commandant en Chef Cite a l'Ordre de l'Armee:
+
+
+        _M. FLOYD GIBBONS_, Correspondant de Guerre du Chicago Tribune:
+
+        "A donne a maintes reprises des preuves de courage et de
+    bravoure, en allant recueillir des informations aux postes les
+    plus exposes. Le 5 Juin 1918, accompagnant un regiment de
+    Fusiliers marins qui attaquait un bois, a ete tres grievement
+    atteint de trois balles de mitrailleuses en se portant au secours
+    d'un officier americain blesse a ses cotes, faisant ainsi preuve,
+    en cette circonstance, du plus beau devouement. Releve plusieurs
+    heures apres et transporte au poste de secours, a demande a ne
+    pas etre soigne avant les blesses arrives avant lui."
+
+             Au Grand Quartier General, le 2 Aout 1918.
+                   LE GENERAL COMMANDANT EN CHEF.
+
+                                    Petain
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Marshal Foch, the commander of eleven million bayonets, has written that
+no man is more qualified than Gibbons to tell the true story of the
+Western Front. General Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American
+Expeditionary Forces, has said that it was Gibbons' great opportunity to
+give the people in America a life-like picture of the work of the
+American soldier in France.
+
+The key to the book is the man.
+
+Back in the red days on the Rio Grande, word came from Pancho Villa that
+any "Gringos" found in Mexico would be killed on sight. The American
+people were interested in the Revolution at the border. Gibbons went
+into the Mexican hills alone and called Villa's bluff. He did more. He
+fitted out a box car, attached it to the revolutionary bandits' train
+and was in the thick of three of Villa's biggest battles. Gibbons
+brought out of Mexico the first authoritative information on the Mexican
+situation. The following year the War Department accredited him to
+General Pershing's punitive expedition and he rode with the flying
+column led by General Pershing when it crossed the border.
+
+In 1917, the then Imperial German Government announced to the world that
+on and after February 1st its submarines would sink without warning any
+ship that ventured to enter a zone it had drawn in the waters of the
+North Atlantic.
+
+Gibbons sensed the meaning of this impudent challenge. He saw ahead the
+overt act that was bound to come and be the cause of the United States
+entering the war. In these days the cry of "Preparedness" was echoing
+the land. England had paid dearly for her lack of preparedness. The
+inefficient volunteer system had cost her priceless blood. The _Chicago
+Tribune_ sought the most available newspaper man to send to London and
+write the story of England's costly mistakes for the profit of the
+American people. Gibbons was picked for the mission and arrangement was
+made for him to travel on the steamer by which the discredited Von
+Bernstorff was to return to Germany. The ship's safe conduct was
+guaranteed. Gibbons did not like this feature of the trip. He wanted to
+ride the seas in a ship without guarantees. His mind was on the overt
+act. He wanted to be on the job when it happened. He cancelled the
+passage provided for him on the Von Bernstorff ship and took passage on
+the largest liner in port, a ship large enough to be readily seen
+through a submarine periscope and important enough to attract the
+special attention of the German Admiralty. He sailed on the _Laconia_,
+an eighteen thousand ton Cunarder.
+
+On the night of February 27, 1917, when the _Laconia_ was two hundred
+miles off the coast of Ireland, the Gibbons' "hunch" was fulfilled. The
+_Laconia_ was torpedoed and suck. After a perilous night in a small boat
+on the open sea, Gibbons was rescued and brought into Queenstown. He
+opened the cables and flashed to America the most powerful call to arms
+to the American people. It shook the country. It was the testimony of an
+eye witness and it convinced the Imperial German Government, beyond all
+reasonable doubt, of the wilful and malicious murder of American
+citizens. The Gibbons story furnished the proof of the overt act and it
+was unofficially admitted at Washington that it was the determining
+factor in sending America into the war one month later.
+
+Gibbons greeted Pershing on the latter's landing in Liverpool. He
+accompanied the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces across
+the Channel and was at his side when he put foot on French soil. He was
+one of the two American correspondents to march with the first American
+troops that entered the trenches on the Western front. He was with the
+first American troops to cross the German frontier. He was with the
+artillery battalion that fired the first American shell into Germany.
+
+On June 6th, 1918, Gibbons went "over the top" with the first waves in
+the great battle of the Bois de Belleau. Gibbons was with Major John
+Berry, who, while leading the charge, fell wounded. Gibbons saw him
+fall. Through the hail of lead from a thousand spitting machine guns, he
+rushed to the assistance of the wounded Major. A German machine gun
+bullet shot away part of his left shoulder, but this did not stop
+Gibbons. Another bullet smashed through his arm, but still Gibbons kept
+on. A third bullet got him. It tore out his left eye and made a compound
+fracture of the skull. For three hours he lay conscious on the open
+field in the Bois de Belleau with a murderous machine gun fire playing a
+few inches over his head until under cover of darkness he was able to
+crawl off the field. For his gallant conduct he received a citation from
+General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies, and the French
+Government awarded him the Croix de Guerre with the Palm.
+
+On July 5th, he was out of the hospital and back at the front, covering
+the first advance of the Americans with the British forces before
+Amiens. On July 18th he was the only correspondent with the American
+troops when they executed the history-making drive against the German
+armies in the Chateau-Thierry salient--the beginning of the German end.
+He rode with the first detachment of American troops that entered
+Chateau-Thierry upon the heels of the retreating Germans.
+
+Floyd Gibbons was the first to sound the alarm of the danger of the
+German peace offensive. Six weeks before the drive for a negotiated
+peace was made by the German Government against the home flank in
+America, Gibbons told that it was on the way. He crossed the Atlantic
+with his crippled arm in a sling and his head bandaged, to spend his
+convalescence warning American audiences against what he called the
+"Crooked Kamerad Cry."
+
+Gibbons has lived the war, he has been a part of it. "And They Thought
+We Wouldn't Fight" is the voice of our men in France.
+
+                                                  FRANK COMERFORD.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I THE SINKING OF THE _Laconia_                                  17
+
+    II PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE                                 43
+
+    III THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE      61
+
+    IV THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR                                    78
+
+    V MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS                               96
+
+    VI "FRONTWARD HO!"                                             117
+
+    VII INTO THE LINE--THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR          134
+
+    VIII THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR                                 158
+
+    IX THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE                                182
+
+    X INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH                         199
+
+    XI UNDER FIRE                                                  217
+
+    XII BEFORE CANTIGNY                                            235
+
+    XIII THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS--"ZERO AT 2 A. M."                251
+
+    XIV ON LEAVE IN PARIS                                          266
+
+    XV CHATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU                     283
+
+    XVI WOUNDED--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT                           305
+
+    XVII "GOOD MORNING, NURSE"                                     323
+
+    XVIII GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL                  338
+
+    XIX "JULY 18TH"--THE TURN OF THE TIDE                          354
+
+    XX THE DAWN OF VICTORY                                         376
+
+    APPENDIX
+
+    PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE       399
+
+
+
+
+                              ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    FLOYD GIBBONS                                        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+    THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING,
+    MR. PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD
+    DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS                                         50
+
+    GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS                   50
+
+    THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL                          66
+
+    THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE                                     66
+
+    CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING
+    AMERICAN OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE POUNDER                122
+
+    IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE
+    VESLE THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND
+    WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO RESPECT AMERICA.
+    THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY,
+    LIKE A STEAM ROLLER                                            122
+
+    GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICANS KILLED IN FRANCE. TRANSLATION:
+    HERE LIE THE FIRST SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT
+    REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FALLEN
+    ON FRENCH SOIL FOR JUSTICE AND FOR LIBERTY, NOVEMBER
+    3RD, 1918                                                      170
+
+    FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
+    AT CHATEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY
+    TANKS, KNOWN AS CHARS D'ASSAUTS, ENTERING THE
+    WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS               226
+
+    YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHATEAU-THIERRY
+    WHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY THE YANKS
+    TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE AGAINST THE HUNS                     226
+
+    MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON
+    ON THE FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS                                 274
+
+    BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHATEAU-THIERRY
+    DESTROYED BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM
+    TOWN                                                           274
+
+    HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED,
+    SHOWING DAMAGE CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL                              314
+
+    THE NEWS FROM THE STATES                                       346
+
+    SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS                              346
+
+    (_Photographs Copyright by Committee on Public Information._)
+
+
+
+
+"AND THEY THOUGHT WE
+  WOULDN'T FIGHT"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE SINKING OF THE _Laconia_
+
+
+Between America and the firing line, there are three thousand miles of
+submarine infested water. Every American soldier, before encountering
+the dangers of the battle-front, must first overcome the dangers of the
+deep.
+
+Geographically, America is almost four thousand miles from the war zone,
+but in fact every American soldier bound for France entered the war zone
+one hour out of New York harbour. Germany made an Ally out of the dark
+depths of the Atlantic.
+
+That three-thousand-mile passage represented greater possibilities for
+the destruction of the United States overseas forces than any
+strategical operation that Germany's able military leaders could direct
+in the field.
+
+Germany made use of that three thousand miles of water, just as she
+developed the use of barbed wire entanglements along the front. Infantry
+advancing across No Man's Land were held helpless before the enemy's
+fire by barbed wire entanglements. Germany, with her submarine policy of
+ruthlessness, changed the Atlantic Ocean into another No Man's Land
+across which every American soldier had to pass at the mercy of the
+enemy before he could arrive at the actual battle-front.
+
+This was the peril of the troop ship. This was the tremendous advantage
+which the enemy held over our armies even before they reached the field.
+This was the unprecedented condition which the United States and Allied
+navies had to cope with in the great undertaking of transporting our
+forces overseas.
+
+Any one who has crossed the ocean, even in the normal times before
+shark-like Kultur skulked beneath the water, has experienced the feeling
+of human helplessness that comes in mid-ocean when one considers the
+comparative frailty of such man-made devices as even the most modern
+turbine liners, with the enormous power of the wilderness of water over
+which one sails.
+
+In such times one realises that safety rests, first upon the kindliness
+of the elements; secondly, upon the skill and watchfulness of those
+directing the voyage, and thirdly, upon the dependability of such
+human-made things as engines, propellers, steel plates, bolts and
+rivets.
+
+But add to the possibilities of a failure or a misalliance of any or all
+of the above functions, the greater danger of a diabolical human, yet
+inhuman, interference, directed against the seafarer with the purpose
+and intention of his destruction. This last represents the greatest odds
+against those who go to sea during the years of the great war.
+
+A sinking at sea is a nightmare. I have been through one. I have been on
+a ship torpedoed in mid-ocean. I have stood on the slanting decks of a
+doomed liner; I have listened to the lowering of the life-boats, heard
+the hiss of escaping steam and the roar of ascending rockets as they
+tore lurid rents in the black sky and cast their red glare o'er the
+roaring sea.
+
+I have spent a night in an open boat on the tossing swells. I have been
+through, in reality, the mad dream of drifting and darkness and bailing
+and pulling on the oars and straining aching eyes toward an empty,
+meaningless horizon in search of help. I shall try to tell you how it
+feels.
+
+I had been assigned by _The Chicago Tribune_ to go to London as their
+correspondent. Almost the same day I received that assignment, the
+"Imperial" Government of Germany had invoked its ruthless submarine
+policy, had drawn a blockade zone about the waters of the British Isles
+and the coasts of France, and had announced to the world that its
+U-boats would sink without warning any ship, of any kind, under any
+flag, that tried to sail the waters that Germany declared prohibitory.
+
+In consideration of my personal safety and, possibly, of my future
+usefulness, the _Tribune_ was desirous of arranging for me a safe
+passage across the Atlantic. Such an opportunity presented itself in the
+ordered return of the disgraced and discredited German Ambassador to the
+United States, Count von Bernstorff.
+
+Under the rules of International courtesy, a ship had been provided for
+the use of von Bernstorff and his diplomatic staff. That ship was to
+sail under absolute guarantees of safe conduct from all of the nations
+at war with Germany and, of course, it would also have been safe from
+attack by German submarines. That ship was the _Frederick VIII_. At
+considerable expense the _Tribune_ managed to obtain for me a cabin
+passage on that ship.
+
+I can't say that I was over-impressed with the prospect of travel in
+such company. I disliked the thought that I, an American citizen, with
+rights as such to sail the sea, should have to resort to subterfuge and
+scheming to enjoy those rights. There arose in me a feeling of challenge
+against Germany's order which forbade American ships to sail the ocean.
+I cancelled my sailing on the _Frederick VIII_.
+
+In New York, I sought passage on the first American ship sailing for
+England. I made the rounds of the steamship offices and learned that the
+Cunard liner _Laconia_ was the first available boat and was about to
+sail. She carried a large cargo of munitions and other materials of war.
+I booked passage aboard her. It was on Saturday, February 17th, 1917,
+that we steamed away from the dock at New York and moved slowly down the
+East River. We were bound for Liverpool, England. My cabin accommodations
+were good. The _Laconia_ was listed at 18,000 tons and was one of the
+largest Cunarders in the Atlantic service. The next morning we were out
+of sight of land.
+
+Sailors were stationed along the decks of the ship and in the look-outs
+at the mast heads. They maintained a watch over the surface of the sea
+in all directions. On the stern of the ship, there was mounted a
+six-inch cannon and a crew of gunners stood by it night and day.
+
+Submarines had been recently reported in the waters through which we
+were sailing, but we saw none of them and apparently they saw none of
+us. They had sunk many ships, but all of the sinkings had been in the
+day time. Consequently, there was a feeling of greater safety at night.
+The _Laconia_ sailed on a constantly zig-zagging course. All of our
+life-boats were swinging out over the side of the ship, so that if we
+were hit they could be lowered in a hurry. Every other day the
+passengers and the crew would be called up on the decks to stand by the
+life-boats that had been assigned to them.
+
+The officers of the ship instructed us in the life-boat drill. They
+showed us how to strap the life-preservers about our bodies; they showed
+us how to seat ourselves in the life-boats; they showed us a small keg
+of water and some tin cans of biscuits, a lantern and some flares that
+were stored in the boat, and so we sailed along day after day without
+meeting any danger. At night, all of the lights were put out and the
+ship slipped along through the darkness.
+
+On Sunday, after we had been sailing for eight days, we entered the zone
+that had been prohibited by the Kaiser. We sailed into it full steam
+ahead and nothing happened. That day was February the twenty-fifth. In
+the afternoon, I was seated in the lounge with two friends. One was an
+American whose name was Kirby; the other was a Canadian and his name was
+Dugan. The latter was an aviator in the British army. In fights with
+German aeroplanes high over the Western Front he had been wounded and
+brought down twice and the army had sent him to his home in Canada to
+get well. He was returning once more to the battle front "to stop
+another bullet," as he said.
+
+As we talked, I passed around my cigarette case and Dugan held a lighted
+match while the three of us lighted our cigarettes from it. As Dugan
+blew out the match and placed the burnt end in an ash tray, he laughed
+and said,
+
+"They say it is bad luck to light three cigarettes with the same match,
+but I think it is good luck for me. I used to do it frequently with my
+flying partners in France and four of them have been killed, but I am
+still alive."
+
+"That makes it all right for you," said Kirby, "but it makes it look bad
+for Gibbons and myself. But nothing is going to happen. I don't believe
+in superstitions."
+
+That night after dinner Dugan and I took a brisk walk around the
+darkened promenade deck of the _Laconia_. The night was very dark, a
+stiff wind was blowing and the _Laconia_ was rolling slightly in the
+trough of the waves. Wet from spray, we returned within and in one of
+the corridors met the Captain of the ship. I told him that I would like
+very much to have a look at his chart and learn our exact location on
+the ocean.
+
+He looked at me and laughed because that was a very secret matter. But
+he replied:
+
+"Oh, you would, would you?" and his voice carried that particular
+British intonation that seemed to say, "Well it is jolly well none of
+your business."
+
+Then I asked him when he thought we would land in Liverpool.
+
+"I really don't know," said the ship's commander, and then, with a wink,
+he added, "but my steward told me that we would get in Tuesday evening."
+
+Kirby and I went to the smoke room on the boat deck well to the stern of
+the ship. We joined a circle of Britishers who were seated in front of a
+coal fire in an open hearth. Nearly every one in the lighted smoke room
+was playing cards, so that the conversation was practically confined to
+the mentioning of bids and the orders of drinks from the stewards.
+
+"What do you think are our chances of being torpedoed?" was the question
+I put before the circle in front of the fireplace.
+
+The deliberative Mr. Henry Chetham, a London solicitor, was the first to
+answer.
+
+"Well," he drawled, "I should say about four thousand to one."
+
+Lucien J. Jerome of the British Diplomatic Service, returning with an
+Ecuadorian valet from South America, advanced his opinion.
+
+I was much impressed with his opinion because the speaker himself had
+impressed me deeply. He was the best monocle juggler I had ever met. In
+his right eye he carried a monocle without a rim and without a ribbon
+or thread to save it, should it ever have fallen from his eye.
+
+Repeatedly during the trip, I had seen Mr. Jerome standing on the
+hurrideck of the _Laconia_ facing the wind but holding the glass disk in
+his eye with a muscular grip that must have been vise-like. I had even
+followed him around the deck several times in a desire to be present
+when the monocle blew out, but the British diplomatist never for once
+lost his grip on it. I had come to the opinion that the piece of glass
+was fixed to his eye and that he slept with it. After the fashion of the
+British Diplomatic Service, he expressed his opinion most affirmatively.
+
+"Nonsense," he said with reference to Mr. Chetham's estimate. "Utter
+nonsense. Considering the zone that we are in and the class of the ship,
+I should put the chances down at two hundred and fifty to one that we
+don't meet a 'sub.'"
+
+At that minute the torpedo hit us.
+
+Have you ever stood on the deck of a ferry boat as it arrived in the
+slip? And have you ever experienced the slight sideward shove when the
+boat rubs against the piling and comes to a stop? That was the
+unmistakable lurch we felt, but no one expects to run into pilings in
+mid-ocean, so every one knew what it was.
+
+At the same time, there came a muffled noise--not extremely loud nor yet
+very sharp--just a noise like the slamming of some large oaken door a
+good distance away. Realising that we had been torpedoed, my imagination
+was rather disappointed at the slightness of the shock and the meekness
+of the report. One or two chairs tipped over, a few glasses crashed from
+table to floor and in an instant every man in the room was on his feet.
+
+"We're hit," shouted Mr. Chetham.
+
+"That's what we've been waiting for," said Mr. Jerome.
+
+"What a lousy torpedo!" said Mr. Kirby. "It must have been a fizzer."
+
+I looked at my watch; it was 10:30.
+
+Five sharp blasts sounded on the _Laconia's_ whistle. Since that night,
+I have often marvelled at the quick coordination of mind and hand that
+belonged to the man on the bridge who pulled that whistle rope. Those
+five blasts constituted the signal to abandon the ship. Every one
+recognised them.
+
+We walked hurriedly down the corridor leading from the smoke room in the
+stern to the lounge which was amidships. We moved fast but there was no
+crowding and no panic. Passing the open door of the gymnasium, I became
+aware of the list of the vessel. The floor of the gymnasium slanted down
+on the starboard side and a medicine ball and dozens of dumb bells and
+Indian clubs were rolling in that direction.
+
+We entered the lounge--a large drawing room furnished with green
+upholstered chairs and divans and small tables on which the after-dinner
+liqueur glasses still rested. In one corner was a grand piano with the
+top elevated. In the centre of the slanting floor of the saloon was a
+cabinet Victrola and from its mahogany bowels there poured the last and
+dying strains of "Poor Butterfly."
+
+The women and several men who had been in the lounge were hurriedly
+leaving by the forward door as we entered. We followed them through. The
+twin winding stairs leading below decks by the forward hatch were dark
+and I brought into play a pocket flashlight shaped like a fountain pen.
+I had purchased it before sailing in view of such an emergency and I
+had always carried it fastened with a clip in an upper vest pocket.
+
+My stateroom was B 19 on the promenade deck, one deck below the deck on
+which was located the smoke room, the lounge and the life-boats. The
+corridor was dimly lighted and the floor had a more perceptible slant as
+I darted into my stateroom, which was on the starboard and sinking side
+of the ship. I hurriedly put on a light non-sink garment constructed
+like a vest, which I had come provided with, and then donned an
+overcoat.
+
+Responding to the list of the ship, the wardrobe door swung open and
+crashed against the wall. My typewriter slid off the dressing table and
+a shower of toilet articles pitched from their places on the washstand.
+I grabbed the ship's life-preserver in my left hand and, with the
+flashlight in my right hand, started up the hatchway to the upper deck.
+
+In the darkness of the boat deck hatchway, the rays of my flashlight
+revealed the chief steward opening the door of a switch closet in the
+panel wall. He pushed on a number of switches and instantly the decks of
+the _Laconia_ became bright. From sudden darkness, the exterior of the
+ship burst into a blaze of light and it was that illumination that saved
+many lives.
+
+The _Laconia's_ engines and dynamos had not yet been damaged. The
+torpedo had hit us well astern on the starboard side and the bulkheads
+seemed to be holding back from the engine room the flood of water that
+rushed in through the gaping hole in the ship's side. I proceeded down
+the boat deck to my station opposite boat No. 10. I looked over the side
+and down upon the water sixty feet below.
+
+The sudden flashing of the lights on the upper deck made the dark
+seething waters seem blacker and angrier. They rose and fell in troubled
+swells.
+
+Steam began to hiss from some of the pipes leading up from the engine
+well. It seemed like a dying groan from the very vitals of the stricken
+ship. Clouds of white and black smoke rolled up from the giant grey
+funnels that towered above us.
+
+Suddenly there was a roaring swish as a rocket soared upward from the
+Captain's bridge, leaving a comet's tail of fire. I watched it as it
+described a graceful arc and then with an audible pop it burst in a
+flare of brilliant colour. Its ascent had torn a lurid rent in the black
+sky and had cast a red glare over the roaring sea.
+
+Already boat No. 10 was loading up and men and boys were busy with the
+ropes. I started to help near a davit that seemed to be giving trouble
+but was sternly ordered to get out of the way and to get into the boat.
+
+Other passengers and members of the crew and officers of the ship were
+rushing to and fro along the deck strapping their life-preservers to
+them as they rushed. There was some shouting of orders but little or no
+confusion. One woman, a blonde French actress, became hysterical on the
+deck, but two men lifted her bodily off her feet and placed her in the
+life-boat.
+
+We were on the port side of the ship, the higher side. To reach the
+boats, we had to climb up the slanting deck to the edge of the ship.
+
+On the starboard side, it was different. On that side, the decks slanted
+down toward the water. The ship careened in that direction and the
+life-boats suspended from the davits swung clear of the ship's side.
+
+The list of the ship increased. On the port side, we looked down the
+slanting side of the ship and noticed that her water line on that side
+was a number of feet above the waves. The slant was so pronounced that
+the life-boats, instead of swinging clear from the davits, rested
+against the side of the ship. From my position in the life-boat I could
+see that we were going to have difficulty in the descent to the water.
+
+"Lower away," some one gave the order and we started downward with a
+jerk toward the seemingly hungry, rising and falling swells. Then we
+stopped with another jerk and remained suspended in mid-air while the
+men at the bow and the stern swore and tusseled with the ropes.
+
+The stern of the boat was down; the bow up, leaving us at an angle of
+about forty-five degrees. We clung to the seats to save ourselves from
+falling out.
+
+"Who's got a knife? A knife! A knife!" shouted a fireman in the bow. He
+was bare to the waist and perspiration stood out in drops on his face
+and chest and made streaks through the coal dust with which his skin was
+grimed.
+
+"Great Gawd! Give him a knife," bawled a half-dressed jibbering negro
+stoker who wrung his hands in the stern.
+
+A hatchet was thrust into my hands and I forwarded it to the bow. There
+was a flash of sparks as it was brought down with a clang on the holding
+pulley. One strand of the rope parted.
+
+Down plunged the bow of the boat too quickly for the men in the stern.
+We came to a jerky stop, this time with the stern in the air and the bow
+down, the dangerous angle reversed.
+
+One man in the stern let the rope race through his blistered fingers.
+With hands burnt to the quick, he grabbed the rope and stopped the
+precipitous descent just in time to bring the stern level with the bow.
+
+Then bow and stern tried to lower away together. The slant of the ship's
+side had increased, so that our boat instead of sliding down it like a
+toboggan was held up on one side when the taffrail caught on one of the
+condenser exhaust pipes projecting slightly from the ship's side.
+
+Thus the starboard side of the life-boat stuck fast and high while the
+port side dropped down and once more we found ourselves clinging on at a
+new angle and looking straight down into the water.
+
+A hand slipped into mine and a voice sounded huskily close to my ear. It
+was the little old Jewish travelling man who was disliked in the smoke
+room because he used to speak too certainly of things about which he was
+uncertain. His slightly Teutonic dialect had made him as popular as the
+smallpox with the British passengers.
+
+"My poy, I can't see nutting," he said. "My glasses slipped and I am
+falling. Hold me, please."
+
+I managed to reach out and join hands with another man on the other side
+of the old man and together we held him in. He hung heavily over our
+arms, grotesquely grasping all he had saved from his stateroom--a
+gold-headed cane and an extra hat.
+
+Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side of the ship and we
+renewed our sagging, scraping, sliding, jerking descent. It ended as the
+bottom of the life-boat smacked squarely on the pillowy top of a rising
+swell. It felt more solid than mid-air at least.
+
+But we were far from being off. The pulleys twice stuck in their
+fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe was passed forward and back
+(and with it my flashlight) as the entangling mesh of ropes that held
+us to the sinking _Laconia_ was cut away.
+
+Some shout from that confusion of sound caused me to look up. I believe
+I really did so in the fear that one of the nearby boats was being
+lowered upon us.
+
+Tin funnels enamelled white and containing clusters of electric bulbs
+hung over the side from one of the upper decks. I looked up into the
+cone of one of these lights and a bulky object shot suddenly out of the
+darkness into the scope of the electric rays.
+
+It was a man. His arms were bent up at the elbows; his legs at the
+knees. He was jumping, with the intention, I feared, of landing in our
+boat, and I prepared to avoid the impact. But he had judged his distance
+well.
+
+He plunged beyond us and into the water three feet from the edge of the
+boat. He sank from sight, leaving a white patch of bubbles and foam on
+the black water. He bobbed to the surface almost immediately.
+
+"It's Dugan," shouted a man next to me.
+
+I flashed a light on the ruddy, smiling face and water plastered hair of
+the little Canadian aviator, our fellow saloon passenger. We pulled him
+over the side and into the boat. He spluttered out a mouthful of water.
+
+"I wonder if there is anything to that lighting three matches off the
+same match," he said. "I was trying to loosen the bow rope in this boat.
+I loosened it and then got tangled up in it. When the boat descended, I
+was jerked up back on the deck. Then I jumped for it. Holy Moses, but
+this water is cold."
+
+As we pulled away from the side of the ship, its receding terraces of
+glowing port holes and deck lights towered above us. The ship was slowly
+turning over.
+
+We were directly opposite the engine room section of the _Laconia_.
+There was a tangle of oars, spars and rigging on the seats in our boat,
+and considerable confusion resulted before we could manage to place in
+operation some of the big oars on either side.
+
+The jibbering, bullet-headed negro was pulling a sweep directly behind
+me and I turned to quiet him as his frantic reaches with the oar were
+jabbing me in the back.
+
+In the dull light from the upper decks, I looked into his slanting
+face--his eyes all whites and his lips moving convulsively. He shivered
+with fright, but in addition to that he was freezing in the thin cotton
+shirt that composed his entire upper covering. He worked feverishly at
+the oar to warm himself.
+
+"Get away from her. My Gawd, get away from her," he kept repeating.
+"When the water hits her hot boilers she'll blow up the whole ocean and
+there's just tons and tons of shrapnel in her hold."
+
+His excitement spread to other members of the crew in our boat. The
+ship's baker, designated by his pantry headgear of white linen, became a
+competing alarmist and a white fireman, whose blasphemy was nothing
+short of profound, added to the confusion by cursing every one.
+
+It was the tension of the minute--it was the give way of overwrought
+nerves--it was bedlam and nightmare.
+
+I sought to establish some authority in our boat which was about to
+break out into full mutiny. I made my way to the stern. There, huddled
+up in a great overcoat and almost muffled in a ship's life-preserver, I
+came upon an old white-haired man and I remembered him.
+
+He was a sea-captain of the old sailing days. He had been a second cabin
+passenger with whom I had talked before. Earlier in the year he had
+sailed out of Nova Scotia with a cargo of codfish. His schooner, the
+_Secret_, had broken in two in mid-ocean, but he and his crew had been
+picked up by a tramp and taken back to New York.
+
+From there he had sailed on another ship bound for Europe, but this
+ship, a Holland-American Liner, the _Ryndam_, had never reached the
+other side. In mid-Atlantic her captain had lost courage over the U-boat
+threats. He had turned the ship about and returned to America. Thus, the
+_Laconia_ represented the third unsuccessful attempt of this grey-haired
+mariner to get back to his home in England. His name was Captain Dear.
+
+"Our boat's rudder is gone, but we can stear with an oar," he said, in a
+weak-quavering voice--the thin high-pitched treble of age. "I will take
+charge, if you want me to, but my voice is gone. I can tell you what to
+do, but you will have to shout the orders. They won't listen to me."
+
+There was only one way to get the attention of the crew, and that was by
+an overpowering blast of profanity. I called to my assistance every
+ear-splitting, soul-sizzling oath that I could think of.
+
+I recited the lurid litany of the army mule skinner to his gentle
+charges and embellished it with excerpts from the remarks of a Chicago
+taxi chauffeur while he changed tires on the road with the temperature
+ten below.
+
+It proved to be an effective combination, this brim-stoned oration of
+mine, because it was rewarded by silence.
+
+"Is there a ship's officer in this boat?" I shouted. There was no
+answer.
+
+"Is there a sailor or a seaman on board?" I inquired, and again there
+was silence from our group of passengers, firemen, stokers and deck
+swabs.
+
+They appeared to be listening to me and I wished to keep my hold on
+them. I racked my mind for some other query to make or some order to
+direct. Before the spell was broken I found one.
+
+"We will now find out how many of us there are in this boat," I
+announced in the best tones of authority that I could assume. "The first
+man in the bow will count one and the next man to him will count two. We
+will count from the bow back to the stern, each man taking a number.
+Begin."
+
+"One," came the quick response from a passenger who happened to be the
+first man in the bow. The enumeration continued sharply toward the
+stern. I spoke the last number.
+
+"There are twenty-three of us here," I repeated, "there's not a ship's
+officer or seaman among us, but we are extremely fortunate to have with
+us an old sea-captain who has consented to take charge of the boat and
+save our lives. His voice is weak, but I will repeat the orders for him,
+so that all of you can hear. Are you ready to obey his orders?"
+
+There was an almost unanimous acknowledgment of assent and order was
+restored.
+
+"The first thing to be done," I announced upon Captain Dear's
+instructions, "is to get the same number of oars pulling on each side of
+the boat; to seat ourselves so as to keep on an even keel and then to
+keep the boat's head up into the wind so that we won't be swamped by the
+waves."
+
+With some little difficulty, this rearrangement was accomplished and
+then we rested on our oars with all eyes turned on the still lighted
+_Laconia_. The torpedo had hit at about 10:30 P. M. according to our
+ship's time. Though listing far over on one side, the _Laconia_ was
+still afloat.
+
+It must have been twenty minutes after that first shot that we heard
+another dull thud, which was accompanied by a noticeable drop in the
+hulk. The German submarine had despatched a second torpedo through the
+engine room and the boat's vitals from a distance of two hundred yards.
+
+We watched silently during the next minute as the tiers of lights dimmed
+slowly from white to yellow, then to red and then nothing was left but
+the murky mourning of the night which hung over all like a pall.
+
+A mean, cheese-coloured crescent of a moon revealed one horn above a rag
+bundle of clouds low in the distance. A rim of blackness settled around
+our little world, relieved only by a few leering stars in the zenith,
+and, where the _Laconia's_ lights had shown, there remained only the dim
+outlines of a blacker hulk standing out above the water like a jagged
+headland, silhouetted against the overcast sky.
+
+The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose rose out of
+the water, and stood straight up in the air. Then it slid silently down
+and out of sight like a piece of scenery in a panorama spectacle.
+
+Boat No. 3 stood closest to the place where the ship had gone down. As a
+result of the after suction, the small life-boat rocked about in a
+perilous sea of clashing spars and wreckage.
+
+As the boat's crew steadied its head into the wind, a black hulk,
+glistening wet and standing about eight feet above the surface of the
+water, approached slowly. It came to a stop opposite the boat and not
+ten feet from the side of it. It was the submarine.
+
+"Vot ship vass dot?" were the first words of throaty guttural English
+that came from a figure which projected from the conning tower.
+
+"The _Laconia_," answered the Chief Steward Ballyn, who commanded the
+life-boat.
+
+"Vot?"
+
+"The _Laconia_, Cunard Line," responded the steward.
+
+"Vot did she weigh?" was the next question from the submarine.
+
+"Eighteen thousand tons."
+
+"Any passengers?"
+
+"Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "many of them women and children--some
+of them in this boat. She had over two hundred in the crew."
+
+"Did she carry cargo?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Iss der Captain in dot boat?"
+
+"No," Ballyn answered.
+
+"Well, I guess you'll be all right. A patrol will pick you up some time
+soon." Without further sound save for the almost silent fixing of the
+conning tower lid, the submarine moved off.
+
+"I thought it best to make my answers sharp and satisfactory, sir," said
+Ballyn, when he repeated the conversation to me word for word. "I was
+thinking of the women and children in the boat. I feared every minute
+that somebody in our boat might make a hostile move, fire a revolver, or
+throw something at the submarine. I feared the consequence of such an
+act."
+
+There was no assurance of an early pickup so we made preparations for a
+siege with the elements. The weather was a great factor. That black rim
+of clouds looked ominous. There was a good promise of rain. February has
+a reputation for nasty weather in the north Atlantic. The wind was cold
+and seemed to be rising. Our boat bobbed about like a cork on the
+swells, which fortunately were not choppy.
+
+How much rougher seas could the boat weather? This question and
+conditions were debated pro and con.
+
+Had our rockets been seen? Did the first torpedo put the wireless out of
+commission? If it had been able to operate, had anybody heard our S. O.
+S.? Was there enough food and drinking water in the boat to last?
+
+This brought us to an inventory of our small craft. After considerable
+difficulty, we found the lamp, a can of powder flares, the tin of ship's
+biscuit, matches and spare oil.
+
+The lamp was lighted. Other lights were now visible. As we drifted in
+the darkness, we could see them every time we mounted the crest of the
+swells. The boats carrying these lights remained quite close together at
+first.
+
+One boat came within sound and I recognised the Harry Lauder-like voice
+of the second assistant purser whom I had last heard on Wednesday at the
+ship's concert. Now he was singing--"I Want to Marry 'arry," and "I Love
+to be a Sailor."
+
+There were an American woman and her husband in that boat. She told me
+later that an attempt had been made to sing "Tipperary," and "Rule
+Britannia," but the thought of that slinking dark hull of destruction
+that might have been a part of the immediate darkness resulted in the
+abandonment of the effort.
+
+"Who's the officer in that boat?" came a cheery hail from the nearby
+light.
+
+"What the hell is it to you?" our half frozen negro yelled out for no
+reason apparent to me other than possibly the relief of his feelings.
+
+"Will somebody brain that skunk with a pin?" was the inquiry of our
+profound oathsman, who also expressed regret that he happened to be
+sitting too far away from the negro to reach him. He accompanied the
+announcement with a warmth of language that must have relieved the negro
+of his chill.
+
+The fear of the boats crashing together produced a general inclination
+toward maximum separation on the part of all the little units of
+survivors, with the result that soon the small crafts stretched out for
+several miles, their occupants all endeavoring to hold the heads of the
+boats into the wind.
+
+Hours passed. The swells slopped over the sides of our boat and filled
+the bottom with water. We bailed it continually. Most of us were wet to
+the knees and shivering from the weakening effects of the icy water. Our
+hands were blistered from pulling at the oars. Our boat, bobbing about
+like a cork, produced terrific nausea, and our stomachs ached from vain
+wrenching.
+
+And then we saw the first light--the first sign of help coming--the
+first searching glow of white radiance deep down the sombre sides of the
+black pot of night that hung over us. I don't know what direction it
+came from--none of us knew north from south--there was nothing but water
+and sky. But the light--it just came from over there where we pointed.
+We nudged dumb, sick boat mates and directed their gaze and aroused them
+to an appreciation of the sight that gave us new life.
+
+It was 'way over there--first a trembling quiver of silver against the
+blackness, then drawing closer, it defined itself as a beckoning finger,
+although still too far away to see our feeble efforts to attract it.
+
+Nevertheless, we wasted valuable flares and the ship's baker,
+self-ordained custodian of the biscuit, did the honours handsomely to
+the extent of a biscuit apiece to each of the twenty-three occupants of
+the boat.
+
+"Pull starboard, sonnies," sang out old Captain Dear, his grey chin
+whiskers bristling with joy in the light of the round lantern which he
+held aloft.
+
+We pulled--pulled lustily, forgetting the strain and pain of innards
+torn and racked with violent vomiting, and oblivious of blistered palms
+and wet, half-frozen feet.
+
+Then a nodding of that finger of light,--a happy, snapping,
+crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come on, you men," like a dice
+player wooing the bones--led us to believe that our lights had been
+seen.
+
+This was the fact, for immediately the oncoming vessel flashed on its
+green and red sidelights and we saw it was headed for our position. We
+floated off its stern for a while as it manoeuvred for the best
+position in which it could take us on with a sea that was running higher
+and higher.
+
+The risk of that rescuing ship was great, because there was every reason
+to believe that the submarine that had destroyed the _Laconia_ still
+lurked in the darkness nearby, but those on board took the risk and
+stood by for the work of rescue.
+
+"Come along side port!" was megaphoned to us. As fast as we could, we
+swung under the stern and felt our way broadside toward the ship's side.
+
+Out of the darkness above, a dozen small pocket flashlights blinked down
+on us and orders began to be shouted fast and thick.
+
+When I look back on the night, I don't know which was the more
+hazardous, going down the slanting side of the sinking _Laconia_ or
+going up the side of the rescuing vessel.
+
+One minute the swells would lift us almost level with the rail of the
+low-built patrol boat and mine sweeper, but the next receding wave would
+swirl us down into a darksome gulf over which the ship's side glowered
+like a slimy, dripping cliff.
+
+A score of hands reached out and we were suspended in the husky,
+tattooed arms of those doughty British Jack Tars, looking up into their
+weather-beaten youthful faces, mumbling our thankfulness and reading in
+the gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend, "H. M. S.
+_Laburnum_." We had been six hours in the open boat.
+
+The others began coming alongside one by one. Wet and bedraggled
+survivors were lifted aboard. Women and children first was the rule.
+
+The scenes of reunion were heart-gripping. Men who had remained
+strangers to one another aboard the _Laconia_, now wrung each other by
+the hand or embraced without shame the frail little wife of a Canadian
+chaplain who had found one of her missing children delivered up from
+another boat. She smothered the child with ravenous mother kisses while
+tears of gladness streamed down her face.
+
+Boat after boat came alongside. The water-logged craft containing the
+Captain came last.
+
+A rousing cheer went up as he stepped on the deck, one mangled hand
+hanging limp at his side.
+
+The sailors divested themselves of outer clothing and passed the
+garments over to the shivering members of the _Laconia's_ crew.
+
+The cramped officers' quarters down under the quarter deck were turned
+over to the women and children. Two of the _Laconia's_ stewardesses
+passed boiling basins of navy cocoa and aided in the disentangling of
+wet and matted tresses.
+
+The men grouped themselves near steam-pipes in the petty officers'
+quarters or over the grating of the engine rooms, where new life was to
+be had from the upward blasts of heated air that brought with them the
+smell of bilge water and oil and sulphur from the bowels of the vessel.
+
+The injured--all minor cases, sprained backs, wrenched legs or mashed
+hands--were put away in bunks under the care of the ship's doctor.
+
+Dawn was melting the eastern ocean grey to pink when the task was
+finished. In the officers' quarters, which had now been invaded by the
+men, the roll of the vessel was most perceptible. Each time the floor of
+the room slanted, bottles and cups and plates rolled and slid back and
+forth.
+
+On the tables and chairs and benches the women rested. Sea-sick mothers,
+trembling from the after-effects of the terrifying experience of the
+night, sought to soothe their crying children.
+
+Then somebody happened to touch a key on the small wooden organ that
+stood against one wall. This was enough to send some callous seafaring
+fingers over the ivory keys in a rhythm unquestionably religious and so
+irresistible under the circumstances that, although no one seemed to
+know the words, the air was taken up in a reverent, humming chant by all
+in the room.
+
+At the last note of the Amen, little Father Warring, his black garb
+snaggled in places and badly soiled, stood before the centre table and
+lifted back his head until the morning light, filtering through the
+opened hatch above him, shown down on his kindly, weary face. He recited
+the Lord's prayer and all present joined. The simple, impressive service
+of thanksgiving ended as simply as it had begun.
+
+Two minutes later I saw the old Jewish travelling man limping about on
+one lame leg with a little boy in his arms. He was collecting big, round
+British pennies for the youngster.
+
+A survey and cruise of the nearby waters revealed no more occupied boats
+and our mine sweeper, with its load of survivors numbering two hundred
+and sixty-seven, steamed away to the east. A half an hour steaming and
+the vessel stopped within hailing distance of two sister ships, toward
+one of which an open boat manned by jackies was being pulled.
+
+I saw the hysterical French actress, her blonde hair wet and bedraggled,
+lifted out of the boat and carried up the companionway. Then a little
+boy, his fresh pink face and golden hair shining in the morning sun, was
+passed upward, followed by some other survivors, numbering fourteen in
+all, who had been found half-drowned and almost dead from exposure in a
+partially wrecked boat that was picked up just as it was sinking. It was
+in that boat that one American woman and her daughter died. One of the
+survivors of the boat told me the story. He said:
+
+"Our boat was No. 8. It was smashed in the lowering. I was in the bow.
+Mrs. Hoy and her daughter were sitting toward the stern. The boat filled
+with water rapidly.
+
+"It was no use trying to bail it out. There was a big hole in the side
+and it came in too fast. The boat's edge sank to the level of the water
+and only the air-tanks kept it afloat.
+
+"It was completely awash. Every swell rode clear over our heads and we
+had to hold our breath until we came to the surface again. The cold
+water just takes the life out of you.
+
+"We saw the other boats showing their lights and drifting further and
+further away from us. We had no lights. And then, towards morning, we
+saw the rescuing ship come up into the cluster of other life-boats that
+had drifted so far away from us. One by one we saw their lights
+disappear as they were taken on board.
+
+"We shouted and screamed and shrieked at the tops of our voices, but
+could not attract the attention of any of the other boats or the
+rescuing ship, and soon we saw its lights blink out. We were left there
+in the darkness with the wind howling and the sea rolling higher every
+minute.
+
+"The women got weaker and weaker. Maybe they had been dead for some
+time. I don't know, but a wave came and washed both Mrs. Hoy and her
+daughter out of the boat. There were life-belts around their bodies and
+they drifted away with their arms locked about one another."
+
+With such stories ringing in our ears, with exchanges of experiences
+pathetic and humorous, we steamed into Queenstown harbour shortly after
+ten o'clock that night. We had been attacked at a point two hundred
+miles off the Irish coast and of our passengers and crew, thirteen had
+been lost.
+
+As I stepped ashore, a Britisher, a fellow-passenger aboard the
+_Laconia_, who knew me as an American, stepped up to me. During the
+voyage we had had many conversations concerning the possibility of
+America entering the war. Now he slapped me on the back with this
+question,
+
+"Well, old Casus Belli," he said, "is this your blooming overt act?"
+
+I did not answer him, but thirty minutes afterward I was pounding out on
+a typewriter the introduction to a four thousand word newspaper article
+which I cabled that night and which put the question up to the American
+public for an answer.
+
+Five weeks later the United States entered the war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PERSHING'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE
+
+
+Lean, clean, keen--that's the way they looked--that first trim little
+band of American fighting men who made their historic landing on the
+shores of England, June 8th, 1917.
+
+I went down from London to meet them at the port of arrival. In my
+despatches of that date, I, nor none of the other correspondents, was
+permitted to mention the name of the port. This was supposed to be the
+secret that was to be religiously kept and the British censor was on the
+job religiously.
+
+The name of the port was excluded from all American despatches but the
+British censor saw no reason to withhold transmission of the following
+sentence--"Pershing landed to-day at an English port and was given a
+hearty welcome by the Mayor of Liverpool."
+
+So I am presuming at this late date of writing that it would serve no
+further purpose to refrain from announcing flatly that General John J.
+Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces
+overseas, and his staff, landed on the date above mentioned, at
+Liverpool, England.
+
+The sun was shining brightly on the Mersey when the giant ocean liner,
+the _Baltic_, came slowly up the harbour in the tow of numerous puffing
+tugs. The great grey vessel that had safely completed the crossing of
+the submarine zone, was warped to the dock-side.
+
+On the quay there were a full brass band and an honourary escort of
+British soldiers. While the moorings were being fastened, General
+Pershing, with his staff, appeared on the promenade deck on the shore
+side of the vessel.
+
+His appearance was the signal for a crash of cymbals and drums as the
+band blared out the "Star Spangled Banner." The American commander and
+the officers ranged in line on either side of him, stood stiffly at
+attention, with right hands raised in salute to the visors of their
+caps.
+
+On the shore the lines of British soldiery brought their arms to the
+present with a snap. Civilian witnesses of the ceremony bared their
+heads. The first anthem was followed by the playing of "God Save the
+King." All present remained at the salute.
+
+As the gangplank was lashed in place, a delegation of British military
+and civilian officials boarded the ship and were presented to the
+General. Below, on the dock, every newspaper correspondent and
+photographer in the British Isles, I think, stood waiting in a group
+that far outnumbered the other spectators.
+
+There was reason for this seeming lack of proportion. The fact was that
+but very few people in all of England, as well as in all of the United
+States, had known that General Pershing was to land that day.
+
+Few had known that he was on the water. The British Admiralty, then in
+complete control of the ocean lines between America and the British
+Isles, had guarded well the secret. England lost Kitchener on the sea
+and now with the sea peril increased a hundredfold, England took pains
+to guard well the passage of this standard-bearer of the American
+millions that were to come.
+
+Pershing and his staff stepped ashore. Lean, clean, keen--those are the
+words that described their appearance. That was the way they impressed
+their critical brothers in arms, the all-observing military dignities
+that presented Britain's hearty, unreserved welcome at the water's edge.
+That was the way they appeared to the proud American citizens, residents
+of those islands, who gathered to meet them.
+
+The British soldiers admired the height and shoulders of our first
+military samples. The British soldier approves of a greyhound trimness
+in the belt zone. He likes to look on carriage and poise. He appreciates
+a steady eye and stiff jaw. He is attracted by a voice that rings sharp
+and firm. The British soldier calls such a combination, "a real
+soldier."
+
+He saw one, and more than one, that morning shortly after nine o'clock
+when Pershing and his staff committed the date to history by setting
+foot on British soil. Behind the American commander walked a staff of
+American officers whose soldierly bearing and general appearance brought
+forth sincere expressions of commendation from the assemblage on the
+quay.
+
+At attention on the dock, facing the sea-stained flanks of the liner
+_Baltic_, a company of Royal Welsh Fusiliers Stood like a frieze of clay
+models in stainless khaki, polished brass and shining leather.
+
+General Pershing inspected the guard of honour with keen interest.
+Walking beside the American commander was the considerably stouter and
+somewhat shorter Lieutenant General Sir William Pitcairn Campbell,
+K.C.B., Chief of the Western Command of the British Home Forces.
+
+Pershing's inspection of that guard was not the cursory one that these
+honourary affairs usually are. Not a detail of uniform or equipment on
+any of the men in the guard was overlooked. The American commander's
+attention was as keen to boots, rifles and belts, as though he had been
+a captain preparing the small command for a strenuous inspection at the
+hands of some exacting superior.
+
+As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen blue eyes taking in
+each one of the men from head to foot, he stopped suddenly in front of
+one man in the ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of
+fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his sleeves there was
+displayed two slender gold bars, placed on the forearm.
+
+The decoration was no larger than two matches in a row and on that day
+it had been in use hardly more than a year, yet neither its minuteness
+nor its meaning escaped the eyes of the American commander.
+
+Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three.
+
+"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.
+
+"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, his face pointed
+stiffly ahead. File Three, even now under twenty-one years of age, had
+received his wounds in the early fighting that is called the battle of
+Loos.
+
+"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder of the American
+commander, who accompanied his remark with a straightforward look into
+the eyes of File Three.
+
+Completing the inspection without further incident, General Pershing and
+his staff faced the honour guard and stood at the salute, while once
+more the thunderous military band played the national anthems of America
+and Great Britain.
+
+The ceremony was followed by a reception in the cabin of the _Baltic_,
+where General Pershing received the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady
+Mayoress, and a delegation of civil authorities. The reception ended
+when General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the assembled
+representatives of the British and American Press.
+
+"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest remarks.
+Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side station, where a special
+train of the type labelled Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run
+to London.
+
+The reception at the dock had had none of the features of a
+demonstration by reason of the necessity for the ship's arrival being
+secret, but as soon as the _Baltic_ had landed, the word of the American
+commander's arrival spread through Liverpool like wildfire.
+
+The railroad from the station lay through an industrial section of the
+city. Through the railroad warehouses the news had preceded the train.
+Warehouse-men, porters and draymen crowded the tops of the cotton bales
+and oil barrels on both sides of the track as the train passed through.
+
+Beyond the sheds, the news had spread through the many floors of the
+flour mills and when the Pershing train passed, handkerchiefs and caps
+fluttered from every crowded door and window in the whitened walls. Most
+of the waving was done by a new kind of flour-girl, one who did not wave
+an apron because none of them were dressed that way.
+
+From his car window, General Pershing returned the greetings of the
+trousered girls and women who were making England's bread while their
+husbands, fathers, brothers, sweethearts and sons were making German
+cemeteries.
+
+In London, General Pershing and his staff occupied suites at the Savoy
+Hotel, and during the four or five days of the American commander's
+sojourn in the capital of the British Empire, a seemingly endless line
+of visitors of all the Allied nationalities called to present their
+compliments.
+
+The enlisted men of the General's staff occupied quarters in the old
+stone barracks of the Tower of London, where they were the guests of the
+men of that artillery organisation which prefixes an "Honourable" to its
+name and has been assigned for centuries to garrison duty in the Tower
+of London.
+
+Our soldiers manifested naive interest in some of England's most revered
+traditions and particularly in connection with historical events related
+to the Tower of London. On the second day of their occupation of this
+old fortress, one of the warders, a "Beef-eater" in full mediaeval
+regalia, was escorting a party of the Yanks through the dungeons.
+
+He stopped in one dungeon and lined the party up in front of a stone
+block in the centre of the floor. After a silence of a full minute to
+produce a proper degree of impressiveness for the occasion, the warder
+announced, in a respectful whisper:
+
+"This is where Anne Boleyn was executed."
+
+The lined-up Yanks took a long look at the stone block. A silence
+followed during the inspection. And then one regular, desiring further
+information, but not wishing to be led into any traps of British wit,
+said:
+
+"All right, I'll bite; what did Annie do?"
+
+Current with the arrival of our men and their reception by the honour
+guard of the Welsh Fusiliers there was a widespread revival of an old
+story which the Americans liked to tell in the barrack rooms at night.
+
+When the Welsh Fusiliers received our men at the dock of Liverpool, they
+had with them their historical mascot, a large white goat with horns
+encased in inscribed silver. The animal wore suspended from its neck a
+large silver plate, on which was inscribed a partial history of the
+Welsh Fusiliers.
+
+Some of these Fusiliers told our men the story.
+
+"It was our regiment--the Welsh Fusiliers," one of them said, "that
+fought you Yanks at Bunker Hill. And it was at Bunker Hill that our
+regiment captured the great-great-granddaddy of this same white goat,
+and his descendants are ever destined to be the mascot of our regiment.
+You see, we have still got your goat."
+
+"But you will notice," replied one of the Yanks, "we've got the hill."
+
+During the four days in London, General Pershing was received by King
+George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. The American commander
+engaged in several long conferences at the British War Office, and then
+with an exclusion of entertainment that was painful to the Europeans, he
+made arrangements to leave for his new post in France.
+
+A specially written permission from General Pershing made it possible
+for me to accompany him on that historic crossing between England and
+France. Secret orders for the departure were given on the afternoon and
+evening of June 12th. Before four o'clock of the next morning, June
+13th, I breakfasted in the otherwise deserted dining-room of the Savoy
+with the General and his staff.
+
+Only a few sleepy-eyed attendants were in the halls and lower rooms of
+the Savoy. In closed automobiles we were whisked away to Charing Cross
+Station. We boarded a special train whose destination was unknown. The
+entire party was again in the hands of the Intelligence Section of the
+British Admiralty, and every possible means was taken to suppress all
+definite information concerning the departure.
+
+The special train containing General Pershing and his staff reached
+Folkstone at about seven o'clock in the morning. We left the train at
+the dockside and boarded the swift Channel steamer moored there. A small
+vociferous contingent of English Tommies returning to the front from
+leave in "Blighty" were crowded on all decks in the stern.
+
+With life-boats swinging out over the side and every one wearing
+life-preservers, we steamed out of Folkstone harbour to challenge the
+submarine dangers of the Channel.
+
+The American commander occupied a forward cabin suite on the upper deck.
+His aides and secretaries had already transformed it into a
+business-like apartment. In the General's mind there was no place or
+time for any consideration of the dangers of the Channel crossing.
+Although the very waters through which we dashed were known to be
+infested with submarines which would have looked upon him as capital
+prey, I don't believe the General ever gave them as much as a thought.
+
+Every time I looked through the open door of his cabin, he was busy
+dictating letters to his secretaries or orders or instructions to his
+aides or conferring with his Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Harbord.
+To the American commander, the hours necessary for the dash across the
+Channel simply represented a little more time which he could devote to
+the plans for the great work ahead of him.
+
+Our ship was guarded on all sides and above. Swift torpedo destroyers
+dashed to and fro under our bow and stern and circled us continually. In
+the air above hydro-airplanes and dirigible balloons hovered over the
+waters surrounding us, keeping sharp watch for the first appearance of
+the dark sub-sea hulks of destruction.
+
+[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL IN LONDON, SHOWING GENERAL PERSHING, MR.
+PAGE, FIELD MARSHAL VISCOUNT FRENCH, LORD DERBY, AND ADMIRAL SIMS]
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL PERSHING BOWING TO THE CROWD IN PARIS]
+
+We did not learn until the next day that while we were making that
+Channel crossing, the German air forces had crossed the Channel in a
+daring daylight raid and were at that very hour dropping bombs on London
+around the very hotel which General Pershing had just vacated. Some day,
+after the war, I hope to ascertain whether the commander of that flight
+of bombing Gothas started on his expedition over London with a special
+purpose in view and whether that purpose concerned the supposed presence
+there of the commander-in-chief of the American millions that were later
+to change the entire complexion of the war against Germany.
+
+It was a beautiful sunlight day. It was not long before the coast line
+of France began to push itself up through the distant Channel mists and
+make itself visible on the horizon. I stood in the bow of the ship
+looking toward the coast line and silent with thoughts concerning the
+momentousness of the approaching historical event.
+
+It happened that I looked back amidships and saw a solitary figure
+standing on the bridge of the vessel. It was General Pershing. He seemed
+rapt in deep thought. He wore his cap straight on his head, the visor
+shading his eyes. He stood tall and erect, his hands behind him, his
+feet planted slightly apart to accommodate the gentle roll of the ship.
+
+He faced due east and his eyes were directed toward the shores of that
+foreign land which we were approaching. It seemed to me as I watched him
+that his mind must have been travelling back more than a century to that
+day in history when another soldier had stood on the bridge of another
+vessel, crossing those same waters, but in an almost opposite direction.
+
+It seemed to me that he must have been thinking of that historical
+character who made just such a journey more than a hundred years
+before,--a great soldier who left his homeland to sail to other foreign
+shores halfway around the world and there to lend his sword in the fight
+for the sacred principles of Democracy. It seemed to me that day that
+Pershing thought of Lafayette.
+
+As we drew close to the shore, I noticed an enormous concrete breakwater
+extending out from the harbour entrance. It was surmounted by a wooden
+railing and on the very end of it, straddling the rail, was a small
+French boy. His legs were bare and his feet were encased in heavy wooden
+shoes. On his head he wore a red stocking cap of the liberty type. As we
+came within hailing distance, he gave to us the first greeting that came
+from the shores of France to these first arriving American soldiers.
+
+"_Vive l'Amerique!_" he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth and
+sending his shrill voice across the water to us. Pershing on the bridge
+heard the salutation. He smiled, touched his hand to his hat and waved
+to the lad on the railing.
+
+We landed that day at Boulogne, June 13th, 1917. Military bands massed
+on the quay, blared out the American National Anthem as the ship was
+warped alongside the dock. Other ships in the busy harbour began blowing
+whistles and ringing bells, loaded troop and hospital ships lying nearby
+burst forth into cheering. The news spread like contagion along the
+harbour front.
+
+As the gangplank was lowered, French military dignitaries in dress
+uniforms resplendent with gold braid, buttons and medals, advanced to
+that part of the deck amidships where the General stood. They saluted
+respectfully and pronounced elaborate addresses in their native tongue.
+They were followed by numerous French Government officials in civilian
+dress attire. The city, the department and the nation were represented
+in the populous delegations who presented their compliments, and
+conveyed to the American commander the of the entire people of France.
+
+Under the train sheds on the dock, long stiff, standing ranks of French
+poilus wearing helmets and their light blue overcoats pinned back at the
+knees, presented arms as the General walked down the lines inspecting
+them. At one end of the line, rank upon rank of French marines, and
+sailors with their flat hats with red tassels, stood at attention
+awaiting inspection.
+
+The docks and train sheds were decorated with French and American flags
+and yards and yards of the mutually-owned red, white and blue. Thousands
+of spectators began to gather in the streets near the station, and their
+continuous cheers sufficed to rapidly augment their own numbers.
+
+Accompanied by a veteran French colonel, one of whose uniform sleeves
+was empty, General Pershing, as a guest of the city of Boulogne, took a
+motor ride through the streets of this busy port city. He was quickly
+returned to the station, where he and his staff boarded a special train
+for Paris. I went with them.
+
+That train to Paris was, of necessity, slow. It proceeded slowly under
+orders and with a purpose. No one in France, with the exception of a
+select official circle, had been aware that General Pershing was
+arriving that day until about thirty minutes before his ship was warped
+into the dock at Boulogne. It has always been a mystery to me how the
+French managed to decorate the station at Boulogne upon such short
+notice.
+
+Thus it was that the train crawled slowly toward Paris for the purpose
+of giving the French capital time to throw off the coat of war
+weariness that it had worn for three and a half years and don gala
+attire for this occasion. Paris made full use of every minute of that
+time, as we found when the train arrived at the French capital late in
+the afternoon. The evening papers in Paris had carried the news of the
+American commander's landing on the shores of France, and Paris was
+ready to receive him as Paris had never before received a world's
+notable.
+
+The sooty girders of the Gare du Nord shook with cheers when the special
+train pulled in. The aisles of the great terminal were carpeted with red
+plush. A battalion of bearded poilus of the Two Hundred and
+Thirty-seventh Colonial Regiment was lined up on the platform like a
+wall of silent grey, bristling with bayonets and shiny trench helmets.
+
+General Pershing stepped from his private car. Flashlights boomed and
+batteries of camera men manoeuvred into positions for the lens
+barrage. The band of the Garde Republicaine blared forth the strains of
+the "Star Spangled Banner," bringing all the military to a halt and a
+long standing salute. It was followed by the "Marseillaise."
+
+At the conclusion of the train-side greetings and introductions, Marshal
+Joffre and General Pershing walked down the platform together. The tops
+of the cars of every train in the station were crowded with workmen. As
+the tall, slender American commander stepped into view, the privileged
+observers on the car-tops began to cheer.
+
+A minute later, there was a terrific roar from beyond the walls of the
+station. The crowds outside had heard the cheering within. They took it
+up with thousands of throats. They made their welcome a ringing one.
+Paris took Pershing by storm.
+
+The General was ushered into the specially decorated reception chamber,
+which was hung and carpeted with brilliant red velvet and draped with
+the Allied flags. After a brief formal exchange of greetings in this
+large chamber, he and his staff were escorted to the line of waiting
+automobiles at the side of the station in the Rue de Roubaix.
+
+Pershing's appearance in the open was the cue for wild, unstinted
+applause and cheering from the crowds which packed the streets and
+jammed the windows of the tall buildings opposite.
+
+General Pershing and M. Painleve, Minister of War, took seats in a large
+automobile. They were preceded by a motor containing United States
+Ambassador Sharp and former Premier Viviani. The procession started to
+the accompaniment of martial music by massed military bands in the
+courtyard of the station. It passed through the Rue de Compiegne, the
+Rue de Lafayette, the Place de l'Opera, the Boulevard des Capucines, the
+Place de la Madeleine, the Rue Royale, to the Place de la Concorde.
+
+There were some fifty automobiles in the line, the rear of which was
+brought up by an enormous motor-bus load of the first American soldiers
+from the ranks to pass through the streets of Paris.
+
+The crowds overflowed the sidewalks. They extended from the building
+walls out beyond the curbs and into the streets, leaving but a narrow
+lane through which the motors pressed their way slowly and with the
+exercise of much care. From the crowded balconies and windows
+overlooking the route, women and children tossed down showers of flowers
+and bits of coloured paper.
+
+The crowds were so dense that other street traffic became marooned in
+the dense sea of joyously excited and gesticulating French people.
+Vehicles thus marooned immediately became islands of vantage. They were
+soon covered with men and women and children, who climbed on top of them
+and clung to the sides to get a better look at the khaki-clad occupants
+of the autos.
+
+Old grey-haired fathers of French fighting men bared their heads and
+with tears streaming down their cheeks shouted greetings to the tall,
+thin, grey-moustached American commander who was leading new armies to
+the support of their sons. Women heaped armfuls of roses into the
+General's car and into the cars of other American officers that followed
+him. Paris street gamins climbed the lamp-posts and waved their caps and
+wooden shoes and shouted shrilly.
+
+American flags and red, white and blue bunting waved wherever the eye
+rested. English-speaking Frenchmen proudly explained to the uninformed
+that "Pershing" was pronounced "Peur-chigne" and not "Pair-shang."
+
+Paris was not backward in displaying its knowledge of English. Gay
+Parisiennes were eager to make use of all the English at their command,
+that they might welcome the new arrivals in their native tongue.
+
+Some of these women shouted "Hello," "Heep, heep, hourrah," "Good
+morning," "How are you, keed?" and "Cock-tails for two." Some of the
+expressions were not so inappropriate as they sounded.
+
+Occasionally there came from the crowds a good old genuine American
+whoop-em-up yell. This happened when the procession passed groups of
+American ambulance workers and other sons of Uncle Sam, wearing the
+uniforms of the French, Canadian and English Corps.
+
+They joined with Australians and South African soldiers on leave to
+cheer on the new-coming Americans with such spontaneous expressions as
+"Come on, you Yanks," "Now let's get 'em," and "Eat 'em up, Uncle Sam."
+
+The frequent stopping of the procession by the crowds made it happen
+quite frequently that the automobiles were completely surrounded by
+enthusiasts, who reached up and tried to shake hands with the occupants.
+Pretty girls kissed their hands and blew the invisible confection toward
+the men in khaki.
+
+The bus-load of enlisted men bringing up the rear received dozens of
+bouquets from the girls. The flowers were hurled at them from all
+directions. Every two hundred feet the French would organise a rousing
+shout, "_Vive l'Amerique!_" for them.
+
+Being the passive recipients of this unusual adulation produced only
+embarrassment on the part of the regulars who simply had to sit there,
+smiling and taking it. Just to break the one-sided nature of the
+demonstrations, one of the enlisted men stood up in his seat and,
+addressing himself to his mates, shouted:
+
+"Come on, fellows, let's give 'em a 'veever' ourselves. Now all
+together."
+
+The bus-load rose to its feet like one man and shouted "Veever for
+France." Their "France" rhymed with "pants," so that none of the French
+understood it, but they did understand the sentiment behind the husky
+American lungs.
+
+Through such scenes as these, the procession reached the great Place de
+la Concorde. In this wide, paved, open space an enormous crowd had
+assembled. As the autos appeared the cheering, the flower throwing, the
+tumultuous kiss-blowing began. It increased in intensity as the motors
+stopped in front of the Hotel Crillon into which General Pershing
+disappeared, followed by his staff.
+
+Immediately the cheering changed to a tremendous clamorous demand for
+the General's appearance on the balcony in front of his apartments.
+
+"_Au balcon, au balcon_," were the cries that filled the Place. The
+crowd would not be denied.
+
+General Pershing stepped forth on the balcony. He stood behind the low
+marble railing, and between two enormous white-stoned columns. A cluster
+of the Allied flags was affixed to each column. The American commander
+surveyed the scene in front of him.
+
+There are no trees or shrubbery in the vast Place de la Concorde. Its
+broad paved surface is interrupted only by artistically placed groups of
+statuary and fountains.
+
+To the General's right, as he faced the Place, were the trees and
+greenery of the broad Champs Elysees. On his left were the fountains and
+the gardens of the Tuilleries. At the further end of the Place, five
+hundred feet straight in front of him, were the banks and the ornamental
+bridges of the Seine, beyond which could be seen the columned facade of
+the Chambre des Deputies, and above and beyond that, against the blue
+sky of a late June afternoon, rose the majestic golden dome of the
+Invalides, over the tomb of Napoleon.
+
+General Pershing looked down upon the sea of faces turned up toward him,
+and then it seemed that nature desired to play a part in the ceremony of
+that great day. A soft breeze from the Champs Elysees touched the
+cluster of flags on the General's right and from all the Allied emblems
+fastened there it selected one flag.
+
+The breeze tenderly caught the folds of this flag and wafted them across
+the balcony on which the General bowed. He saw and recognised that flag.
+He extended his hand, caught the flag in his fingers and pressed it to
+his lips. All France and all America represented in that vast throng
+that day cheered to the mighty echo when Pershing kissed the tri-colour
+of France.
+
+It was a tremendous, unforgettable incident. It was exceeded by no other
+incident during those days of receptions and ceremonies, except one.
+That was an incident which occurred not in the presence of thousands,
+but in a lonely old burial ground on the outskirts of Paris. This
+happened several days after the demonstration in the Place de la
+Concorde.
+
+On that day of bright sunshine, General Pershing and a small party of
+officers, French and American, walked through the gravel paths of Picpus
+Cemetery in the suburbs of Paris, where the bodies of hundreds of those
+who made the history of France are buried.
+
+Several French women in deep mourning courtesied as General Pershing
+passed. His party stopped in front of two marble slabs that lay side by
+side at the foot of a granite monument. From the General's party a
+Frenchman stepped forward and, removing his high silk hat, he addressed
+the small group in quiet, simple tones and well-chosen English words. He
+was the Marquis de Chambrun. He said:
+
+  "On this spot one can say that the historic ties between our nations
+  are not the result of the able schemes of skilful diplomacy. No, the
+  principles of liberty, justice and independence are the glorious
+  links between our nations.
+
+  "These principles have enlisted the hearts of our democracies. They
+  have made the strength of their union and have brought about the
+  triumph of their efforts.
+
+  "To-day, when, after nearly a century and a half, America and France
+  are engaged in a conflict for the same cause upon which their early
+  friendship was based, we are filled with hope and confidence.
+
+  "We know that our great nations are together with our Allies
+  invincible, and we rejoice to think that the United States and
+  France are reunited in the fight for liberty, and will reconsecrate,
+  in a new victory, their everlasting friendship of which your
+  presence to-day at this grave is an exquisite and touching token."
+
+General Pershing advanced to the tomb and placed upon the marble slab an
+enormous wreath of pink and white roses. Then he stepped back. He
+removed his cap and held it in both hands in front of him. The bright
+sunlight shone down on his silvery grey hair. Looking down at the grave,
+he spoke in a quiet, impressive tone four simple, all-meaning words:
+
+  "Lafayette, we are here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE
+
+
+The first executive work of the American Expeditionary Forces overseas
+was performed in a second floor suite of the Crillon Hotel on the Place
+de la Concorde in Paris. This suite was the first temporary headquarters
+of the American commander.
+
+The tall windows of the rooms looked down on the historic Place which
+was the scene of so many momentous events in French history. The windows
+were hardly a hundred yards from the very spot where the guillotine
+dripped red in the days of the Terror. It was here that the heads of
+Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette dropped into the basket.
+
+During General Pershing's comparatively brief occupancy of these
+headquarters, the reception rooms were constantly banked with fresh-cut
+flowers, the daily gifts of the French people,--flowers that were
+replenished every twenty-four hours. The room was called the "Salon des
+Batailles."
+
+In one corner of the room, near a window overlooking the Place, was
+General Pershing's table. It was adorned with a statuette of General
+Joffre and a cluster of miniatures of captured German standards.
+Extending from the floor to the ceiling on one of the walls were two
+enormous oil copies of "La Bataille de Fontenoy" and the "Passage du
+Rhin." A large flag-draped photograph of President Wilson occupied a
+place of honour on an easel at one end of the room.
+
+During the first week that General Pershing stopped at the hotel, the
+sidewalk and street beneath his windows were constantly crowded with
+people. The crowds waited there all day long, just in the hope of
+catching a glimpse of the American commander if he should happen to be
+leaving or returning to his quarters. It seemed as if every Parisienne
+and Parisian had taken upon herself and himself the special duty of
+personally observing General Pershing, of waving him an enthusiastic
+"vive" and possibly being within the scope of his returning salute.
+
+But the American commander would not permit demonstrations and
+celebrations to interfere with the important duties that he faced. Two
+days are all that were devoted to these social ceremonies which the
+enthusiastic and hospitable French would have made almost endless.
+Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased from the working
+day calendar. The American commander sounded the order "To work" with
+the same martial precision as though the command had been a sudden call
+"To arms."
+
+On the morning of the third day after General Pershing's arrival in
+Paris, the typewriters began clicking incessantly and the telephones
+began ringing busily in the large building which was occupied on that
+day as the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
+
+This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constantine. It faced the
+trees and shrubbery bordering the approach to the Seine front of the
+Invalides. The building was two stories high with grey-white walls and a
+mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately identified as the one
+in front of which stood a line of American motor cars, as the one where
+trim United States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors
+through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages.
+
+Ten days before, the building had been the residence of a Marquis and
+had contained furniture and art valued at millions of francs. All of
+those home-like characteristics had been removed so effectively that
+even the name of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure that
+he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could not have recognised
+his converted salons where the elaborate ornamentation had been changed
+to the severe simplicity typical of a United States Army barracks.
+
+General Pershing's office was located on the second floor of the house
+and in one corner. In those early days it was carpetless and contained
+almost a monkish minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair,
+and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal standard for one of
+those one-piece telephone sets with which Americans are familiar only in
+French stage settings. A book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's
+table and chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors,
+comprised the furniture inventory of the room.
+
+One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with a large mirror with
+a gilt frame, and in the other wall was a plain fireplace. There were
+tall windows in the two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de
+Constantine and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de Grenelle
+windows there was a small, deeply shaded park where children rolled
+hoops during the heat of the day and where convalescent French soldiers
+sat and watched the children at play or perhaps discussed the war and
+other things with the nurse-maids.
+
+This was the first workshop in France of the American
+commander-in-chief. Adjoining rooms to the left and right were occupied
+by the General's staff and his aides. And it was in these rooms that
+the overseas plans for the landing of the first American armed
+contingent in France were formulated.
+
+It is safe now to mention that St. Nazaire on the west coast of France
+was the port at which our first armed forces disembarked. I was in Paris
+when the information of their coming was whispered to a few chosen
+correspondents who were to be privileged to witness this historical
+landing.
+
+This was the first time in the history of our nation that a large force
+of armed Americans was to cross the seas to Europe. For five and a half
+months prior to the date of their landing, the ruthless submarine policy
+of the Imperial German Government had been in effect, and our troop
+ships with those initial thousands of American soldiers represented the
+first large Armada to dare the ocean crossing since Germany had
+instituted her sub-sea blockade zone in February of that same year.
+
+Thus it was that any conversation concerning the fact that our men were
+on the seas and at the mercy of the U-boats was conducted with the
+greatest of care behind closed doors. In spite of the efforts of the
+French agents of contra espionage, Paris and all France, for that
+matter, housed numerous spies. There were some anxious moments while
+that first contingent was on the water.
+
+Our little group of correspondents was informed that we should be
+conducted by American officers to the port of landing, but the name of
+that port was withheld from us. By appointment we met at a Paris
+railroad station where we were provided with railroad tickets. We took
+our places in compartments and rode for some ten or twelve hours,
+arriving early the next morning at St. Nazaire.
+
+This little village on the coast of Brittany was tucked away there in
+the golden sands of the seashore. Its houses had walls of white stucco
+and gabled roofs of red tile. In the small rolling hills behind it were
+green orchards and fields of yellow wheat. The villagers, old women in
+their starched white head-dresses and old men wearing faded blue smocks
+and wooden shoes, were unmindful of the great event for which history
+had destined their village.
+
+On the night before the landing the townspeople had retired with no
+knowledge of what was to happen on the following day. In the morning
+they awoke to find strange ships that had come in the night, riding
+safely at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began to pop open
+with bangs as excited heads, encased in peaked flannel nightcaps,
+protruded themselves from bedroom windows and directed anxious queries
+to those who happened to be abroad at that early hour.
+
+St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning than ever before in
+its history. The Mayor of the town was one of the busiest figures on the
+street. In high hat and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to
+assemble the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute
+players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The townspeople
+neglected their _cafe au lait_ to rush down to the quay to look at the
+new ships.
+
+The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morning sunlight. The
+dawn had been grey and misty, but now nature seemed to smile. The
+strange ships from the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now
+there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of them.
+
+Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States warships, units of
+that remarkable fighting organisation which in the year that was to
+immediately follow that very day were to escort safely across three
+thousand miles of submarine-infested water more than a million and a
+half American soldiers.
+
+The appearance of these first warships of ours was novel to the French
+townspeople. Our ships had peculiar looking masts, masts which the
+townspeople compared to the baskets which the French peasants carry on
+their backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from the shore
+were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed toward the menace of the
+outer deep.
+
+Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship toward the
+quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American sailors and soldiers, who had
+been previously landed by launch to assist in the disembarkation, were
+handling the lines on the dock.
+
+When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the successive decks of the
+first troop ship took on the appearance of mud-coloured layers from the
+khaki uniforms of the stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band
+on the forward deck was playing the national anthems of France and
+America and every hand was being held at the salute.
+
+As the final bars of the "Star Spangled Banner" crashed out and every
+saluting hand came snappily down, one American soldier on an upper deck
+leaned over the rail and shouted to a comrade on the shore his part of
+the first exchange of greetings between our fighting men upon this
+historic occasion. Holding one hand to his lips, he seriously enquired:
+
+"Say, do they let the enlisted men in the saloons here?"
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL]
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE]
+
+Another soldier standing near the stern rail had a different and more
+serious interrogation to make. He appeared rather blase about it as he
+leaned over the rail and, directing his voice toward a soldier on the
+dock, casually demanded:
+
+"Say, where the Hell is all this trouble, anyhow?"
+
+These two opening sorties produced a flood of others. The most common
+enquiry was: "What's the name of this place?" and "Is this France or
+England?" When answers were made to these questions, the recipients of
+the information, particularly if they happened to be "old-timers in the
+army," would respond by remarking, "Well, it's a damn sight better than
+the Mexican border."
+
+As our men came over the ship's side and down the runways, there was no
+great reception committee awaiting them. Among the most interested
+spectators of the event were a group of stolid German prisoners of war
+and the two French soldiers guarding them. The two Frenchmen talked
+volubly with a wealth of gesticulation, while the Germans maintained
+their characteristic glumness.
+
+The German prisoners appeared to be anything but discouraged at the
+sight. Some of them even wore a smile that approached the supercilious.
+With some of them that smile seemed to say: "You can't fool us. We know
+these troops are not Americans. They are either Canadians or Australians
+coming from England. Our German U-boats won't let Americans cross the
+ocean."
+
+Some of those German prisoners happened to have been in America before
+the war. They spoke English and recognised the uniforms of our men.
+Their silent smiles seemed to say: "Well, they don't look so good at
+that. We have seen better soldiers. And, besides, there is only a
+handful of them. Not enough can come to make any difference. Anyhow, it
+is too late now. The war will be over before any appreciable number can
+get here."
+
+But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the ship's side.
+Company after company of our men, loaded down with packs and full field
+equipment, lined up on the dock and marched past the group of German
+prisoners.
+
+"We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible from our
+ranks shouted, as the marching line passed within touching distance of
+the prisoner group. The Germans responded only with quizzical little
+smiles and silence.
+
+Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments marched through the
+main street of the village. The bands played "Dixie"--a new air to
+France. The regiments as a whole did not present the snappy, marching
+appearance that they might have presented. There was a good reason for
+this. Sixty per cent. of them were recruits. It had been wisely decided
+to replace many of the old regular army men in the ranks with newly
+enlisted men, so that these old veterans could remain in America and
+train the new drafts.
+
+However, that which impressed the French people was the individual
+appearance of these samples of American manhood. Our men were tall and
+broad and brawny. They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen and
+snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from the swarthy sun-tanned
+cheeks of border veterans to the clear pink skins of city youngsters.
+But most noticeable of all to the French people were the even white rows
+of teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good dentistry and
+clean mouths are essentially American.
+
+The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women, girls and school
+children, lined the curbs as our men marched through the town. The line
+of march was over a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the
+bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground back of the town. The
+road here was bordered on either side with ancient stone walls covered
+with vines and over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden
+branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red lusciousness. As they
+marched through the heat and dust of that June day, many succumbed to
+the temptations and paid for their appetites with inordinately violent
+colics that night.
+
+A camp site had been partially prepared for their reception. It was
+located close to a French barracks. The French soldiers and gangs of
+German prisoners, who had been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of
+the fact that they were building the first American cantonment in
+France. They thought they were constructing simply an extension of the
+French encampment.
+
+That first contingent, composed of United States Infantrymen and
+Marines, made its first camp in France with the smallest amount of
+confusion, considering the fact that almost three-quarters of them
+hadn't been in uniform a month. It was but several hours after arriving
+at the camp that the smoke was rising from the busy camp stoves and the
+aroma of American coffee, baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air.
+
+On the afternoon of that first day some of the men were given permission
+to visit the town. They began to take their first lessons in French as
+they went from cafe to cafe in futile efforts to connect up with such
+unknown commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches. Upon
+meeting one another in the streets, our men would invariably ask: "Have
+you come across any of these FROGS that talk American?"
+
+There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs or Froggies as
+applied to their French comrades in arms. American officers hastened to
+explain to French officers that the one piece of information concerning
+France most popularly known in America was that it was the place where
+people first learned to eat frog legs and snails.
+
+The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat inclined to believe that
+these first Americans didn't live up to the European expectations of
+Americans. Those European expectations had been founded almost entirely
+upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture thrillers of the
+Wild West and comedy variety.
+
+Although our men wore the high, broad-brimmed felt hats, they didn't
+seem sufficiently cowboyish. Although the French people waited
+expectantly, none of these Americans dashed through the main street of
+the village on bucking bronchos, holding their reins in their teeth and
+at the same time firing revolvers from either hand. Moreover, none of
+our men seemed to conclude their dinners in the expected American
+fashion of slapping one another in the face with custard pies.
+
+There was to be seen on the streets of St. Nazaire that day some
+representative black Americans, who had also landed in that historical
+first contingent. There was a strange thing about these negroes.
+
+It will be remembered that in the early stages of our participation in
+the war it had been found that there was hardly sufficient khaki cloth
+to provide uniforms for all of our soldiers. That had been the case with
+these American negro soldiers.
+
+But somewhere down in Washington, somehow or other, some one resurrected
+an old, large, heavy iron key and this, inserted into an ancient rusty
+lock, had opened some long forgotten doors in one of the Government
+arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles wrapped up in
+newspapers, yellow with age, and when these wrappings of the past were
+removed, there were seen the uniforms of old Union blue that had been
+laid away back in '65--uniforms that had been worn by men who fought and
+bled and died to free the first black American citizens.
+
+And here on this foreign shore, on this day in June more than half a
+century later, the sons and the grandsons of those same freed slaves
+wore those same uniforms of Union blue as they landed in France to fight
+for a newer freedom.
+
+Some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower Mississippi levees.
+They sang as they worked in their white army undershirts, across the
+chest of which they had penciled in blue and red, strange mystic
+devices, religious phrases and hoodoo signs, calculated to contribute
+the charm of safety to the running of the submarine blockade.
+
+Two of these American negroes, walking up the main street of St.
+Nazaire, saw on the other side of the thoroughfare a brother of colour
+wearing the lighter blue uniform of a French soldier. This French negro
+was a Colonial black from the north of Africa and of course had spoken
+nothing but French from the day he was born.
+
+One of the American negroes crossed the street and accosted him.
+
+"Looka here, boy," he enquired good-naturedly, "what can you all tell me
+about this here wah?"
+
+"Comment, monsieur?" responded the non-understanding French black, and
+followed the rejoinder with a torrent of excited French.
+
+The American negro's mouth fell open. For a minute he looked startled,
+and then he bulged one large round white eye suspiciously at the French
+black, while he inwardly debated on the possibility that he had become
+suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, however, that his
+vision was not at fault, he made a sudden decision and started on a new
+tack.
+
+"Now, never mind that high-faluting language," he said. "You all just
+tell me what you know about this here wah and quit you' putting on
+aihs."
+
+The puzzled French negro could only reply with another explosion of
+French interrogations, coupled with vigorous gesticulations. The
+American negro tried to talk at the same time and both of them
+endeavouring to make the other understand, increased the volumes of
+their tones until they were standing there waving their arms and
+shouting into one another's faces. The American negro gave it up.
+
+"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed the street and
+joined his comrades, "this is shore some funny country. They got the
+mos' ignorantest niggers I ever saw."
+
+Still, those American blacks were not alone in their difficulties over
+the difference in languages. I discussed the matter with one of our
+white regulars who professed great experience, having spent almost one
+entire day on mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of baggage.
+
+"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies ever will learn to
+speak English."
+
+Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns found that their
+smattering of Spanish did not help them much. But still every one seemed
+to manage to get along all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers
+in those early days couldn't understand each other's languages, but they
+could understand each other.
+
+This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young American Lieutenant
+who said he had made a twelve-hour study of the remarkable camaraderie
+that had immediately sprung up between the fighting men of France and
+the fighting men of America. In explaining this relationship, he said:
+
+"You see, we think the French are crazy," he said, "and the French know
+damn well we are."
+
+Those of our men who had not brought small French and English
+dictionaries with them, made hurried purchases of such handy articles
+and forthwith began to practice. The French people did likewise.
+
+I saw one young American infantryman seated at a table in front of one
+of the sidewalk cafes on the village square. He was dividing his
+attention between a fervent admiration of the pretty French waitress,
+who stood smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the pages
+of his small hand dictionary.
+
+She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for it, but there
+seemed to be a mutual urge for further conversation. The American would
+look first at her and then he would look through the pages of the book
+again. Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the following
+request:
+
+"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa."
+
+She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost immediately, and
+she replied:
+
+"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?"
+
+"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed the book with a
+snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors ashore before us."
+
+From the very first day of the landing we began to learn things from the
+French and they began to learn things from us. Some of our men learned
+that it was quite possible to sip an occasional glass of beer or light
+wine without feeling a sudden inclination to buy and consume all there
+remained in the cafe.
+
+The French soldiers were intensely interested in the equipment of our
+land forces and in the uniforms of both our soldiers and sailors. They
+sought by questions to get an understanding of the various insignia by
+which the Americans designated their rank.
+
+One thing that they noticed was a small, round white pasteboard tag
+suspended on a yellow cord from the upper left hand breast pocket of
+either the blue jackets of our sailors or the khaki shirts of our
+soldiers. So prevalent was this tag, which in reality marked the wearer
+as the owner of a package of popular tobacco, that the French almost
+accepted it as uniform equipment.
+
+The attitude of our first arriving American soldiers toward the German
+prisoners who worked in gangs on construction work in the camps and
+rough labour along the docks was a curious one. Not having yet
+encountered in battle the brothers of these same docile appearing
+captives, our men were even inclined to treat the prisoners with
+deference almost approaching admiration.
+
+In a measure, the Germans returned this feeling. The arrival of the
+Americans was really cheering to them. The prisoners disliked the French
+because they had been taught to do so from childhood. They hated the
+English because that was the hate with which they went into battle.
+
+It sounds incongruous now but, nevertheless, it was a fact then that the
+German prisoners confined at that first American sea-base really seemed
+to like the American soldiers. Maybe it was because any change of
+masters or guards was a relief in the uneventful existence which had
+been theirs since the day of their capture. Perhaps the feeling was one
+of distinct kindred, based on a familiarity with Americans and American
+customs--a familiarity which had been produced by thousands of letters
+which Germans in America had written to their friends in Germany before
+the war. On the other hand, it may simply have been by reason of
+America's official disavowal of any animosity toward the German people.
+
+One day I watched some of those prisoners unloading supplies at one of
+the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less under the eyes of an American
+sentry who stood nearby. One group of four Germans were engaged in
+carrying what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Casually, and
+as if by accident, the case was dropped to the ground and cracked.
+
+Instantly one of the prisoners' hands began to furtively investigate the
+packages revealed by the break. The other prisoners busied themselves as
+if preparing to lift the box again. The first German pulled a spoon from
+his bootleg, plunged it into the crevice in the broken box and withdrew
+it heaped with granulated sugar. With a quick movement he conveyed the
+stolen sweet to his mouth and that gapping orifice closed quickly on the
+sugar, while his stoical face immediately assumed its characteristic
+downcast look. He didn't dare move his lips or jaws for fear of
+detection.
+
+Of course these Germans had been receiving but a scant ration of sugar,
+but their lot had been no worse than that of the French soldiers
+guarding them previously, who got no sugar either. American soldiers
+then guarding those prisoners reported only a few of them for
+confinement for these human thefts.
+
+Surreptitiously, the American guards would sometimes leave cigarettes
+where the prisoners could get them, and even though the action did
+violate the rules of discipline, it helped to develop further the human
+side of the giver and the recipient and at the same time had the result
+of making the prisoners do more work for their new guards.
+
+It should be specially stated that lenience could not and was not
+extended to the point of fraternisation. But the relationship that
+seemed to exist between the German prisoners and American soldiers at
+that early date revealed undeniably the absence of any mutual hate.
+
+Around one packing case on the dock I saw, one day, a number of German
+prisoners who were engaged in unpacking bundles from America, and
+passing them down a line of waiting hands that relayed them to a freight
+car. One of the Germans leaning over the case straightened up with a
+rumpled newspaper in his hand. He had removed it from a package. A look
+of indescribable joy came across his face.
+
+"Deutscher, Deutscher," he cried, pointing to the Gothic type. The paper
+was a copy of the New York _Staats-Zeitung_.
+
+The lot of those prisoners was not an unhappy one. To me it seemed very
+doubtful whether even a small percentage of them would have accepted
+liberty if it carried with it the necessity of returning to German
+trenches.
+
+Those men knew what war was. They had crossed No Man's Land. Now they
+were far back from the blazing front in a comparatively peaceful country
+beyond the sound of the guns. If their lot at that time was to be
+characterised as "war," then in the opinion of those Germans, war was
+not what Sherman said it was.
+
+Their attitude more resembled that of the unkissed spinster who was
+taken captive when the invading army captured the town. She flung
+herself into the arms of the surprised commander of the invaders and
+smilingly whispered, "War is war."
+
+The German prison camps at St. Nazaire were inspected by General
+Pershing on the third day of the American landing when he, with his
+staff, arrived from Paris. The General and his party arrived early in
+the morning in a pouring rain. The American commander-in-chief then held
+the rank of a Major General. In the harbour was the flagship of Rear
+Admiral Gleaves.
+
+There was no delay over the niceties of etiquette when the question
+arose as to whether the Rear Admiral should call on the Major General or
+the Major General should call on the Rear Admiral.
+
+The Major General settled the subject with a sentence. He said, "The
+point is that I want to see him," and with no further ado about it
+General Pershing and his staff visited the Admiral on his flagship.
+After his inspection of our first contingent, General Pershing said:
+
+  "This is the happiest day of the busy days which I have spent in
+  France preparing for the arrival of the first contingent. To-day I
+  have seen our troops safe on French soil, landing from transports
+  that were guarded in their passage overseas by the resourceful
+  vigilance of our Navy.
+
+  "Now, our task as soldiers lies before us. We hope, with the aid of
+  the French leaders and experts who have placed all the results of
+  their experience at our disposal, to make our forces worthy in skill
+  and in determination, to fight side by side in arms with the armies
+  of France."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR
+
+
+Clip the skyline from the Blue Ridge, arch it over with arboreal vistas
+from the forests of the Oregon, reflect the two in the placid waters of
+the Wisconsin--and you will have some conception of the perfect Eden of
+beauty in which the first contingent of the American Expeditionary
+Forces trained in France.
+
+Beckoning white roads curl through the rolling hills like ribbons of
+dental cream squeezed out evenly on rich green velour. Chateaux, pearl
+white centres in settings of emerald green, push their turrets and
+bastions above the mossy plush of the mountain side. Lazy little streams
+silver the valleys with their aimless wanderings.
+
+It was a peaceful looking garden of pastoral delight that United States
+soldiers had picked out for their martial training ground. It was a
+section whose physical appearance was untouched by the three years of
+red riot and roar that still rumbled away just a few miles to the north.
+
+The training area was located in the Vosges, in east central France. By
+train, it was a nine-hour day trip from Paris. It was located about an
+hour's motor ride behind the front lines, which at that time were close
+to the north of the cities of Nancy and Toul.
+
+The troops were billeted in a string of small villages that comprised
+one side of the letter V. French troops and instructing officers
+occupied the other converging line of the letter. Between the two lines
+was the area in which our men trained. Where the two lines converged
+was the town of Gondercourt, the headquarters of Major General Seibert,
+the Commander of the first American division in France.
+
+The area had long since been stripped of male civilian population that
+could be utilised for the French ranks. The war had taken the men and
+the boys, but had left the old people and children to till the fields,
+tend the cattle, prune the hedges and trim the roads.
+
+With the advent of our troops, the restful scene began to change.
+Treeless ridges carpeted with just enough green to veil the rocky
+formation of the ground began to break out with a superficial rash of
+the colour of fresh earth. In rows and circles, by angles and zigzags,
+the training trenches began to take form daily under the pick and shovel
+exercises of French and Americans working side by side.
+
+Along the white roads, clay-coloured rectangles that moved evenly, like
+brown caravans, represented the marching units of United States troops.
+The columns of bluish-grey that passed them with shorter, quicker steps,
+were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who after almost three years
+of the front line real thing, now played at a mimic war of make-believe,
+with taller and heavier novitiates.
+
+Those French troops were Alpine Chasseurs--the famous Blue Devils. They
+wore dark blue caps, which resemble tam o'shanters, but are not. They
+were proud of the distinction which their uniform gave them. They were
+proud of their great fighting records. One single battalion of them
+boasted that of the twenty-six officers who led it into the first fight
+at the opening of the war, only four of them existed.
+
+It was a great advantage for our men to train under such instructors.
+Correspondents who had been along the fronts before America's entry
+into the war, had a great respect for the soldierly capacity of these
+same fighting Frenchmen; not only these sturdy young sons of France who
+wore the uniform, but the older French soldiers--ranging in age from
+forty to fifty-five years--who had been away to the fronts since the
+very beginning of the war.
+
+We had seen them many, many times. Miles upon miles of them, in the
+motor trucks along the roads. Twenty of them rode in each truck. They
+sat on two side benches facing the centre of the trucks. They were men
+actually bent forward from the weight of the martial equipment strapped
+to their bodies. They seemed to carry inordinate loads--knapsacks,
+blanket roll, spare shoes, haversacks, gas masks, water bottles,
+ammunition belts, grenade aprons, rifle, bayonet and helmet.
+
+Many of them were very old men. They had thick black eyebrows and wore
+long black beards. They were tired, weary men. We had seen them in the
+camions, each man resting his head on the shoulder of the man seated
+beside him. The dust of the journey turned their black beards grey. On
+the front seat of the camion a sleepless one handled the wheel, while
+beside him the relief driver slept on the seat.
+
+Thus they had been seen, mile upon mile of them, thousand upon thousand
+of them, moving ever up and down those roads that paralleled the six
+hundred and fifty miles of front from Flanders to the Alps--moving
+always. Thus they had been seen night and day, winter and summer, for
+more than three long years, always trying to be at the place where the
+enemy struck. The world knows and the world is thankful that they always
+were there.
+
+It was under such veteran instructors as these that our first Americans
+in France trained, there, in the Vosges, in a garden spot of beauty, in
+the province that boasts the birthplace of Jeanne d'Arc. On the few
+leave days, many of our men, with permission, would absent themselves
+from camp, and make short pilgrimages over the hills to the little town
+of Domremy to visit the house in which the Maid of Orleans was born.
+
+Our men were eager to learn. I observed them daily at their training
+tasks. One day when they had progressed as far as the use of the New
+French automatic rifles, I visited one of the ranges to witness the
+firing.
+
+Just under the crest of the hill was a row of rifle pits, four feet deep
+in the slaty white rock. On the opposite hill, across the marshy hollow,
+at a distance of two hundred yards, was a line of wooden targets,
+painted white with black circles. Poised at intervals on the forward
+edge of the pits were a number of automatic rifles of the type used by
+the French army. An American soldier and a French soldier attended each
+one, the former in the firing position and the latter instructing.
+
+The rear bank of the pits was lined with French and American officers.
+The order, "Commence firing," was given, and white spurts of rock dust
+began dancing on the opposite hill, while splinters began to fly from
+some of the wooden targets.
+
+At one end of the firing trench a raw American recruit, who admitted
+that he had never handled an automatic rifle before, flushed to his
+hat-brim and gritted his teeth viciously as his shots, registering ten
+feet above the targets, brought forth laughter and exclamations from the
+French soldiers nearby. He rested on his gun long enough to ask an
+interpreter what the Frenchmen were talking about.
+
+"They say," the interpreter replied, "that you belong to the
+anti-aircraft service."
+
+The recruit tightened his grip on his rifle and lowered his aim with
+better results. At the end of his first fifty shots he was placing one
+in three on the target and the others were registering close in.
+
+"Bravo!" came from a group of French officers at the other end of the
+trench, where another American, older in the service, had signalised his
+first experiences with the new firearm by landing thirty targets out of
+thirty-four shots, and four of the targets were bull's-eyes. The French
+instructors complimented him on the excellence of his marksmanship,
+considering his acknowledged unfamiliarity with the weapon.
+
+Further along the depression, in another set of opposing trenches and
+targets, a row of French machine guns manned by young Americans, sprayed
+lead with ear-splitting abandon, sometimes reaching the rate of five
+hundred shots a minute. Even with such rapidity, the Americans
+encountered no difficulties with the new pieces.
+
+French veterans, who for three years had been using those same guns
+against German targets, hovered over each piece, explaining in half
+French and half English, and answering in the same mixture questions on
+ways and means of getting the best results from the weapons.
+
+Here a chasseur of the ranks would stop the firing of one American
+squad, with a peremptory, "Regardez." He would proceed with pantomime
+and more or less connected words, carrying the warning that firing in
+such a manner would result in jamming the guns, a condition which would
+be fatal in case the targets in the other trenches were charging upon
+the guns.
+
+Then he showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks, watchfully alert to
+his every move, changed their method and signified their pleasure with
+the expression of "Trays beans," and "Mercy's."
+
+"Do you think it would have resulted in a quicker and possibly more
+understanding training if these Americans were instructed by British
+veterans instead of French?" I asked an American Staff Officer, who was
+observing the demonstration.
+
+"I may have thought so at first," the officer replied, "but not now. The
+explanations which our men in the ranks are receiving from the French
+soldiers in the ranks are more than word instructions. They are object
+lessons in which gesticulation and pantomime are used to act out the
+movement or subject under discussion.
+
+"The French are great actors, and I find that American soldiers
+unacquainted with the French language are able to understand the French
+soldiers who are unacquainted with the English language much better than
+the American officers, similarly handicapped, can understand the French
+officers.
+
+"I should say that some time would be lost if all of our troops were to
+be trained by French soldiers, but I believe that this division under
+French tutelage will be better able to teach the new tactics to the new
+divisions that are to follow than it would be if it had speedily passed
+through training camps like the British system, for instance, where it
+must be taken for granted that verbal, instead of actual, instruction is
+the means of producing a speeding up of training."
+
+Thus it was that our first American contingent in France was in training
+for something more than service on the line. It rapidly qualified into
+an expert corps from which large numbers of capable American instructors
+were later withdrawn and used for the training of our millions of men
+that followed.
+
+This achievement was only accomplished by the exercise of strict
+disciplinarian measures by every American officer in the then small
+expedition. One day, in the early part of August, 1917, a whirlwind
+swept through the string of French villages where the first contingent
+was training.
+
+The whirlwind came down the main road in a cloud of dust. It sped on the
+fleeting tires of a high-powered motor which flew from its dust-grey
+hood a red flag with two white stars. It blew into the villages and out,
+through the billets and cook tents, mess halls, and picket lines. The
+whirlwind was John J. Pershing.
+
+The commander-in-chief "hit" the training area early in the morning and
+his coming was unannounced. Before evening he had completed a stern
+inspection which had left only one impression in the minds of the
+inspected, and that impression was to the effect that more snap and pep,
+more sharpness and keenness were needed.
+
+At the conclusion of the inspection all of the officers of the
+contingent were agreeing that the whirlwind visitation was just what had
+been needed to arouse the mettle and spirit in an organisation comprised
+of over fifty per cent. raw recruits. Many of the officers themselves
+had been included in the pointed criticisms which the commander directed
+against the persons and things that met disfavour in his eyes.
+
+The night following that inspection or "raid," as it was called, it
+would have been safe to say that nowhere in the area was there a recruit
+who did not know, in a manner that he would not forget, the correct
+position of a soldier--the precise, stiff, snappy attitude to be
+presented when called to attention. The enlisted men whose heels did not
+click when they met, whose shoulders slouched, whose chins missed the
+proper angle, whose eyes were not "front" during the inspection,
+underwent embarrassing penalties, calculated to make them remember.
+
+"Have this man fall out," General Pershing directed, as he stood before
+a recruit whose attitude appeared sloppy; "teach him the position of a
+soldier and have him stand at attention for five minutes."
+
+One company which had prided itself upon having some of the best
+embryonic bomb-throwers in the contingent, contributed a number of
+victims to the above penalties, and as the General's train of
+automobiles swirled out of the village, the main street seemed to be
+dotted with silent khaki-clad statues doing their five minute sentences
+of rigidity.
+
+"What about your men's shoes?" General Pershing asked a captain sharply,
+while he directed his eyes along a company line of feet whose casings
+seemed to be approaching the shabby.
+
+"We need hobnails, sir," replied the captain.
+
+"Get them"--the words snapped out from beneath Pershing's close-cropped
+grey moustache. "Requisition hobnails. Your men need them. Get them from
+the quartermaster."
+
+The American commander stepped into the darkness of a large stone-walled
+stable, which represented the billeting accommodations for ten American
+soldiers. A dog curled in the doorway growled and showed its teeth. The
+General stepped past the menacing animal, and without heeding its snarls
+close to his heels, started questioning the sergeants in charge.
+
+"Are any cattle kept in here?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir," replied the sergeant.
+
+"Detail more men with brooms and have it aired thoroughly every day."
+
+Observed from a distance, when he was speaking with battalion and
+regimental commanders, the commander manifested no change of attitude
+from that which marked his whole inspection. He frequently employed his
+characteristic gesture of emphasis--the wadding of his left palm with
+his right fist or the energetic opening and closing of the right hand.
+When the Pershing whirlwind sped out of the training area that night,
+after the first American inspection in France, it left behind it a
+thorough realisation of the sternness of the work which was ahead of our
+army.
+
+The development of a rigid discipline was the American commander's first
+objective in the training schedules which he ordered his staff to
+devise. After this schedule had been in operation not ten days, I
+happened to witness a demonstration of American discipline which might
+be compared to an improved incident of Damocles dining under the
+suspended sword at the feast of Dionysius.
+
+A battalion of American Infantry was at practice on one of the training
+fields. The grenade-throwing exercises had been concluded and the order
+had been given to "fall in" preparatory to the march back to the camp.
+
+Upon the formation of the long company lines, end on end down the side
+of the hill, the order, "attention," was sharply shouted bringing the
+men to the rigid pose which permits the eyes to wander neither to the
+right nor to the left, above nor below, but straightforward.
+
+As the thousand men stood there, rigid and silent, a sudden disturbance
+took place in the sky above them. Shells began exploding up there. At
+the same time the men in the ranks could distinctly hear the whirr and
+the hum of aeroplane motors above them.
+
+Almost every day reports had been received that German planes had evaded
+the Allied aerial patrols along the front and had made long flights
+behind our lines for the dual purposes of observing and bombing.
+
+As the American battalion stood stiff and motionless, I knew that the
+thought was passing through the minds of every man there that here, at
+last, was the expected visitation of the German flyers and that a
+terrific bomb from above would be the next event on the programme. The
+men recognised the reports of the anti-aircraft guns blazing away, and
+the sound of the motors suggested a close range target.
+
+The sound seemed to indicate that the planes were flying low. The
+American ranks knew that something was going on immediately above them.
+They did not know what it was, but it seems needless to state that they
+wanted to know. Still the ranks stood as stiff as rows of clay-coloured
+statues.
+
+An almost irresistible impulse to look upward, a strong instinctive
+urging to see the danger that impended, and the stern regulations of
+"eyes front" that goes with the command "attention," comprised the
+elements of conflict that went on in each of the thousand heads in that
+battalion line.
+
+In front of each platoon, the lieutenants and captains stood with the
+same rigid eyes front facing the men. If one of the company officers had
+relaxed to the extent of taking one fleeting upward glance, it is
+doubtful whether the men could have further resisted the same
+inclination, but not a man shifted his gaze from the direction
+prescribed by the last command.
+
+One plane passed closely overhead and nothing happened. Three more
+followed and still no bombs fell, and then the tense incident was closed
+by the calling out of the order of the march and, in squads of four, the
+battalion wheeled into the road and marched back to billets.
+
+As one company went by singing (talking was permitted upon the freedom
+of routstep), I heard one of the men say that he had thought all along
+that the officers would not have made them stand there at attention if
+the danger had not been over.
+
+"As far as I knew, it was over," a comrade added. "It was right over my
+head." And in this light manner the men forgot the incident as they
+resumed their marching song.
+
+When Mr. W. Hollenzollern of Potsdam put singing lessons in the
+curriculum of his soldiers' training, a tremor of military giggling was
+heard around the world. But in August, 1914, when Mars smiled at the
+sight of those same soldiers, marching across the frontiers east, south
+and west, under their throaty barrage of "Deutschland, Deutschland, Ueber
+Alles," the derisive giggles completely died out. It immediately became
+a case of he who laughs first, lives to yodel.
+
+The American forces then in training took advantage of this. They not
+only began to sing as they trained, but they actually began to be
+trained to sing. Numerous company commanders who had held strong
+opinions against this vocal soldiering, changed their minds and
+expressed the new found conviction that the day was past when singing
+armies could be compared solely with male coryphees who hold positions
+well down stage and clink empty flagons of brown October ale.
+
+"It's a great idea," a company commander told me. "We learned it from
+the Blue Devils. They are the toughest set of undersized gentry that I
+have run into in France. They have forearms as big as three-inch shells,
+and as hard. Their favourite pastime is juggling hand-grenades that
+can't possibly explode unless they just lightly touch one another.
+
+"Yesterday we watched them, bared to the waist, as they went through
+three hours of grenade and bombing practice that was the last word in
+strenuosity. Keeping up with their exercises was hard work for our men,
+whose arms soon began to ache from the unaccustomed, overhand heaving.
+
+"Then we watched them as their commander assembled them for the march
+back to the village. At the command, 'attention,' their heels clicked,
+their heads went back, their chins up and their right hands were pasted
+rigidly against their right trouser leg.
+
+"At the command 'march' all of them started off, punctuating their first
+step with the first word of their marching song. It was not any sickly
+chorus either. There was plenty of beef and lung power behind every
+note. My men lined up opposite were not missing a bit of it. Most of
+them seemed to know what was expected when I said:
+
+"'On the command of "march," the company will begin to sing, keeping
+step with the song. The first sergeant will announce the song.'
+
+"My first sergeant responded without a change of colour as if the
+command to sing had been an old regulation. I knew that he was puzzled,
+but he did it well. The name of the song chosen was passed down the line
+from man to man.
+
+"When I gave the command to march, the company, almost half of them new
+recruits, wheeled in squads of fours, and started off down the road
+singing, 'Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.' There were some who were
+kind of weak on the effort, but there was a noticeable crescendo when
+the sergeant passed the word down the squad that the company would be
+kept marching until everybody had joined in the singing.
+
+"We swung into camp that night with every voice raising lustily on 'One
+Grasshopper Hopped Right Over Another Grasshopper's Back,' and after
+dinner the billets just sprouted melody, everything from ragtime to
+Christmas carols and baby lullabies."
+
+One noticeable characteristic about our soldiers during that training
+period before they had come in contact with the enemy, was a total
+absence of violent antipathy toward all persons and things Teutonic.
+
+On the march the men then sang "We'll Hang the Damned Old Kaiser to a
+Sour Apple Tree," but at that time I never heard any parodies on the
+"Gott Straffe Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many different
+nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown together for so short
+a time, that as yet no especial hatred of the enemy had developed.
+
+An illustration of this very subject and also the manner in which our
+boys got along with the civilian populations of the towns they occupied
+came to my notice.
+
+A driving rain which filled the valley with mist and made the hills look
+like mountain tops projecting above the clouds, had resulted in the
+abandonment of the usual daily drills. The men had spent the day in
+billets writing letters home, hearing indoor lectures from instructors,
+playing with the French children in the cottage doorways, or taking
+lessons in French from the peasant girls, whose eyes were inspirations
+to the dullest pupils.
+
+I spent several hours in a company commander's quarters while he
+censored letters which the men had submitted for transmission back home.
+The Captain looked long at a letter in his hand, smiled and called for
+his orderly.
+
+"Tell Private Blank I want to see him here right away," were the
+Captain's instructions. Blank's name was not quite so German as
+Sourkraut, but it had a "berger" ending that was reminiscent of beer,
+pretzels and wooden shoes.
+
+"Here's a letter written in German," said the Captain to me, referring
+to the open missive. "It's addressed to somebody by the same name as
+Blank, and I presume it is to some one in his family. Blank is one of
+the best men in my company, and I know that the letter is harmless, but
+it is impossible for me to pass it when written in an enemy language."
+
+The door opened and a tall, blonde enlisted man stepped in, shaking the
+rain from his hat. He stood at respectful attention, saluted and said:
+
+"Did the Captain wish to see me?"
+
+"Yes, Blank, it is about this letter written in German," the Captain
+replied. "Who is it addressed to?"
+
+"My father, in Cincinnati, sir," Blank replied.
+
+"I am unfamiliar with German," the Captain said. "I notice the letter is
+brief. Is there anything in it which the company has been ordered to
+omit mentioning?"
+
+"No, sir," Blank replied.
+
+"Will you translate it for me?" the Captain asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Blank, with just a bare suggestion of a blush. Then he
+read as follows:
+
+  "Dear Father: I am in good health. Food is good and we are learning
+  much. I am becoming an expert grenadier. In this village where we
+  are billeted there is a French girl named Germain. Before the war
+  she lived in northern France, near the German frontier, and she
+  speaks German. So it is possible for us to talk together. She fled
+  before the German troops reached her village. She lives here now
+  with her aunt.
+
+  "I carry water from a well for her and she has given me each day a
+  roll of fresh made butter for our mess. In the evening we sit on the
+  front seat of her uncle's small carriage, which is in the front
+  yard, and we imagine we are taking a drive, but of course there are
+  no horses. Her uncle's horses were taken by the army a long time
+  ago. She is very anxious to know all about America, and I have told
+  her all about you and mother and our home in Cincinnati.
+
+  "She asked me what I am going to do after the war, and I told her
+  that I would return to Cincinnati to help you at the store. She
+  cried because she said she did not know where she was going after
+  the war. Her father and two brothers have been killed and her aunt
+  and uncle are very old.
+
+  "I have some more to write to you about Germain later. But must stop
+  here because the Sergeants are assembling the men for indoor
+  instruction. Love to all. It is raining very hard. Your son, ----"
+
+Blank's face seemed to redden as he hesitated over a postscript line at
+the bottom of the page.
+
+"This is nothing," he said. "I just asked father to ask mother to send
+me one of the photographs I had taken on the day I enlisted."
+
+"For Germain?" the Captain enquired, smilingly.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Blank.
+
+"Why didn't you write this in English?" the Captain asked.
+
+"My father reads only German," Blank replied.
+
+Blank was instructed to rewrite his letter in English and address it to
+some friend who could translate it into German for his father. As the
+door closed on this American soldier of German extraction, I asked the
+Captain, "Do you think Germain could stand for Blank's German name,
+after all she has lost at the hands of the Germans?"
+
+"She'll probably be wearing it proudly around Cincinnati within a year
+after the war is over," the Captain replied.
+
+It might be reassuring at this point to remark that girls in America
+really have no occasion to fear that many of our soldiers will leave
+their hearts in France. The French women are kind to them, help them in
+their French lessons, and frequently feed them with home delicacies
+unknown to the company mess stoves, but every American soldier overseas
+seems to have that perfectly natural hankering to come back to the girls
+he left behind.
+
+The soldier mail addressed daily to mothers and sweethearts back in the
+States ran far into the tons. The men were really homesick for their
+American women folks. I was aware of this even before I witnessed the
+reception given by our men to the first American nurses to reach the
+other side.
+
+The hospital unit to which they belonged had been transported into that
+training area so quickly and so secretly that its presence there was
+unknown for some time. I happened to locate it by chance.
+
+Several of us correspondents seeking a change of diet from the
+monotonous menu provided by the hard-working madam of our modest
+hostelry, motored in a new direction, over roads that opened new vistas
+in this picture book of the world.
+
+Long straight avenues of towering trees whose foliage roofed the
+roadways were sufficient to reanimate recollections of old masters of
+brush realism. Ploughed fields veiled with the low-hanging mist of
+evening time, and distant steeples of homely simplicity faintly glazed
+by the last rays of the setting sun, reproduced the tones of "The
+Angelus" with the over-generous hugeness of nature.
+
+And there in that prettiest of French watering places--Vittel--we came
+upon those first American nurses attached to the American Expeditionary
+Forces. They told us that all they knew was the name of the place they
+were in, that they were without maps and were not even aware of what
+part of France they were located in.
+
+It developed that the unit's motor transportation had not arrived and,
+other automobiles being as scarce as German flags, communication with
+the nearby camps had been almost non-existent. Orders had been received
+from field headquarters and acknowledged, but its relation in distance
+or direction to their whereabouts were shrouded in mystery. But not for
+long.
+
+Soon the word spread through the training area that American nurses had
+a hospital in the same zone and some of the homesick Yanks began to make
+threats of self-mutilation in order that they might be sent to that
+hospital.
+
+The hospital unit was soon followed by the arrival of numerous American
+auxiliary organisations and the kindly activities of the workers as well
+as their numbers became such as to cause the men to wonder what kind of
+a war they were in.
+
+I happened to meet an old top sergeant of the regular army, a man I had
+known in Mexico, with the American Punitive Expedition. He had just
+received a large bundle of newspapers from home and he was bringing
+himself up-to-date on the news. I asked him what was happening back
+home.
+
+"Great things are going on in the States," he said, looking up from his
+papers. "Here's one story in the newspaper that says the Y. M. C. A. is
+sending over five hundred secretaries to tell us jokes and funny
+stories. And here's another account about the Red Cross donating half a
+million dollars to build recreation booths for us along the front. And
+here's a story about a New York actor getting a committee of
+entertainers together to come over and sing and dance for us. And down
+in Philadelphia they're talking about collecting a million dollars to
+build tabernacles along the front so's Billy Sunday can preach to us.
+What I'm wondering about is, when in hell they're going to send the army
+over."
+
+But that was in the early fall of 1917, and as I write these lines now,
+in the last days of 1918, I am aware and so is the world, that in all of
+France nobody will ever ask that question again.
+
+That army got there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MAKING THE MEN WHO MAN THE GUNS
+
+
+While our infantry perfected their training in the Vosges, the first
+American artillery in France undertook a schedule of studies in an old
+French artillery post located near the Swiss frontier. This place is
+called Valdahon, and for scores of years had been one of the training
+places for French artillery. But during the third and fourth years of
+the war nearly all of the French artillery units being on the front, all
+subsequent drafts of French artillerymen received their training under
+actual war conditions.
+
+So it was that the French war department turned over to the Americans
+this artillery training ground which had been long vacant. Three
+American artillery regiments, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, comprising
+the first U. S. Artillery Brigade, began training at this post.
+
+The barracks had been long unoccupied and much preparatory work was
+necessary before our artillerymen could move in. Much of this work
+devolved upon the shoulders of the Brigade Quartermaster.
+
+The first difficulty that he encountered was the matter of illumination
+for the barracks, mess halls and lecture rooms. All of the buildings
+were wired, but there was no current. The Quartermaster began an
+investigation and this was what he found:
+
+The post had been supplied with electricity from a generating plant
+located on a river about ten miles away. This plant had supplied
+electrical energy for fifteen small French towns located in the
+vicinity. The plant was owned and operated by a Frenchman, who was
+about forty years old. The French Government, realising the necessity
+for illumination, had exempted this man from military service, so that
+he remained at his plant and kept the same in operation for the benefit
+of the camp at Valdahon and the fifteen small towns nearby.
+
+Then the gossips of the countryside got busy. These people began to say
+that Monsieur X, the operator of the plant, was not patriotic, in other
+words, that he was a slacker for not being at the front when all of
+their menfolk had been sent away to the war.
+
+Now it so happened that Monsieur X was not a slacker, and his
+inclination had always been to get into the fight with the Germans, but
+the Government had represented to him that it was his greater duty to
+remain and keep his plant in operation to provide light for the
+countryside.
+
+When the talk of the countryside reached Monsieur X's ears, he being a
+country-loving Frenchman was infuriated. He denounced the gossips as
+being unappreciative of the great sacrifice he had been making for their
+benefit, and, to make them realise it, he decided on penalising them.
+
+Monsieur X simply closed down his plant, locked and barred the doors and
+windows, donned his French uniform and went away to the front to join
+his old regiment. That night those villagers in the fifteen nearby
+towns, who had been using electrical illumination, went to bed in the
+dark.
+
+It required considerable research on the part of the Artillery
+Quartermaster to reveal all these facts. The electric lights had been
+unused for fifteen months when he arrived there, and he started to see
+what he could do to put the plant back to work. It required nothing
+less finally than a special action by the French Minister of War whereby
+orders were received by Monsieur X commanding him to leave his regiment
+at the front and go back to his plant by the riverside and start making
+electricity again.
+
+With the lights on and water piped in for bathing facilities, and
+extensive arrangements made for the instalment of stoves and other
+heating apparatus, the purchase of wood fuel and fodder for the animals,
+the Brigade moved in and occupied the camp.
+
+The American officer in command of that post went there as a Brigadier
+General. As I observed him at his work in those early days, I seemed to
+see in his appearance and disposition some of the characteristics of a
+Grant. He wore a stubby-pointed beard and he clamped his teeth tight on
+the butt end of a cigar. I saw him frequently wearing the $11.50
+regulation issue uniform of the enlisted men. I saw him frequently in
+rubber boots standing hip deep in the mud of the gun pits, talking to
+the men like a father--a kindly, yet stern father who knew how to
+produce discipline and results.
+
+While at the post, he won promotion to a Major General's rank, and in
+less than six months he was elevated to the grade of a full General and
+was given the highest ranking military post in the United States. That
+man who trained our first artillerymen in France was General Peyton C.
+March, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
+
+Finding the right man for the right place was one of General March's
+hobbies. He believed in military mobilisation based on occupational
+qualifications. In other words, he believed that a man who had been a
+telephone operator in civilian life would make a better telephone
+operator in the army than he would make a gunner.
+
+I was not surprised to find that this same worthy idea had permeated in
+a more or less similar form down to the lowest ranks in General March's
+command at that time. I encountered it one cold night in October, when I
+was sitting in one of the barrack rooms talking with a man in the ranks.
+
+That man's name was Budd English. I met him first in Mexico on the
+American Punitive Expedition, where he had driven an automobile for
+Damon Runyon, a fellow correspondent. English, with his quaint
+Southwestern wit, had become in Mexico a welcome occupant of the large
+pyramidal tent which housed the correspondents attached to the
+Expedition. We would sit for hours hearing him tell his stories of the
+plains and the deserts of Chihuahua.
+
+English and I were sitting on his bed at one corner of the barrack room,
+rows of cots ranged each side of the wall and on these were the snoring
+men of the battery. The room was dimly illuminated by a candle on a
+shelf over English's head and another candle located on another shelf in
+the opposite corner of the room. There was a man in bed in a corner
+reading a newspaper by the feeble rays of the candle.
+
+Suddenly we heard him growl and tear the page of the newspaper in half.
+His exclamation attracted my attention and I looked his way. His hair
+was closely cropped and his head, particularly his ears and forehead,
+and jaw, stamped him as a rough and ready fighter.
+
+"That's Kid Ferguson, the pug," English whispered to me, and then in
+louder tones, he enquired, "What's eating on you, kid?"
+
+"Aw, this bunk in the paper," replied Ferguson. Then he glared at me
+and enquired, "Did you write this stuff?"
+
+"What stuff?" I replied. "Read it out."
+
+Ferguson picked up the paper and began to read in mocking tones
+something that went as follows:
+
+"Isn't it beautiful in the cold early dawn in France, to see our dear
+American soldiers get up from their bunks and go whistling down to the
+stables to take care of their beloved animals."
+
+English laughed uproariously.
+
+"The Kid don't like horses no more than I do," he said. "Neither one of
+us have got any use for them at all. And here, that's all they keep us
+doing, is tending horses. I went down there the other morning with a
+lantern and one of them long-eared babies just kicked it clean out of my
+hand. The other morning one of them planted two hoofs right on
+Ferguson's chest and knocked him clear out of the stable. It broke his
+watch and his girl's picture.
+
+"You know, Mr. Gibbons, I never did have any use for horses. When I was
+about eight years old a horse bit me. When I was about fifteen years old
+I got run over by an ice-wagon. Horses is just been the ruination of me.
+
+"If it hadn't been for them I might have gone through college and been
+an officer in this here army. You remember that great big dairy out on
+the edge of the town in El Paso? Well, my dad owned that and he lost all
+of it on the ponies in Juarez. I just hate horses.
+
+"I know everything there is to know about an automobile. I have driven
+cross country automobile races and after we come out of Mexico, after we
+didn't get Villa, I went to work in the army machine shops at Fort Bliss
+and took down all them motor trucks and built them all over again.
+
+"When Uncle Sam got into the war against Germany, this here Artillery
+Battalion was stationed out at Fort Bliss, and I went to see the Major
+about enlisting, but I told him I didn't want to have nothing to do with
+no horses.
+
+"And he says, 'English, don't you bother about that. You join up with
+this here battalion, because when we leave for France we're going to
+kiss good-bye to them horses forever. This here battalion is going to be
+motorised.'
+
+"And now here we are in France, and we still got horses, and they don't
+like me and I don't like them, and yet I got to mill around with 'em
+every day. The Germans ain't never going to kill me. They ain't going to
+get a chance. They just going to find me trampled to death some morning
+down in that stable."
+
+Two or three of the occupants of nearby beds had arisen and taken seats
+on English's bed. They joined the conversation. One red-headed
+youngster, wearing heavy flannel underwear in lieu of pajamas, made the
+first contribution to the discussion.
+
+"That's just what I'm beefing about," he said. "Here I've been in this
+army two months now and I'm still a private. There ain't no chance here
+for a guy that's got experience."
+
+"Experience? Where do you get that experience talk?" demanded English.
+"What do you know about artillery?"
+
+"That's just what I mean, experience," the red-headed one replied with
+fire. "I got experience. Mr. Gibbons knows me. I'm from Chicago, the
+same as he is. I worked in Chicago at Riverview Park. I'm the guy that
+fired the gattling gun in the Monitor and Merrimac show--we had two
+shows a day and two shows in the evening and----"
+
+"Kin you beat that," demanded English. "You know, if this here
+red-headed guy don't get promotion pretty quick, he's just simply going
+to quit this army and leave us flat here in France facing the Germans.
+
+"Let me tell you about this gattling gun expert. When they landed us off
+of them boats down on the coast, the battalion commander turned us all
+loose for a swim in the bay, and this here bird almost drowned. He went
+down three times before we could pull him out.
+
+"Now, if they don't make him a Brigadier General pretty quick, he's
+going to get sore and put in for a transfer to the Navy on the grounds
+of having submarine experience. But he's right in one thing--experience
+don't count for what it should in the army.
+
+"Right here in our battery we got a lot of plough boys from Kansas that
+have been sitting on a plough and looking at a horse's back all their
+lives, and they got them handling the machinery on these here guns. And
+me, who knows everything there is to know about machinery, they won't
+let me even find out which end of the cannon you put the shell in and
+which end it comes out of. All I do all day long is to prod around a
+couple of fat-hipped hayburners. My God, I hate horses."
+
+But regardless of these inconveniences those first American artillerymen
+in our overseas forces applied themselves strenuously to their studies.
+They were there primarily to learn. It became necessary for them at
+first to make themselves forget a lot of things that they had previously
+learned by artillery and adapt themselves to new methods and instruments
+of war.
+
+Did you ever hear of "Swansant, Kansas"? You probably won't find it on
+any train schedule in the Sunflower State; in fact, it isn't a place at
+all. It is the name of the light field cannon that France provided our
+men for use against the German line.
+
+"Swansant, Kansas" is phonetic spelling of the name as pronounced by
+American gunners. The French got the same effect in pronunciation by
+spelling the singular "soixante quinze," but a Yankee cannoneer trying
+to pronounce it from that orthography was forced to call it a "quince,"
+and that was something which it distinctly was not.
+
+One way or the other it meant the "Seventy-fives"--the "Admirable
+Seventy-five"--the seventy-five millimetre field pieces that stopped the
+Germans' Paris drive at the Marne--the same that gave Little Willie a
+headache at Verdun,--the inimitable, rapid firing, target hugging, hell
+raising, shell spitting engine of destruction whose secret of recoil
+remained a secret after almost twenty years and whose dependability was
+a French proverb.
+
+At Valdahon where American artillery became acquainted with the
+Seventy-five, the khaki-clad gun crews called her "some cannon." At
+seven o'clock every morning, the glass windows in my room at the post
+would rattle with her opening barks, and from that minute on until noon
+the Seventy-fives, battery upon battery of them, would snap and bark
+away until their seemingly ceaseless fire becomes a volley of sharp
+cracks which sent the echoes chasing one another through the dark
+recesses of the forests that conceal them.
+
+The targets, of course, were unseen. Range elevation, deflection, all
+came to the battery over the signal wires that connected the firing
+position with some observation point also unseen but located in a
+position commanding the terrain under fire.
+
+A signalman sat cross-legged on the ground back of each battery. He
+received the firing directions from the transmitter clamped to his ears
+and conveyed them to the firing executive who stood beside him. They
+were then megaphoned to the sergeants chief of sections.
+
+The corporal gunner, with eye on the sighting instruments at the side of
+each gun, "laid the piece" for range and deflection. Number one man of
+the crew opened the block to receive the shell, which was inserted by
+number two. Number three adjusted the fuse-setter, and cut the fuses.
+Numbers four and five screwed the fuses in the shells and kept the
+fuse-setter loaded.
+
+The section chiefs, watch in hand, gave the firing command to the gun
+crews, and number one of each piece jerked the firing lanyard at ten
+second intervals or whatever interval the command might call for. The
+four guns would discharge their projectiles. They whined over the damp
+wooded ridge to distant imaginary lines of trenches, theoretical
+cross-roads, or designated sections where the enemy was supposed to be
+massing for attack. Round after round would follow, while telephoned
+corrections perfected the range, and burst. The course of each shell was
+closely observed as well as its bursting effect, but no stupendous
+records were kept of the individual shots. That was "peace time stuff."
+
+These batteries and regiments were learning gunnery and no scarcity of
+shells was permitted to interfere with their education. One officer told
+me that it was his opinion that one brigade firing at this schooling
+post during a course of six weeks, had expended more ammunition than all
+of the field artillery of the United States Army has fired during the
+entire period since the Civil War. The Seventy-five shells cost
+approximately ten dollars apiece, but neither the French nor American
+artillery directors felt that a penny's worth was being wasted. They
+said cannon firing could not be learned entirely out of a book.
+
+I had talked with a French instructor, a Yale graduate, who had been two
+years with the guns at the front, and I had asked him what in his
+opinion was the most disconcerting thing that could happen to effect the
+morale of new gunners under actual fire. I wanted some idea of what
+might be expected of American artillerymen when they made their initial
+appearance on the line.
+
+We discussed the effect of counter battery fire, the effect on gun crews
+of asphyxiating gas, either that carried on the wind from the enemy
+trenches or that sent over in gas shells. We considered the demoralising
+influences of aerial attacks on gun positions behind the line.
+
+"They are all bad," my informant concluded. "But they are expected. Men
+can stand without complaint and without qualm any danger that is
+directed at them by the foe they are fighting. The thing that really
+bothers, though, is the danger of death or injury from their own weapons
+or ammunition. You see, many times there is such a thing as a faulty
+shell, although careful inspection in the munitions plants has reduced
+this danger to a percentage of about one in ten thousand.
+
+"At the beginning of the war when every little tin shop all over the
+world was converted into a munitions factory to supply the great need of
+shells, much faulty ammunition reached the front lines. Some of the
+shells would explode almost as soon as they left the gun. They are
+called shorts. The English, who had the same trouble, call them 'muzzle
+bursts.'
+
+"Sometimes the shell would explode in the bore of the cannon, in which
+case the cannoneers were usually killed either by pieces of the shell
+itself or bits of the cannon. The gunners have to sit beside the cannon
+when it is fired, and the rest of the gun crew are all within eight feet
+of it. If there is an explosion in the breech of the gun, it usually
+wipes out most of the crew. A muzzle burst, or a breech explosion, is
+one of the most disconcerting things that could happen in a battery.
+
+"The other men in the battery know of course that a faulty shell caused
+the explosion. They also know that they are firing ammunition from the
+same lot. After that, as they pull the trigger on each shot, they don't
+know whether the shell is going out of the gun all right or whether it
+is going to explode in the breech and kill all of them. That thought in
+a man's mind when he pulls the firing lanyard, that thought in the minds
+of the whole crew as they stand there waiting for the crash, is
+positively demoralising.
+
+"When it happens in our French artillery the cannoneers lose confidence
+in their pieces. They build small individual dugouts a safe ways back
+from the gun and extend the lanyard a safe distance. Then, with all the
+gun crew under cover, they fire the piece. This naturally removes them
+from their regular firing positions beside the pieces, reduces the
+accuracy and slows up the entire action of the battery. The men's
+suspicions of the shells combined with the fear of death by their own
+weapons, which is greater than any fear of death at the hands of the
+enemy, all reduce the morale of the gun crews."
+
+Now, for an incident. A new shipment of ammunition had reached the post.
+The caissons were filled with it. Early the following morning when the
+guns rumbled out of camp to the practice grounds, Battery X was firing
+in the open. At the third shot the shell from piece number two exploded
+prematurely thirty yards from the muzzle. Pieces three and four fired
+ten and twenty seconds later with every man standing on his toes in his
+prescribed position.
+
+Ten rounds later, a shell from number three gun exploded thirty feet
+after leaving the bore. Shell particles buried themselves in the ground
+near the battery. Piece number four, right next to it, was due to fire
+in ten seconds. It discharged its projectiles on the dot. The gun crews
+knew what they were up against. They were firing faulty ammunition. They
+passed whispered remarks but reloaded with more of the same ammunition
+and with military precision on the immediate command. Every man stuck to
+his position. As each gun was fired the immediate possibilities were not
+difficult to imagine.
+
+Then it happened.
+
+"Commence firing," megaphoned the firing executive. The section chief of
+number one piece dropped his right hand as the signal for the discharge.
+The corporal gunner was sitting on the metal seat in front of his
+instruments and not ten inches to the left of the breech. Cannoneer
+number one of the gun crew occupied his prescribed position in the same
+location to the immediate right of the breech. Gunner number two was
+standing six feet behind the breech and slightly to the left ready to
+receive the ejected cartridge case. Gunner number three was kneeling
+over the fuse setter behind the caisson which stood wheel to wheel with
+the gun carriage. Gunners four and five were rigid statues three feet
+back of him. Every man in the crew had seen the previous bursts of
+dangerous ammunition.
+
+Number one's eye caught the descending hand of the section chief. He
+pulled the lanyard.
+
+There was an eruption of orange coloured flame, a deafening roar, a
+crash of rendered steel, a cloud of smoke blue green, and yellow.
+
+A black chunk of the gun cradle hurtled backward through the air with a
+vicious swish. A piece of the bore splintered the wheels and buried
+itself in the ammunition caisson. Thick hunks of gun metal crumbling
+like dry cake filled the air. The ground shook.
+
+The corporal gunner pitched backward from his seat and collapsed on the
+ground. His mate with fists buried in his steel seared eyes staggered
+out of the choking fumes. The rest of the crew picked themselves up in a
+dazed condition. Fifty yards away a horse was struggling to regain his
+feet.
+
+Every man in the three other gun crews knew what had happened. None of
+them moved from their posts. They knew their guns were loaded with
+shells from the same lot and possibly with the same faults. No man knew
+what would happen when the next firing pin went home. The evidence was
+before them. Their eyes were on the exploded gun but not for long.
+
+"Crash," the ten second firing interval had expired. The section chief
+of piece number two had dropped his hand. The second gun in the battery
+had fired.
+
+"Number two on the way," sang out the signalman over the telephone wire
+to the hidden observation station.
+
+Ten seconds more for another gun crew to cogitate on whether disaster
+hung on the dart of a firing pin.
+
+"Crash."
+
+"Number three on the way."
+
+Another ten seconds for the last section to wonder whether death would
+come with the lanyard jerk.
+
+"Crash."
+
+"Number four on the way." Round complete. The signalman finished his
+telephone report.
+
+Four horses drawing an army ambulance galloped up from the ravine that
+sheltered them. The corporal gunner, unconscious and with one leg
+pulverised was lifted in. Two other dazed members of the crew were
+helped into the vehicle. One was bleeding from the shoulder. The lead
+horses swung about; the ambulance rattled away.
+
+"Battery ready to fire. Piece number one out of action." It was the
+signalman reporting over the wire to the observer.
+
+Battery X fired the rest of the morning and they used ammunition from
+the same lot and every man knew what might happen any minute and every
+man was in his exact position for every shot and nobody happened to
+think about hiding in a dugout and putting a long string on the firing
+lanyard.
+
+It had been an unstaged, unconscious demonstration of nerve and grit and
+it proved beyond all question the capacity of American artillerymen to
+stand by the guns.
+
+The gunner corporal told the nurse at his bedside how it all happened,
+but he was still under the effects of the anesthetic. He did not refer
+to the morale of his battery mates because it had not occurred to him
+that there was anything unusual in what they did. But he did think that
+he could wiggle the toes on his right leg. The doctor told me that this
+was a common delusion before the patient had been informed of the
+amputation.
+
+Incidents such as the one related had no effect whatever upon the
+progress of the work. From early dawn to late at night the men followed
+their strenuous duties six days a week and then obtained the necessary
+relief on the seventh day by trips down to the ancient town of Besancon.
+
+In this picturesque country where countless thousands fought and died,
+down through the bloody centuries since and before the Christian era,
+where Julius Caesar paused in his far flung raids to dictate new inserts
+to his commentaries, where kings and queens and dukes and pretenders
+left undying traces of ambition's stormy urgings, there it was that
+American soldiers, in training for the war of wars, spent week-end
+holidays and mixed the breath of romance with the drag of their
+cigarettes.
+
+The extender of Roman borders divided that region into three parts,
+according to the testimony of the first Latin class, but he neglected to
+mention that of these three parts the one decreed for American
+occupation was the most romantic of them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is late on a Saturday afternoon and I accept the major's offer of a
+seat in his mud-bespattered "Hunka Tin." The field guns have ceased
+their roar for the day and their bores will be allowed to cool over
+Sunday. Five per cent. of the men at the post have received the coveted
+town leave.
+
+They form a khaki fresco on the cab and sides of the giant commissary
+trucks that raise the dust along the winding white road over the hills.
+Snorting motorcycles with two men over the motor and an officer in the
+side car skim over the ground, passing all others. A lukewarm sun
+disappears in a slot in the mountains and a blue grey mist forms in the
+valleys. A chill comes over the air and a cold new moon looks down and
+laughs.
+
+It is a long ride to the ancient town, but speed laws and motor traps
+are unknown and the hood of the Detroit Dilemma shakes like a wet dog as
+her sizzling hot cylinders suck juice from a full throttle. We cross one
+divide through a winding road bordered by bushy trees and as orderly as
+a national park. We coast through a hillside hamlet of barking dogs and
+saluting children who stand at smiling attention and greet our passage
+with a shrill "Veev La Mereek" (Vive l'Amerique).
+
+We scud across a broad, level road built well above the lowland, and
+climb through zig-zagging avenues of stately poplars to the tunnel that
+pierces the backbone of the next ridge.
+
+While the solid rock walls of the black bore reverberate with the echoes
+from our exhaust, we emerge on a road that turns sharply to the left and
+hugs a cliff. Below winds a broad river that looks like mother of pearl
+in the moonlight. The mountain walls on either side rise at angles
+approximating 45 degrees, and in the light their orderly vineyards look
+like the squares on a sloping checkerboard. In front of us and to the
+right the flanking ridges converge to a narrow gorge through which the
+river Doub runs to loop the town.
+
+Commanding this gorge from the crests of the two rocky heights are
+sinister sentinels whose smooth, grey walls and towers rise sheer from
+the brink of the cliffs. The moonlight now catching the ramparts of the
+em-battlements splashes them with strokes of white that seem ever
+brighter in contrast with the darker shadows made by projecting portions
+of the walls. Spaniard and Moor knew well those walls, and all the
+kingly glory that hurried France to the reign of terror has slept within
+their shadows.
+
+Our way down the cliff side is hewn out of the beetling rock. To our
+left, a jagged wall of rock rises to the sky. To our right, a step,
+rock-tumbled declivity drops to the river's edge.
+
+The moonlight brings funny fancies, and our yellow headlights, wavering
+in concentric arcs with each turn of the course, almost seem to glint on
+the helmets and shields of the spear-bearing legionaries that marched
+that very way to force a southern culture on the Gauls. We slow down to
+pass through the rock-hewn gate that once was the Roman aqueduct
+bringing water down from mountain springs to the town.
+
+Through the gate, a turn to the left and we reach the black bottom of
+the gorge untouched by the rising moon. We face a blast of wind that
+slows our speed and brings with it the first big drops of rain. We stop
+at the "Octroi" and assure the customs collector that we are military,
+and that we carry no dutiable wine, or beans or wood into the town.
+
+Yet another gate, built across the narrow road between the cliff and the
+river, and we enter the town. It has been raining and the cobblestones
+are slippery. They shine in the gleams of pale light that come from the
+top-heavy street lamps. Gargoyle water spouts drip drainage from the
+gables of moss-speckled tiles.
+
+We pass a fountain that the Romans left, and rounded arches further on
+show where the hooded Moor wrote his name in masonry. Barred windows and
+stone balconies projecting over the street take one's mind off the
+rattling motor and cause it to wander back to times when serenading
+lovers twanged guitars beneath their ladies' windows and were satisfied
+with the flower that dropped from the balcony.
+
+The streets are wet and dark now and through their narrow windings our
+headlights reveal tall figures in slickers or khaki overcoats topped by
+peaked felt hats with the red cords of American artillerymen. Their
+identification is a surprise to the dreamer, because one rather expects
+these figures to sulk in the deeper shadows and screen their dark,
+bearded faces with the broad brims of black felt hats or muffle
+themselves to the chin in long, flowing black cloaks that hide rapiers
+and stilettos and other properties of mediaeval charm.
+
+We dine in a room three hundred years old. The presence of our
+automobile within the inner quadrangle of the ancient building jars on
+the sense of fitness. It is an old convent, now occupied by irreligious
+tenants on the upper three floors, restaurants and estaminets on the
+lower floor. These shops open on a broad gallery, level with the
+courtyard, and separated from it only by the rows of pillars that
+support the arches. It extends around the four sides of the court.
+
+Centuries ago shrouded nuns, clasping beads or books of office, walked
+in uncommunicative pairs and mumbled their daily prayers beneath these
+time-worn arches, and to-night it affords a promenade for officers
+waiting for their meals to be served at madame's well laid tables
+within.
+
+Madame's tables are not too many. There is not the space economy of an
+American cafe, where elbows interlock and waiters are forced to navigate
+fearsome cargoes above the diners' heads. Neither is there the
+unwholesome, dust-filled carpet of London's roast beef palaces.
+
+Madame's floor is bare, but the wood has stood the scrubbings of years,
+and is as spotless as grass-dried linen. The high ceiling and the walls
+are of white stucco. In bas-relief are clusters of heraldic signs, of
+bishops' crooks and cathedral keys, of mounted chargers and dying
+dragoons, of miter and crown, and trumpet and shield, and cross.
+
+Large mirrors, circled with wreaths of gilded leaves, adorn both end
+walls, and beneath one of them remains an ornate fireplace and
+mantelpiece of bologna coloured marble, surmounted with a gilt cock of
+wondrous design. Beneath the other mirror madame has placed her buffet,
+on which the boy who explores the dusty caves below places the cobwebbed
+bottles of red wine for the last cork pulling. Large gold chandeliers,
+dangling with glass prisms, are suspended from high ceiling and flood
+the room with light, against which the inner shutters of the tall
+windows must be shut because of danger from the sky.
+
+There is colour in that room. The Roman conquerors would have found it
+interesting. If former armed occupants of the old town could have
+paraded in their ancient habiliments through the room like a procession
+from the martial past, they would have found much for their attention in
+this scene of the martial present. American khaki seems to predominate,
+although at several tables are Canadian officers in uniforms of the same
+colour but of different tailoring.
+
+The tables are flecked with all varieties of French uniforms, from
+scarlet pants with solitary black stripes down the leg, to tunics of
+horizon blue. In one corner there are two turbaned Algerians with heads
+bent close over their black coffee, and one horn of the hall rack shows
+a red fez with a gold crescent on the crown.
+
+Consider the company. That freckle-faced youth with the fluffed reddish
+hair of a bandmaster is a French aviator, and among the row of
+decorations on his dark blue coat is one that he received by reason of a
+well known adventure over the German lines, which cannot be mentioned
+here. That American colonel whose short grey hair blends into the white
+wall behind him is a former member of the United States war college and
+one of the most important factors in the legislation that shaped the
+present military status of his country. That other Frenchman with the
+unusual gold shoulder straps is not a member of the French army. He is
+a naval officer, and the daring with which he carried his mapping chart
+along exposed portions of the line at Verdun and evolved the
+mathematical data on which the French fired their guns against the
+German waves has been the pride of both the navy and the army.
+
+Over there is a young captain who this time last year was a "shavetail"
+second in command at a small post along the line of communications in
+Chihuahua. Next to him sits a tall dark youngster wearing with pride his
+first Sam Browne belt and "U. S. R." on his collar. He carted human
+wreckage to the hospitals on the French front for two years before Uncle
+Sam decided to end the war. There's another one not long from the
+"Point," booted and spurred and moulded to his uniform. He speaks with a
+twang of old Virginia on every syllable and they say his family--but
+that has nothing to do with the fact that he is aid to a major general
+and is in these parts on a mission.
+
+There are three American women in the room. One who is interested in Y.
+M. C. A. work and a number of newspapers, wears a feminine adaptation of
+the uniform and holds court at the head of a table of five officers.
+Another, Mrs. Robert R. McCormick, who is engaged in the extension of
+the canteen work of a Paris organisation, is sitting at our table and
+she is willing to wager her husband anything from half a dozen gloves to
+a big donation check that Germany will be ready for any kind of peace
+before an American offensive in the spring.
+
+The interests of the other American woman are negative. She professes no
+concern in the fact that war correspondents' life insurances are
+cancelled, but she repeats to me that a dead correspondent is of no use
+to his paper, and I reply that if madame puts yet another one of her
+courses on the board, one correspondent will die with a fork in his hand
+instead of a pencil.
+
+The diners are leaving. Each opening of the salon door brings in a gust
+of dampness that makes the tablecloths flap. Rain coats swish and rustle
+in the entry. Rain is falling in sheets in the black courtyard. The moon
+is gone.
+
+A merry party trails down the stone gallery skirting the quadrangle.
+Their hobnailed soles and steel plated heels ring on the stone flags.
+The arches echo back their song:
+
+    "In days of old
+    A warrior bold
+    Sang merrily his lay, etc. etc. etc.
+    My love is young and fair.
+    My love has golden hair,
+    So what care I
+    Though death be nigh, etc. etc. etc."
+
+With frequent passages where a dearth of words reduce the selection to
+musical but meaningless ta-de-ta-tas, the voices melt into the blackness
+and the rain.
+
+"Great times to be alive," I say to the wife. "This place is saturated
+with romance. I don't have to be back to the post until to-morrow night.
+Where will we go? They are singing 'Carmen' in the old opera house on
+the square. What do you say?"
+
+"There's a Charlie Chaplin on the programme next to the hotel," the wife
+replies.
+
+Romance was slapped with a custard pie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"FRONTWARD HO!"
+
+
+When the artillery training had proceeded to such a point that the
+French instructors were congratulating our officers upon their
+proficiency, the rumours spread through the post that the brigade had
+been ordered to go to the front--that we were to be the first American
+soldiers to actually go into the line and face the Germans.
+
+The news was received with joy. The men were keen to try out their newly
+acquired abilities upon the enemy. Harness was polished until it shone.
+Brass equipment gleamed until you could almost see your face in it. The
+men groomed the horses until the animals got pains from it. Enlisted men
+sojourning in the Guard House for petty offences, despatched their
+guards with scrawled pleadings that the sentences be changed to fines so
+that they could accompany the outfits to the front.
+
+With one special purpose in view, I made application to General March
+for an assignment to Battery A of the Sixth Field Artillery. I received
+the appointment. The Sixth was the first regiment of the brigade and A
+was the first battery of the regiment. I knew that we would march out in
+that order, that Battery A would entrain first, detrain first, go in the
+line first, and I hoped to be present at the firing of the first
+American shot in the war.
+
+We pulled out of the post on schedule time early in the morning, two
+days later. Officers and men had been up and dressed since midnight. Ten
+minutes after their arising, blankets had been rolled and all personal
+equipment packed ready for departure with the exception of mess kits.
+
+While the stable police details fed the horses, the rest of us "leaned
+up against" steak, hot biscuits, syrup and hot coffee. The cook had been
+on the job all night and his efforts touched the right spot. It seemed
+as if it was the coldest hour of the night and the hot "chow" acted as a
+primer on the sleepy human machines.
+
+In the darkness, the animals were packed into the gun carriages and
+caissons down in the gun park, and it was 4 A. M. on the dot when the
+captain's whistle sounded and we moved off the reserve. As we rattled
+over the railroad crossing and took the road, the men made facetious
+good-byes to the scene of their six weeks' training.
+
+Soldiers like movement--we were on the move. Every one's spirits were up
+and the animals were frisky and high-stepping in the brisk air. Chains
+rattled as some of the lead pairs mussed up the traces and were brought
+back into alignment by the drivers. The cannoneers, muffled in great
+coats, hung on the caisson seats and chided the drivers.
+
+We were off. Where we were going, seemed to make no difference. Rumours
+could never be depended upon, so none of us knew our destination, but
+all of us hoped that we were going into action. Every man in the battery
+felt that the schooling was over and that the battery, if given a
+chance, could prove that it needed no further training.
+
+At the same time, some of the men expressed the fear that we were on our
+way to some other training camp for some post-graduate course in firing
+or maybe for the purpose of instructing other less advanced batteries.
+The final consensus of opinion was, however, that "beefing" about our
+prospects wouldn't change them, and that anything was better than
+staying in the same place forever.
+
+Two miles from the post the road crossed the railroad tracks. The
+crossing bore a name as everything else did in that land of poetical
+nomenclature. There was only one house there. It was an old grey stone
+cottage, its walls covered with vines, and its garden full of shrubbery.
+It was occupied by three persons, the old crossing-tender, his wife--and
+one other. That other was Jeanne. Jeanne was their daughter.
+
+We had seen her many times as she opened the crossing gates for traffic
+on the road. She was about sixteen years old. Her ankles were encased in
+thick grey woollen hose of her own knitting and, where they emerged from
+her heavy wooden shoes, it looked as if every move in her clumsy
+footgear might break them off.
+
+As we approached the crossing, Gallagher, who rode one of the lead pair
+on piece No. 2, began to give vent to his fine Irish tenor. Gallagher
+was singing:
+
+    "We were sailing along
+    On Moonlight bay,
+    You could hear the voices ringing,
+    They seemed to say,
+    'You have stolen my heart
+    Now, don't go away,'
+    As we kissed and said good-bye
+    On Moonlight bay."
+
+It would almost have seemed that there was need of some explanation for
+Gallagher's musical demonstration on this cold, dark morning, but none
+was demanded. Gallagher apparently knew what he was doing.
+
+His pair of lead horses were walking in much too orderly a fashion for
+the occasion. Apparently the occasion demanded a little greater show of
+dash and spirit. Gallagher sunk his spurs into the flanks of his mount
+and punched its mate in the ribs with the heavy handle of his riding
+crop.
+
+The leads lunged forward against their collars. The sudden plunge was
+accompanied by a jangle of chains as the traces tightened. The gun
+carriage jolted and the cannoneers swore at the unnecessary bouncing.
+
+"Easy, Zigg-Zigg, whoa, Fini." Gallagher pulled on the lines as he
+shouted in a calculated pitch the French names of his horses. And then
+the reason for Gallagher's conduct developed.
+
+A pair of wooden shutters on a first floor window of the gate-tender's
+cottage opened outward. In the window was a lamp. The yellow rays from
+it shone upward and revealed a tumbled mass of long black hair, black
+eyes that gleamed, red cheeks and red lips. Then a sweet voice said:
+
+"Gude-bye, Meeky."
+
+"Orry wore, Jeen," replied Gallagher.
+
+"_Apres la guerre_, Meeky," said Jeanne.
+
+"Orry wore, Jeen," repeated Gallagher.
+
+"Oh, Jeanie, dear, please call me 'Meeky,'" sang out one of the men,
+astride one of the wheel pair of the same gun.
+
+The window had closed, but before the light disappeared, black eyes
+flashed hate at the jester, and Gallagher, himself, two horses ahead,
+turned in the saddle and told the taunter to shut his mouth, observing
+at the same time that "some guys didn't know a decent girl when they saw
+one."
+
+We rode on. Soon, on the left, the sun came up cold out of
+Switzerland's white topped ridges miles away, and smiling frigidly
+across the snow-clad neutral Alps, dispelled the night mist in our part
+of the world.
+
+The battery warmed under its glow. Village after village we passed
+through, returning the polite salutes of early rising grand-sires who
+uncovered their grey heads, or wrinkled, pink-faced grandmothers, who
+waved kerchiefs from gabled windows beneath the thatch and smiled the
+straight and dry-lipped smile of toothless age as they wished us good
+fortune in the war.
+
+We messed at midday by the roadside, green fields and hills of France,
+our table decorations, cold beef and dry bread, our fare, with canteens
+full to wash it down. When the horses had tossed their nose-bags
+futilely for the last grains of oats, and the captain's watch had timed
+the rest at three-quarters of the hour, we mounted and resumed the
+march.
+
+The equipment rode easy on man and beast. Packs had been shifted to
+positions of maximum comfort. The horses were still fresh enough to need
+tight rein. The men had made final adjustments to the chin straps on
+their new steel helmets and these sat well on heads that never before
+had been topped with armoured covering. In addition to all other
+equipment, each man carried two gas masks. Our top sergeant had an
+explanation for me as to this double gas mask equipment.
+
+"I'll tell you about it," he said, as he ruthlessly accepted the
+next-to-the-last twenty-five centime Egyptian cigarette from my
+proffered case. I winced as he deliberately tore the paper from that
+precious fine smoke and inserted the filler in his mouth for a chew.
+
+"You see, England and France and us is all Allies," he said. "Both of
+them loves us and we love both of them. We don't know nothing about gas
+masks and they knows all there is to know about them. The French say
+their gas mask is the best. The British say their gas mask is the best.
+
+"Well, you see, they both offer us gas masks. Now Uncle Sam don't want
+to hurt nobody's feelings, so he says, 'Gentlemen, we won't fight about
+this here matter. We'll just use both gas masks, and give each of them a
+try-out.'
+
+"So here we are carrying two of these human nose-bags. The first time we
+get into a mess of this here gas, somebody will send the order around to
+change masks in the middle of it--just to find out which is the best
+one."
+
+The sergeant, with seeming malice, spat some of that fine cigarette on a
+roadside kilometer stone and closed the international prospects of the
+subject.
+
+Our battery jangled through a tunnelled ridge and emerged on the other
+side just as a storm of rain and hail burst with mountain fury. The
+hailstones rattled on our metal helmets and the men laughed at the sound
+as they donned slickers. The brakes grated on the caisson wheels as we
+took the steep down-grade. The road hugged the valley wall which was a
+rugged, granite cliff.
+
+I rode on ahead through the stinging hailstones and watched our battery
+as it passed through the historic rock-hewn gateway that is the entrance
+to the mediaeval town of Besancon. The portal is located at a sharp turn
+of the river. The gateway is carved through a mountain spur. Ancient
+doors of iron-studded oak still guard the entrance, but they have long
+since stood open. Battlements that once knew the hand of Vaubon frown
+down in ancient menace to any invader.
+
+[Illustration: CAPT. CHEVALIER, OF THE FRENCH ARMY, INSTRUCTING AMERICAN
+OFFICERS IN THE USE OF THE ONE-POUNDER]
+
+[Illustration: IN THE COURSE OF ITS PROGRESS TO THE VALLEY OF THE VESLE
+THIS 155 MM. GUN AND OTHERS OF ITS KIND WERE EDUCATING THE BOCHE TO
+RESPECT AMERICA. THE TRACTOR HAULS IT ALONG STEADILY AND SLOWLY, LIKE A
+STEAM ROLLER]
+
+No Roman conqueror at the head of his invading legions ever rode through
+that triumphal arch with greater pride than rode our little captain
+at the head of his battery. Our little captain was in stature the
+smallest man in our battery, but he compensated for that by riding the
+tallest horse in the battery.
+
+He carried his head at a jaunty angle. He wore his helmet at a nifty
+tilt, with the chin strap riding between his underlip and his dimpled,
+upheld chin. He carried his shoulders back, and his chest out. The reins
+hung gracefully in his left hand, and he had assumed a rather
+moving-picture pose of the right fist on his right hip. Behind him flew
+the red guidon, its stirruped staff held stiffly at the right arm's
+length by the battery standard bearer.
+
+Both of them smiled--expansive smiles of pride--into the clicking lens
+of my camera. I forgave our little captain for his smile of pride. I
+knew that six weeks before that very day our little captain had fitted
+into the scheme of civilian life as a machinery salesman from Indiana.
+And there that day, he rode at the head of his two hundred and fifty
+fighting men and horses, at the head of his guns, rolling down that road
+in France on the way to the front.
+
+In back of him and towering upward, was that historic rock that had
+known the tread and passage of countless martial footsteps down through
+the centuries. Behind him, the gun carriages rattled through the
+frowning portal. Oh, if the folks back on the Wabash could have seen him
+then!
+
+We wound through the crooked narrow streets of Besancon, our steel-tired
+wheels bounding and banging over the cobblestones. Townsfolk waved to us
+from windows and doorways. Old women in the market square abandoned
+their baskets of beet roots and beans to flutter green stained aprons in
+our direction. Our column was flanked by clattering phalanxes of
+wooden-shoed street gamins, who must have known more about our movements
+than we did, because they all shouted, "Gude-bye."
+
+Six weeks' familiarity between these same artillerymen on town leave and
+these same urchins had temporised the blind admiration that caused them
+first to greet our men solely with shouts of "_Vive les Americains_."
+Now that they knew us better, they alternated the old greeting with
+shouts of that all-meaning and also meaningless French expression, "Oo
+la la."
+
+Our way led over the stone, spanned bridge that crossed the sluggish
+river through the town, and on to the hilly outskirts where mounted
+French guides met and directed us to the railroad loading platform.
+
+The platform was a busy place. The regimental supply company which was
+preceding us over the road was engaged in forcibly persuading the last
+of its mules to enter the toy freight cars which bore on the side the
+printed legend, "Hommes 40, Chevaux 8."
+
+Several arclights and one or two acetylene flares illuminated the scene.
+It was raining fitfully, but not enough to dampen the spirits of the Y.
+M. C. A. workers who wrestled with canvas tarpaulins and foraged
+materials to construct a make-shift shelter for a free coffee and
+sandwich counter.
+
+Their stoves were burning brightly and the hurriedly erected stove
+pipes, leaning wearily against the stone wall enclosing the quay, topped
+the wall like a miniature of the sky line of Pittsburgh. The boiling
+coffee pots gave off a delicious steam. In the language of our battery,
+the "Whime say" delivered the goods.
+
+During it all the mules brayed and the supply company men swore. Most
+humans, cognizant of the principles of safety first, are respectful of
+the rear quarters of a mule. We watched one disrespecter of these
+principles invite what might have been called "mulecide" with utter
+contempt for the consequences. He deliberately stood in the dangerous
+immediate rear of one particularly onery mule, and kicked the mule.
+
+His name was "Missouri Slim," as he took pains to inform the object of
+his caress. He further announced to all present, men and mules, that he
+had been brought up with mules from babyhood and knew mules from the
+tips of their long ears to the ends of their hard tails.
+
+The obdurate animal in question had refused to enter the door of the car
+that had been indicated as his Pullman. "Missouri Slim" called three
+other ex-natives of Champ Clark's state to his assistance. They
+fearlessly put a shoulder under each of the mule's quarters. Then they
+grunted a unanimous "heave," and lifted the struggling animal off its
+feet. As a perfect matter of course, they walked right into the car with
+him with no more trouble than if he had been an extra large bale of hay.
+
+"Wonderful mule handling in this here army," remarked a quiet,
+mild-mannered man in uniform, beside whom I happened to be standing. He
+spoke with a slow, almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of
+the supply company, and there were a number of things that were new to
+him, as his story revealed. He was the first homesick horse doctor I
+ever met.
+
+"I come from a small town out in Iowa," he told me. "I went to a
+veterinary college and had a nice little practice,--sorter kept myself
+so busy that I never got much of a chance to think about this here war.
+But one day, about two months ago, I got a letter from the War
+Department down in Washington.
+
+"They said the hoss doctor college had given them my name as one of the
+graduates and the letter said that the War Department was making out a
+list of hoss doctors. The letter asked me to fill out the blank and send
+it to Washington.
+
+"'Joe,' my wife says to me, 'this here is an honour that the country is
+paying to you. The Government just wants the names of the patriotic
+professional citizens of the country.' So we filled out the blank and
+mailed it and forgot all about it.
+
+"Well, about two weeks later, I got a letter from Washington telling me
+to go at once to Douglas, Arizona. It sorter scared the wife and me at
+first because neither of us had ever been out of Iowa, but I told her
+that I was sure it wasn't anything serious--I thought that Uncle Sam
+just had some sick hosses down there and wanted me to go down and look
+them over.
+
+"Well, the wife put another shirt and a collar and an extra pair of
+socks in my hand satchel along with my instruments and I kissed her and
+the little boy good-bye and told them that I would hurry up and
+prescribe for the Government hosses and be back in about five days.
+
+"Two days later I landed in Douglas, and a major shoved me into a
+uniform and told me I was commissioned as a hoss doctor lieutenant. That
+afternoon I was put on a train with a battery and we were on our way
+east. Six days later we were on the ocean. We landed somewhere in France
+and moved way out here.
+
+"My wife was expecting me back in five days and here it is I've been
+away two months and I haven't had a letter from her and now we're moving
+up to the front. It seems to me like I've been away from Iowa for ten
+years, and I guess I am a little homesick, but it sure is a comfort to
+travel with an outfit that knows how to handle mules like this one
+does."
+
+The supply company completed loading, and the homesick horse doctor
+boarded the last car as the train moved down the track. Our battery took
+possession of the platform. A train of empties was shunted into position
+and we began loading guns and wagons on the flat cars and putting the
+animals into the box cars.
+
+Considerable confusion accompanied this operation. The horses seemed to
+have decided scruples against entering the cars. It was dark and the
+rain came down miserably. The men swore. There was considerable kicking
+on the part of the men as well as the animals.
+
+I noticed one group that was gathered around a plunging team of horses.
+The group represented an entanglement of rope, harness, horses and men.
+I heard a clang of metal and saw the flash of two steel-shod hoofs. A
+little corporal, holding his head up with both hands, backed out of the
+group,--backed clear across the platform and sat down on a bale of hay.
+
+I went to his assistance. Blood was trickling through his fingers. I
+washed his two scalp wounds with water from a canteen and applied first
+aid bandages.
+
+"Just my luck," I heard my patient mumbling as I swathed his head in
+white strips and imparted to him the appearance of a first-class front
+line casualty.
+
+"You're lucky," I told him truthfully. "Not many men get kicked in the
+head by a horse and escape without a fractured skull."
+
+"That isn't it," he said; "you see for the last week I've been wearing
+that steel helmet--that cast-iron sombrero that weighs so much it almost
+breaks your neck, and two minutes before that long-legged baby kicked
+me, the tin hat fell off my head."
+
+By the time our battery had been loaded, another battery was waiting to
+move on to the platform. Our captain went down the length of the train
+examining the halter straps in the horse cars and assuring himself of
+the correct apportionment of men in each car. Then we moved out on what
+developed to be a wild night ride.
+
+The horse has been described as man's friend and no one questions that a
+horse and a man, if placed out in any large open space, are capable of
+getting along to their mutual comfort. But when army regulations and the
+requirements of military transportation place eight horses and four men
+in the same toy French box car and then pat all twelve of them
+figuratively on the neck and tell them to lie down together and sleep
+through an indefinite night's ride, it is not only probable, but it is
+certain, that the legendary comradeship of the man and the horse ceases.
+The described condition does not encompass the best understood relation
+of the two as travelling companions.
+
+On our military trains in France, the reservations of space for the
+human and dumb occupants of the same car were something as follows: Four
+horses occupied the forward half of the car. Four more horses occupied
+the rear half of the car. Four men occupied the remaining space. The
+eight four-footed animals are packed in lengthwise with their heads
+towards the central space between the two side doors. The central space
+is reserved for the four two-footed animals.
+
+Then the train moves. If the movement is forward and sudden, as it
+usually is, the four horses in the forward end of the car involuntarily
+obey the rules of inertia and slide into the central space. If the
+movement of the train is backward and equally sudden, the four horses in
+the rear end of the car obey the same rule and plunge forward into the
+central space. On the whole, night life for the men in the straw on the
+floor of the central space is a lively existence, while "riding the
+rattlers with a horse outfit."
+
+Our battery found it so. I rode a number of miles that night sitting
+with four artillerymen in the central space between the side doors which
+had been closed upon orders. From the roof of the car, immediately above
+our heads, an oil lantern swung and swayed with every jolt of the wheels
+and cast a feeble light down upon our conference in the straw. We
+occupied a small square area which we had attempted to particularise by
+roping it off.
+
+On either side were the blank surfaces of the closed doors. To either
+end were the heads of four nervous animals, eight ponderous hulks of
+steel-shod horseflesh, high strung and fidgety, verging almost on panic
+under the unusual conditions they were enduring, and subject at any
+minute to new fits of excitement.
+
+We sat at their feet as we rattled along. I recalled the scene of the
+loose cannon plunging about the crowded deck of a rolling vessel at sea
+and related Hugo's thrilling description to my companions.
+
+"Yeah," observed Shoemaker, driver of the "wheelers" on No. 4 piece,
+"Yeah, but there ain't no mast to climb up on and get out of the way on
+in this here boxcar."
+
+"I'd rather take my chances with a cannon any day," said 'Beady' Watson,
+gunner. "A cannon will stay put when you fix it. There's our piece out
+on the flat car and she's all lashed and blocked. It would take a wreck
+to budge her off that flat. I wish the B. C. had let me ride with the
+old gun out there. It would be a little colder but a lot healthier. Try
+to go to sleep in here and you'll wake up with a horse sitting on you."
+
+"Where do you suppose we are going anyway?" asked Slater, fuse cutter in
+the same section. "I'm strong for travel, but I always like to read the
+program before we start to ramble. For all we know we might be on our
+way to Switzerland or Italy or Spain or Egypt or somewhere."
+
+"Why don't you go up and ask the Captain?" suggested Boyle, corporal in
+charge of the car. "Maybe the Colonel gave him a special message to
+deliver to you about our dusty-nation. You needn't worry though. They
+ain't going to bowl us out of France for some time yet."
+
+"Well, if we're just joy-riding around France," replied Slater, "I hope
+we stop over to feed the horses at Monte Carlo. I've heard a lot about
+that joint. They say that they run the biggest crap game in the world
+there, and the police lay off the place because the Governor of the
+State or the King or something, banks the game. They tell me he uses
+straight bones and I figure a man could clean up big if he hit the game
+on a payday."
+
+"Listen, kid, you've got this tip wrong," said Shoemaker. "If there's
+anything happens to start a riot among these horses, you are going to
+find that you're gambling with death. And if we ever get off this train,
+I think we have a date with Kaiser Bill."
+
+"I've got a cousin somewhere in the German army. He spells his
+'Shoemaker' with a 'u.' My dad told me that my grandfather and this
+cousin's grandfather had a business disagreement over a sauerkraut
+factory some time before the Civil War and my grandfather left Germany.
+Since then, there ain't been no love lost between the branches of the
+family, but we did hear that Cousin Hans had left the sauerkraut
+business and was packing a howitzer for the Kaiser."
+
+"Well, I hope we come across him for your sake," said Watson. "It's
+kinda tough luck to get cheated out of a big business like that, but
+then you must remember that if your cousin's grandfather hadn't pulled
+the dirty on your grandfather, your grandfather might never have gone to
+America and most likely you'd still be a German."
+
+"I guess there's some sense in that, too," replied Shoemaker; "wouldn't
+that been hell if I'd been on the other side in this war? But anyhow, I
+do hope we run into Cousin Hans somewhere."
+
+The horses had been comparatively quiet for some time, but now they
+seemed to be growing restless. They pricked their ears and we knew
+something was bothering them. The discussion stopped so that we could
+listen better.
+
+Above the rattle of the train, there came to us the sound of firing. It
+seemed to come from the direction in which we were going. With
+surprising quickness, the explosions grew louder. We were not only
+speeding toward the sounds of conflict, but the conflict itself seemed
+to be speeding toward us.
+
+Then came a crash unmistakably near. One of the horses in the forward
+end reared, and his head thumped the roof of the car. Once again on four
+feet, he pranced nervously and tossed his blood-wet forelock.
+Immediately the other horses began stamping.
+
+Another crash!--this time almost directly overhead. In the light of the
+swinging lantern, I could see the terror in the eyes of the frightened
+brutes. We clung to their halters and tried to quiet them but they
+lifted us off our feet.
+
+"Put a twitch on that one's nose and hold him down," Boyle ordered.
+
+"Gosh," said Slater, obeying, "we must be right up on the front line.
+Hope they don't stop this train in No Man's Land. Hold still, you crazy
+b----"
+
+"Cousin Hans must have heard you talking," Watson shouted to Shoemaker.
+"Maybe you're going to see him quicker than you expected."
+
+The train was slowing down. The brakes shrieked and grated as we came to
+a jerky stop. Three of us braced ourselves at the heads of the four
+horses in the rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top of
+us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet the forward four.
+The explosions overhead increased. Now we heard the report of field
+pieces so close that they seemed to be almost alongside the track.
+
+There came a sharp bang at one of the side doors, and I thought I
+recognised the sound of the lead-loaded handle of the captain's riding
+whip. His voice, coming to us a minute later above the trampling and
+kicking of the panic-stricken animals, verified my belief.
+
+"Darken that lantern," he shouted. "Keep all lights out and keep your
+helmets on. Stay in the cars and hang on to the horses. There is an air
+raid on right above us."
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Boyle, and we heard the captain run to the next car.
+I blew out the light and we were in complete darkness, with eight
+tossing, plunging horses that kicked and reared at every crash of the
+guns nearby or burst of the shells overhead.
+
+We hung on while the air battle went on above. One horse went down on
+his knees and in his frantic struggles to regain his feet, almost kicked
+the feet from under the animal beside him.
+
+At times, thunderous detonations told us that aerial bombs were doing
+their work near at hand. We supposed correctly that we were near some
+town not far behind the lines, and that the German was paying it a night
+visit with some of his heaviest visiting cards.
+
+I opened one side door just a crack and looked out. The darkness above
+blossomed with blinding blotches of fire that flashed on and off. It
+seemed as though the sky were a canopy of black velvet perforated with
+hundreds of holes behind which dazzling lights passed back and forth,
+flashing momentary gleams of brilliance through the punctures. Again,
+this vision would pass as a luminous dripping mass would poise itself on
+high and cast a steady white glare that revealed clusters of grey smoke
+puffs of exploded shrapnel.
+
+We had to close the door because the flashes added to the terror of the
+horses, but the aerial activity passed almost as suddenly as it had come
+and left our train untouched. As the raiding planes went down the wind,
+followed always by the poppings of the anti-aircraft guns, the sound of
+the conflict grew distant. We got control over the horses although they
+still trembled with fright.
+
+There came another rap at the door and I hurriedly accepted the
+captain's invitation to accompany him forward to a first-class coach
+where I spent the remainder of the night stretched out on the cushions.
+As our train resumed its way into the darkness, I dreamed of racing
+before a stampede of wild horses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+INTO THE LINE--THE FIRST AMERICAN SHOT IN THE WAR
+
+
+A damp, chill, morning mist made the dawn even greyer as our battery
+train slid into a loading platform almost under the walls of a large
+manufacturing plant engaged in producing war materials.
+
+In spite of the fact that the section chiefs reported that not a man had
+been injured, and not so much as a leg broken in the crowded horse cars,
+every man in the battery now declared the absence of any doubt but the
+air raid had been directly aimed at Battery A.
+
+"There might be a spy in this here very outfit," said 'Texas' Tinsdale,
+the battery alarmist. "Else how could them German aviators have known
+that Battery A was on the road last night? They knew we was on the way
+to the front and they tried to get us."
+
+"Hire a hall," shouted the gruffy top sergeant. "We've got two hours to
+unload. A lot of you fireside veterans get busy. Gun crews get to work
+on the flats and drivers unload horses. No chow until we're ready to
+move out."
+
+The sign on a station lamp-post told us the name of the town. It was
+Jarville. But it jarred nothing in our memories. None of us had ever
+heard of it before. I asked the captain where we were.
+
+"Just about thirty miles behind the front," he replied. "We are moving
+up to our last billets as soon as we unload and feed."
+
+The horses had made the ride wearing their harness, some of which had
+become entangled and broken in transit. A number of saddles had slipped
+from backs and were down behind forelegs.
+
+"We're learning something every minute," the captain exclaimed.
+"American army regulations call for the removal of all harness from the
+horses before they are put into the cars, but the French have learned
+that that is a dangerous practice over here.
+
+"You can't unload unharnessed horses and get them hitched to the guns as
+quick as you can harnessed horses. The idea is this. We're pretty close
+behind the lines. A German air party might make this unloading platform
+a visit at any time and if any of them are in the air and happen to see
+us unloading, they'd sure call on us.
+
+"The French have learned that the only way to make the best of such a
+situation, if it should arise, is to have the horses already harnessed
+so that they can be run out of the cars quickly, hitched to the guns in
+a jiffy and hurried away. If the horses are in the cars unharnessed, and
+all of the harness is being carried in other cars, confusion is
+increased and there is a greater prospect of your losing your train,
+horses, guns and everything from an incendiary bomb, not to mention low
+flying machine work."
+
+His explanation revealed a promising attitude that I found in almost all
+American soldiers of all ranks that I had encountered up to that time in
+France. The foundation of the attitude was a willingness to admit
+ignorance of new conditions and an eagerness to possess themselves of
+all knowledge that the French and British had acquired through bitter
+and costly experience.
+
+Further than that, the American inclination pushed the soldier students
+to look beyond even those then accepted standards. The tendency was to
+improve beyond the French and British, to apply new American principles
+of time or labour-saving to simple operation, to save man-power and
+horseflesh by sane safety appliances, to increase efficiency, speed,
+accuracy--in a word, their aim was to make themselves the best fighting
+men in the Allied cause.
+
+One instance of this is worthy of recounting. I came upon the young
+Russian who was the battery saddler. He was a citizen of the United
+States whose uniform he wore, but he was such a new citizen, that he
+hardly spoke English. I found him handling a small piece of galvanised
+iron and a horse shoe. He appeared to be trying to fit the rumpled piece
+of metal into the shoe.
+
+In his broken English he explained that he was trying to fashion a light
+metal plate that could be easily placed between a horse's shoe and the
+hoof, to protect the frog of the foot from nails picked up on the road.
+With all soldiers wearing hobnailed boots, the roads were full of those
+sharp bits of metal which had caused serious losses of horseflesh
+through lameness and blood poisoning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The unloading had continued under the eyes of smiling French girls in
+bloomers who were just departing from their work on the early morning
+shift in the munition factory beside the station. These were the first
+American soldiers they had seen and they were free to pass comment upon
+our appearance. So were the men of Battery A, who overlooked the oiled,
+grimed faces and hands of the bloomered beauties, and announced the
+general verdict that "they sure were fat little devils."
+
+The unloading completed, a scanty snack consisting of two unbuttered
+slices of white bread with a hunk of cold meat and maybe the bite of an
+onion, had been put away by the time the horses' nose bags were empty.
+With a French guide in the lead, we moved off the platform, rattled
+along under a railroad viaduct, and down the main street of Jarville,
+which was large enough to boast street car tracks and a shell-damaged
+cathedral spire.
+
+The remaining townsfolk had lived with the glare and rumble of the front
+for three years now and the passage back and forth of men and horses and
+guns hardly elicited as much attention as the occasional promenade of a
+policeman in Evanston, Illinois. But these were different men that rode
+through those streets that day.
+
+This was the first battery of American artillery that had passed that
+way. This was an occasion and the townspeople responded to it. Children,
+women and old men chirped "vivas," kissed hands, bared heads and waved
+hats and aprons from curb and shop door and windows overhead.
+
+There was no cheering, but there were smiles and tears and "God bless
+you's." It was not a vociferous greeting, but a heart-felt one. They
+offered all there was left of an emotion that still ran deep and strong
+within but that outwardly had been benumbed by three years of nerve-rack
+and war-weariness.
+
+Onward into the zone of war we rode. On through successive battered
+villages, past houses without roofs, windows with shattered panes, stone
+walls with gaping shell holes through them, churches without steeples,
+our battery moved toward the last billeting place before entering the
+line.
+
+This was the ancient town of Saint-Nicolas-du-Port on the banks of the
+river Meurthe. Into the Place de la Republic of the town the battery
+swung with a clamorous advance guard of schoolchildren and street
+gamins.
+
+The top sergeant who had preceded the battery into the town, galloped up
+to the captain upon our entry and presented him with a sheaf of yellow
+paper slips, which bore the addresses of houses and barns and the
+complements of men and horses to be quartered in each. This was the
+billeting schedule provided by the French major of the town. The guns
+were parked, the horses picketed and the potato peelers started on their
+endless task. The absence of fuel for the mess fires demanded immediate
+correction.
+
+It was a few minutes past noon when the captain and I entered the office
+of the French Town Major. It was vacant. The officers were at
+_dejeuner_, we learned from an old woman who was sweeping the
+commandant's rooms. Where?--Ah, she knew not. We accosted the first
+French officer we met on the street.
+
+"Where does the Town Major eat?" the Captain inquired in his best
+Indianapolis French. After the customary exchange of salutes,
+introductions, handshakes and greetings, the Frenchman informed us that
+Monsieur Le Commandant favoured the _pommard_, that Madame Larue served
+at the Hotel de la Fountaine.
+
+We hurried to that place, and there in a little back room behind a
+plate-cluttered table with a red and white checkered table cloth, we
+found the Major. The Major said he spoke the English with the fluency.
+He demonstrated his delusion when we asked for wood.
+
+"Wood! Ah, but it is impossible that it is wood you ask of me. Have I
+not this morning early seen with my own eyes the wood ordered?"
+
+"But there is no wood," replied the Captain. "I must have wood for the
+fires. It is past noon and my men have not eaten."
+
+"Ah, but I am telling you there is wood," replied the Major. "I saw your
+supply officer pay for the wood. By now I believe it has been delivered
+for you in the Place de la Republique."
+
+"But it hasn't," remonstrated the Captain, "and the fires have not yet
+been started, and----"
+
+"But it is on the way, probably," said the Major. "Maybe it will be
+there soon. Maybe it is there now."
+
+The Captain took another tack.
+
+"Where was the wood bought?" he asked.
+
+"From the wood merchant beyond the river," replied the Major. "But it is
+already on the way, and----"
+
+"How do you go to the wood merchant?" insisted the Captain. "We have got
+to have the wood toot sweet."
+
+"Ah! _tout de suite_--_tout de suite_--_tout de suite_," repeated the
+Major in tones of exasperation. "With you Americans it is always _tout
+de suite_. Here----"
+
+He took my notebook and drew a plan of streets indicating the way to the
+place of the wood merchant. In spite of his remark and the undesired
+intrusion of business upon his _dejeuner_, the Major's manner was as
+friendly as could be expected from a Town Major. We left on the run.
+
+The wood merchant was a big man, elderly and fat. His face was red and
+he had bushy grey eyebrows. He wore a smock of blue cloth that came to
+his knees. He remonstrated that it was useless for us to buy wood from
+him because wood had already been bought for us. He spoke only French.
+The Captain dismissed all further argument by a direct frontal attack on
+the subject.
+
+"_Avez-vous de bois?_" asked the Captain.
+
+"_Oui_," the merchant nodded.
+
+"_Avez-vous de chevaux?_" the Captain asked.
+
+"_Oui_," the merchant nodded again.
+
+"_Avez-vous de voiture?_" the Captain asked.
+
+"_Oui_,"--another nod.
+
+"All right then," continued the Captain, and then emphasising each word
+by the sudden production of another stiff finger on his extended hand,
+he said, "_Du bois--des chevaux--une voiture_--de whole damn
+business--and toot sweet."
+
+In some remarkable fashion the kindly wood merchant gathered that the
+Captain wanted wood piled in a wagon, drawn by a horse and wanted it in
+a hurry. _Tout de suite_, pronounced "toot sweet" by our soldiers, was a
+term calling for speed, that was among the first acquired by our men in
+France.
+
+The old man shrugged his shoulders, elevated his hand, palm outward, and
+signified with an expression of his face that it was useless to argue
+further for the benefit of these Americans. He turned and gave the
+necessary loading orders to his working force.
+
+That working force consisted of two French girls, each about eighteen
+years of age. They wore long baggy bloomers of brown corduroy, tight at
+the ankles where they flopped about in folds over clumsy wooden shoes.
+They wore blouses of the same material and tam o'shanter hats to match,
+called _berets_.
+
+Each one of them had a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.
+One stood on the ground and tossed up the thirty or forty-pound logs to
+her sister who stood above on top of the wagon. The latter caught them
+in her extended arms and placed them in a pile. To the best of my
+recollection, neither one of the girls missed a puff.
+
+While the loading proceeded, the wood merchant, speaking slowly in
+French, made us understand the following:
+
+"Many peculiar things happen in the war, Monsieur," he said. "Your
+country, the America, is the land of wonders. Listen, my name is Helois.
+Ten days ago there came to me one of the washerwomen who clean the
+clothes on the banks of the Meurthe, and she said to me:
+
+"'Ah, Monsieur, the wood merchant. You are the sly fox. I have your
+secret.' And I say to her that I know not of what she speaks.
+
+"'You boast in the town that your two sons are at the front,' she said,
+'but I know that one at least of them is not.' And I was dumbfounded. I
+say to her, 'Woman, it is a lie you tell me. Both of my boys are with
+their regiments, in the trenches even now, if by the grace of the good
+God they still live.'
+
+"'No,' she say to me, 'one of your sons hides in the hotel of Madame
+Larue. How do I know this secret, Monsieur the wood merchant? I know
+because this day have I washed the shirt, with his name on it, at the
+river bank. His name, Helois,--the Lieutenant Helois--was stamped on the
+collar and the shirt came from the hotel, La Fontaine.'
+
+"I tell her that it is a mistake--that it is the great injustice to me
+she speaks, and that night I dressed in my best clothes to penetrate
+this mystery--to meet this man who disgracefully used the name of my
+son--to expose this impostor who would bring shame to the name of
+Helois, the wood merchant, whose two sons have been fighting for France
+these three long years.
+
+"And so, Monsieur, I meet this man at the hotel. She was right. His name
+was Helois. Here is his card. The Lieutenant Louis F. Helois, and he is
+a lieutenant in the United States Army."
+
+"So it was a mistake," replied the Captain, handing the card back to the
+wood merchant, whose lobster red features bore an enigmatical smile.
+
+"No,--not the mistake, the truth," replied the wood merchant. "Not my
+son--but my grandson--the son of my son--the son of my third son who
+went to America years ago. And now he comes back in the uniform of
+liberty to fight again for France. Ah, _Messieurs les Officiers_--the
+sons of France return from the ends of the world to fight her cause."
+
+While the wood merchant was telling us that the American grandson had
+only stopped three days in the town and then had moved up to service at
+the front, the air was shattered by a loud report. It was the snap of
+the whip in the hands of the young French amazon, standing high on the
+load of wood. We escorted the fuel proudly to the Place de la
+Republique. Soon the fires were burning briskly and the smell of onions
+and coffee and hot chow was on the air.
+
+The stoves were pitched at the bottom of a stone monument in the centre
+of the square. Bags of potatoes and onions and burlap covered quarters
+of beef and other pieces of mess sergeants paraphernalia were piled on
+the steps of the monument, which was covered with the green and black
+scars from dampness and age.
+
+The plinth supported a stone shaft fifteen feet in height, which touched
+the lower branches of the trees. The monument was topped with a huge
+cross of stone on which was the sculptured figure of the Christ.
+
+Little Sykoff, the battery mess sergeant, stood over the stove at the
+bottom of the monument. He held in his hand a frying pan, which he shook
+back and forth over the fire to prevent the sizzling chips in the pan
+from burning. His eyes lowered from an inspection of the monument and
+met mine. He smiled.
+
+"Mr. Gibbons," he said, "if that brother of mine, who runs the
+photograph gallery out on Paulina and Madison Streets in Chicago, could
+only see me now, he sure would tell the Rabbi. Can you beat it--a Jew
+here frying ham in the shadow of the Cross."
+
+It was rather hard to beat--and so was the ham. We made this concession
+as we sat on the plinth of the monument and polished our mess kits with
+bread. And such bread--it was the regulation United States army issue
+bread--white, firm and chuck full of nourishment--bread that seemed like
+cake to the French youngsters who tasted it and who returned with open
+mouths and outstretched hands for more of the "good white bread."
+
+After the meal, those members of Battery A not detailed for immediate
+duty denied themselves none of the joys that a new town, in a strange
+land, holds for a soldier.
+
+Saint-Nicolas-du-Port boasts a remarkable cathedral of mediaeval
+architecture, of enormous dimensions. It was crumbling with age, but
+still housed the holy. Time and the elements had left the traces of
+their rough usage upon the edifice.
+
+Half of the statues on the broad facade of the cathedral had been
+broken, and now the niches afforded domiciles for families of pigeons.
+On the ground, in a careless pile, to one side of the frontal arch, was
+an ignominious pile of miscellaneous arms and legs and heads of
+sculptured figures, resting there in anything but saintly dignity. Two
+of our young artillerymen were standing in front of the cathedral
+surveying it.
+
+"Certainly is in need of repairs," said one of them. "I'll bet they
+haven't done no bricklaying or plumbing on this place since before the
+Civil War."
+
+"That ain't hardly the right way to treat old Saints," replied his
+companion, referring to the pile of broken statuary. "Seems like they
+ought to cement the arms and legs and heads back on those old boys and
+old girls and put them back on their pedestals. I guess, though, there
+ain't nobody living to identify the pieces, so they could get the right
+arms and heads on the right bodies."
+
+Our battery had among its drivers an old timer who might have been
+called a historian. His opinion held weight in the organisation. He
+professed to be able to read American ball scores and war news out of
+French newspapers, a number of which he always carried. Later that day,
+I heard him lecturing the cathedral critics on their lack of
+appreciation of art and history.
+
+"New things ain't art," he told them; "things has got to be old before
+they are artistic. Nobody'd look at the Venus dee Milo if she had all
+her arms on. You never hear nobody admiring a modern up-to-date castle
+with electric lighting and bath tubs in it. It simply ain't art.
+
+"Now, this cathedral is art. This country around here is just full of
+history. Here's where whole book stores of it was written. Why, say,
+there was batteries of artillery rolling through this country a million
+years ago. It was right around here that Napoleon joined forces with
+Julius Caesar to fight the Crusaders. This here is sacred ground."
+
+In the evening, a number of the battery, located the _buvette_ that
+carried across its curtained front the gold lettered sign _bar
+Parisian_. It was a find. Some thirty American artillerymen crowded
+around the tables.
+
+Cigarette smoke filled the low-ceilinged room with blue layers, through
+which the lamp light shone. In one corner stood a mechanical piano which
+swallowed big copper sous and gave out discord's metallic melody. It was
+of an American make and the best number on its printed programme was
+"Aren't you Coming Back to Old Virginia, Molly?" Sous followed sous into
+this howitzer of harmony and it knew no rest that night. Everybody
+joined in and helped it out on the choruses.
+
+Things were going fine when the door opened at about nine thirty, and
+there stood two members of the American Provost Guard. They carried with
+them two orders. One instructed Madame, the proprietress, to dispense no
+more red ink or beer to American soldiers that night, and the other was
+a direction to all Americans around the table to get back to their
+billets for the night.
+
+The bunch left with reluctance but without a grumble. It was warm and
+comfortable within the _bar Parisian_ and Madame's smiles and red wine
+and beer and Camembert cheese composed the Broadway of many recent
+dreams. But they left without complaint.
+
+They made their rollicking departure, returning Madame's parting smiles,
+gallantly lifting their steel helmets and showering her with vociferous
+"bong swore's." And--well it simply must be told. She kissed the last
+one out out the door and, turning, wiped away a tear with the corner of
+her apron. Madame had seen youth on the way to the front before.
+
+The billets were comfortable. Some were better than others. Picket line
+details slept in their blankets in the hay over the stables. Gun crews
+drew beds and pallets on the floor in occupied houses. In these homes
+there was always that hour before retirement for the night when the old
+men and remaining women of the French household and their several
+military guests billeted in the place, would gather about the fireplace
+in the kitchen and regale one another with stories, recounted by the
+murder of French and English languages and a wealth of pantomime.
+
+Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the town-crier--he who daily
+beat the drum in front of the Hotel de Ville and read lengthy
+bulletins, was interested in the workings of Gunner Black's colt
+automatic. Gunner Black, most anxious to show her, demonstrated the
+action of the pistol but, forgetting that inevitable shell in the
+chamber, shot himself in the arm.
+
+It was only an incident. The noise scared Louise, but not the wound. She
+had seen too many Americans get shot in the moving pictures.
+
+The captain and I were quartered in the house of the Cure of the
+cathedral. The old housekeeper of the place made the captain blush when
+she remarked her surprise that there were such young captains in the
+American army. Her name was Madame Dupont, and she was more than pleased
+to learn from the captain that that had been the maiden name of his
+mother.
+
+The captain's room had the interior dimensions and heavy decorations of
+the mystic inner sanctum of some secret grand lodge. Religious paintings
+and symbols hung from the walls, which were papered in dark red to match
+the heavy plush hangings over the ever closed windows.
+
+Two doors in the blank wall swung open revealing a hermetically sealed
+recess in which a bed just fitted. This arrangement, quite common in
+France, indicated that the device now popular in two-room sleeping
+apartments in America, must have been suggested by the sleeping customs
+of mediaeval times.
+
+Early the next morning, our battery pulled out for the front. We were
+bound for the line. We took the roads out of Saint Nicolas to the east,
+making our way toward that part of the front that was known as the
+Luneville sector. Our way lay through the towns of Dombasle,
+Sommerviller, Maixe, Einville, Valhey, Serres, to the remains of the
+ruined village of Hoeville.
+
+The sector runs almost along the border between France and old Lorraine,
+occupied by the Germans since 1870. Even the names of the old French
+towns beyond the border had been changed to German in the effort of the
+Prussians to Germanise the stolen province.
+
+It was in this section during the few days just prior to the outbreak of
+the war that France made unwise demonstration of her disinclination
+toward hostilities with Germany. Every soldier in France was under arms,
+as was every soldier in Europe. France had military patrols along her
+borders. In the French chamber of deputies, the socialists had rushed
+through a measure which was calculated to convince the German people
+that France had no intentions or desire of menacing German territory. By
+that measure every French soldier was withdrawn from the Franco-German
+border to a line ten miles inside of France. The German appreciation of
+this evidence of peacefulness was manifested when the enemy, at the
+outbreak of the war, moved across the border and occupied that ten-mile
+strip of France.
+
+France had succeeded in driving the enemy back again in that part of
+Lorraine, but only at the cost of many lives and the destruction of many
+French towns and villages. Since the close of the fighting season of
+1914, there had been little or no progress on either side at this point.
+The opposing lines here had been stationary for almost three years and
+it was known on both sides as a quiet sector.
+
+The country side was of a rolling character, but very damp. At that
+season of the year when our first American fighting men reached the
+Western front, that part of the line that they occupied was particularly
+muddy and miserable.
+
+Before nine o'clock that morning as we rode on to the front, the
+horse-drawn traffic, including our battery, was forced to take the side
+of the road numerous times to permit the passage of long trains of motor
+trucks loaded down with American infantrymen, bound in the same
+direction.
+
+Most of the motor vehicles were of the omnibus type. A number of them
+were worthy old double-deckers that had seen long years of peaceful
+service on the boulevards of Paris before the war. Slats of wood ran
+lengthwise across the windows of the lower seating compartment and
+through these apertures young, sun-burned, American faces topped with
+steel helmets, peered forth.
+
+Some of our men reposed languidly on the rear steps of the busses or on
+the tops. Most of the bus-loads were singing rollicking choruses. The
+men were in good spirits. They had been cheered in every village they
+had passed through on the way from their training area.
+
+"Howdy, bowleg," was the greeting shouted by one of these motoring
+mockers, who looked down on our saddled steeds, "better get a hustle on
+them hayburners. We're going to be in Berlin by the time you get where
+the front used to be."
+
+"Yes, you will," replied one of the mounted artillerymen, with a
+negative inflection. "You'll get a hell of a long ways without us. If
+you doughboys start anything without the artillery, you'll see Berlin
+through the bars of a prisoner's cage."
+
+"Lucky pups--the artillery--nothing to do but ride," was the passing
+shout of another taunter, perched high on a bus. This was an
+unanswerable revision of an old taunt that the artillery used to shout
+to passing infantry in the days when a foot soldier was really a foot
+soldier. Then the easy-riding mounted troops, when passing an infantry
+column on the road, would say, "Pretty soft for the doughboys--nothing
+to do but walk."
+
+"Times certainly have changed," one of our battery drivers felt it
+necessary to remark to me in defence of his branch of the service. "But
+there ain't no spark plugs or carburetors to get out of order on our
+mounts.
+
+"However, we do have our troubles. That runaway wheeler in No. 2 section
+broke away from the picket line last night and Kemball and I were
+detailed to hunt all over town for him.
+
+"You know that dark, winding, narrow street, that winds down the hill
+back of the cathedral. Well, it was about midnight and blacker than the
+ace of spades, when Kemball and I pushed along there in the dark,
+looking for that onery animal.
+
+"Suddenly, we heard a sharp clatter on the cobblestones half a block up
+the hill. It was coming our way full speed. 'Here he comes now,' said
+Kemball, 'and he's galloping like hell. Jump into a doorway or he'll
+climb all over us.'
+
+"We waited there pressed against the wall in the dark as the galloping
+came up to us and passed. What dy'e s'pose it was? It wasn't that
+runaway horse at all. Just a couple of them French kids chasing one
+another in wooden shoes."
+
+The road to the front was a populous one. We passed numerous groups of
+supply wagons carrying food and fodder up to the front lines. Other
+wagons were returning empty and here and there came an ambulance with
+bulgy blankets outlining the figures of stretcher cases, piled two high
+and two wide. Occasionally a Y. M. C. A. runabout loaded down with
+coffee pots and candy tins and driven by helmeted wearers of the Red
+Triangle, would pass us carrying its store of extras to the boys up
+front.
+
+We passed through villages where manufacturing plants were still in
+operation and, nearer the front, the roads lay through smaller hamlets,
+shell torn and deserted, save for sentries who stood guard in wooden
+coops at intersections. Civilians became fewer and fewer, although there
+was not a village that did not have one or two women or children or old
+men unfit for uniform.
+
+Finally the road mounted a rolling hill and here it was bordered by
+roadside screens consisting of stretched chicken wire to which whisps of
+straw and grass and bits of green dyed cloth had been attached. Our men
+riding behind the screen peered through apertures in it and saw the
+distant hills forward, from which German glasses could have observed all
+passage along that road had it not been for the screen.
+
+So we moved into position. It was late in the night of October 22nd,
+1917, that our batteries of artillery and companies of infantry moved
+through the darkness on the last lap of their trip to the front. The
+roads were sticky and gummy. A light rain was falling. The guns boomed
+in front of us, but not with any continued intensity. Through streets
+paved with slippery cobbles and bordered with the bare skeletons of
+shell-wrecked houses, our American squads marched four abreast. Their
+passing in the darkness was accompanied by the sound of the unhastened
+tread of many hobnailed boots.
+
+At times, the rays of a cautiously flashed electric light would reveal
+our infantrymen with packs on back and rifles slung over their
+shoulders. A stiff wind whipped the rain into their faces and tugged the
+bottoms of their flapping, wet overcoats.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that they had made it on foot a number of miles
+from the place where they had disembarked from the motor trucks, the men
+marched along to the soft singing of songs, which were ordered
+discontinued as the marching columns got closer to the communicating
+trenches which led into the front line.
+
+In the march were machine gun carts hauled by American mules and rolling
+kitchens, which at times dropped on the darkened road swirls of glowing
+red embers that had to be hurriedly stamped out. Anxious American staff
+officers consulted their wrist watches frequently in evidence of the
+concern they felt as to whether the various moving units were reaching
+designated points upon the scheduled minute.
+
+It was after midnight that our men reached the front line. It was the
+morning of October 23rd, 1917, that American infantrymen and Bavarian
+regiments of _Landwehr_ and _Landsturm_ faced one another for the first
+time in front line positions on the European front.
+
+Less than eight hundred yards of slate and drab-coloured soft ground,
+blotched with rust-red expanses of wire entanglements, separated the
+hostile lines.
+
+There was no moon. A few cloud-veiled stars only seemed to accentuate
+the blackness of the night. There, in the darkness and the mud, on the
+slippery firing step of trench walls and in damp, foul-smelling dugouts,
+young red-blooded Americans tingled for the first time with the thrill
+that they had trained so long and travelled so far to experience.
+
+Through unfortunate management of the Press arrangements in connection
+with this great historical event, American correspondents accredited by
+the War Department to our forces, were prevented from accompanying our
+men into the front that night. Good fortune, however, favoured me as
+one of the two sole exceptions to this circumstance. Raymond G. Carroll,
+correspondent of the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_, and myself,
+representing the Chicago _Tribune_ and its associated papers, were the
+only two newspaper men who went into the line with the men that night.
+For enjoying this unusual opportunity, we were both arrested several
+days later, not, however, until after we had obtained the first-hand
+story of the great event.
+
+A mean drizzle of rain was falling that night, but it felt cool on the
+pink American cheeks that were hot with excitement. The very wetness of
+the air impregnated all it touched with the momentousness of the hour.
+Spirits were high and the mud was deep, but we who were there had the
+feeling that history was chiselling that night's date into her book of
+ages.
+
+Occasionally a shell wheezed over through the soggy atmosphere, seeming
+to leave an unseen arc in the darkness above. It would terminate with a
+sullen thump in some spongy, water-soaked mound behind us. Then an
+answering missive of steel would whine away into the populated
+invisibility in front of us.
+
+French comrades, in half English and half French, gushed their
+congratulations, and shook us by the hand. Some of us were even hugged
+and kissed on both cheeks. Our men took the places of French platoons
+that were sent back to rest billets. But other French platoons remained
+shoulder to shoulder with our men in the front line. The presence of our
+troops there was in continuation of their training for the purpose of
+providing a nucleus for the construction of later contingents. Both our
+infantry and our artillery acted in conjunction with the French infantry
+and artillery and the sector remained under French command.
+
+Our men were eager to ask questions and the French were ever ready to
+respond. They first told us about the difference in the sound of shells.
+Now that one that started with a bark in back of us and whined over our
+heads is a _depart_. It is an Allied shell on its way to the Germans.
+Now, this one, that whines over first and ends with a distant grunt,
+like a strong wallop on a wet carpet, is an _arrivee_. It has arrived
+from Germany. In the dugouts, our men smoked dozens of cigarettes,
+lighting fresh ones from the half-consumed butts. It is the appetite
+that comes with the progressive realisation of a long deferred hope. It
+is the tension that comes from at last arriving at an object and then
+finding nothing to do, now that you are there. It is the nervousness
+that nerveless youth suffers in inactivity.
+
+The men sloshed back and forth through the mud along the narrow confines
+of the trench. The order is against much movement, but immobility is
+unbearable. Wet slickers rustle against one another in the narrow
+traverses, and equipment, principally the French and English gas masks,
+hanging at either hip become entangled in the darkness.
+
+At times a steel helmet falls from some unaccustomed head and, hitting
+perhaps a projecting rock in the trench wall, gives forth a clang which
+is followed by curses from its clumsy owner and an admonition of quiet
+from some young lieutenant.
+
+"Olson, keep your damn fool head down below the top of that trench or
+you'll get it blown off." The sergeant is talking, and Olson, who
+brought from Minnesota a keen desire to see No Man's Land even at the
+risk of his life, is forced to repress the yearning.
+
+"Two men over in B Company just got holes drilled through their beans
+for doing the same thing," continued the sergeant. "There's nothing you
+can see out there anyhow. It's all darkness."
+
+Either consciously or unconsciously, the sergeant was lying, for the
+purpose of saving Olson and others from a fool's fate. There was not a
+single casualty in any American unit on the line that first night.
+
+"Where is the telephone dugout?" a young lieutenant asked his French
+colleague. "I want to speak to the battalion commander."
+
+"But you must not speak English over the telephone," replied the
+Frenchman, "the Germans will hear you with the instruments they use to
+tap the underground circuit."
+
+"But I was going to use our American code," said the front line novice;
+"if the Germans tap in they won't be able to figure out what it means."
+
+"Ah, no, my friend," replied the Frenchman, smiling. "They won't know
+what the message means, but your voice and language will mean to them
+that Americans are occupying the sector in front of them, and we want to
+give them that information in another way, _n'est ce pas?_"
+
+Undoubtedly there was some concern in the German trenches just over the
+way with regard to what was taking place in our lines. Relief periods
+are ticklish intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible
+that some intimation of our presence may have been given.
+
+There was considerable conversation and movement among our men that
+night. Jimmy found it frequently necessary to call the attention of
+Johnny to some new thing he had discovered. And of a consequence, much
+natural, but needless, chattering resulted.
+
+I believe the Germans did become nervous because they made repeated
+attacks on the enveloping darkness with numbers of star shells. These
+aerial beauties of night warfare released from their exploding
+encasements high in the air, hung from white silk parachutes above the
+American amateurs.
+
+The numerous company and battery jesters did not refrain from imitative
+expressions of "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Ain't it bootiful?" as their
+laughing upturned faces were illuminated in the white light.
+
+That night one rocket went up shortly before morning. It had a different
+effect from its predecessors. It reared itself from the darkness
+somewhere on the left. Its flight was noiseless as it mounted higher and
+higher on its fiery staff. Then it burst in a shower of green balls of
+fire.
+
+That meant business. One green rocket was the signal that the Germans
+were sending over gas shells. It was an alarm that meant the donning of
+gas masks. On they went quickly. It was the first time this equipment
+had been adjusted under emergency conditions, yet the men appeared to
+have mastered the contrivances.
+
+Then the word was passed along the trenches and through the dugouts for
+the removal of the masks. It had not been a French signal. The green
+rocket had been sent up by the Germans. The enemy was using green
+rockets that night as a signal of their own. There had been no gas
+shells. It was a false alarm.
+
+"The best kind of practice in the world," said one of our battalion
+commanders; "it's just the stuff we're here for. I hope the Germans
+happen to do that every night a new bunch of our men get in these
+trenches."
+
+While the infantry were experiencing these initial thrills in the front
+line, our gunners were struggling in the mud of the black gun pits to
+get their pieces into position in the quickest possible time, and
+achieve the honour of firing that first American shot in the war.
+
+Each battery worked feverishly in intense competition with every other
+battery. Battery A of the 6th Field, to which I had attached myself,
+lost in the race for the honour. Another battery in the same regiment
+accomplished the achievement.
+
+That was Battery C of the 6th Field Artillery. I am reproducing,
+herewith, for what I believe is the first time, the exact firing data on
+that shot and the officers and men who took part in it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By almost superhuman work through the entire previous day and night,
+details of men from Battery C had pulled one cannon by ropes across a
+muddy, almost impassable, meadow. So anxious were they to get off the
+first shot that they did not stop for meals.
+
+They managed to drag the piece into an old abandoned French gun pit. The
+historical position of that gun was one kilometre due east of the town
+of Bathelemont and three hundred metres northeast of the
+Bauzemont-Bathelemont road. The position was located two miles from the
+old international boundary line between France and German-Lorraine. The
+position was one and one-half kilometres back of the French first line,
+then occupied by Americans.
+
+The first shot was fired at 6:5:10 A. M., October 23rd, 1917. Those who
+participated in the firing of the shot were as follows:
+
+  Lieutenant F. M. Mitchell, U.S.R., acted as platoon chief.
+  Corporal Robert Braley laid the piece.
+  Sergeant Elward Warthen loaded the piece.
+  Sergeant Frank Grabowski prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Private Louis Varady prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Private John J. Wodarczak prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Corporal Osborne W. De Varila prepared the fuse for cutting.
+  Sergeant Lonnie Domonick cut the fuse.
+  Captain Idus R. McLendon gave the command to fire.
+  Sergeant Alex L. Arch fired first shot.
+
+The missile fired was a 75 millimetre or 3-inch high-explosive shell.
+The target was a German battery of 150 millimetre or 6-inch guns located
+two kilometres back of the German first line trenches, and one kilometre
+in back of the boundary line between France and German-Lorraine. The
+position of that enemy battery on the map was in a field 100 metres west
+of the town which the French still call Xanrey, but which the Germans
+have called Schenris since they took it from France in 1870. Near that
+spot--and damn near--fell the first American shell fired in the great
+war.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE: It is peculiar to note that I am writing this chapter at Atlantic
+City, October 23rd, 1918, just one year to the day after the event. That
+shot surely started something.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIRST AMERICAN SECTOR
+
+
+It was in the Luneville sector, described in the preceding chapter, that
+the first American fighting men faced the Germans on the western front.
+It was there that the enemy captured its first American prisoners in a
+small midnight raid; it was there that we captured some prisoners of
+theirs, and inflicted our first German casualties; it was there that the
+first American fighting man laid down his life on the western front.
+
+In spite of these facts, however, the occupation of those front line
+posts in that sector constituted nothing more than a post-graduate
+course in training under the capable direction of French instructors who
+advised our officers and men in everything they did.
+
+At the conclusion of the course, which extended over a number of weeks,
+the American forces engaged in it were withdrawn from the line and
+retired for a well-earned rest period and for reorganisation purposes in
+areas back of the line. There they renewed equipment and prepared for
+the occupation of the first all-American sector on the western front.
+
+That sector was located in Lorraine some distance to the east of the
+Luneville front. It was north and slightly west of the city of Toul. It
+was on the east side of the St. Mihiel salient, then occupied by the
+Germans.
+
+The sector occupied a position in what the French called the
+Pont-a-Mousson front. Our men were to occupy an eight-mile section of
+the front line trenches extending from a point west of the town of
+Flirey, to a point west of the ruins of the town of Seicheprey. The
+position was not far from the French stronghold of Verdun to the
+northwest or the German stronghold of Metz to the northeast, and was
+equidistant from both.
+
+That line changed from French blue to American khaki on the night of
+January 21st. The sector became American at midnight. I watched the men
+as they marched into the line. In small squads they proceeded silently
+up the road toward the north, from which direction a raw wind brought
+occasional sounds resembling the falling of steel plates on the wooden
+floor of a long corridor.
+
+A half moon doubly ringed by mist, made the hazy night look grey. At
+intervals, phantom flashes flushed the sky. The mud of the roadway
+formed a colourless paste that made marching not unlike skating on a
+platter of glue.
+
+This was their departure for the front--this particular battalion--the
+first battalion of the 16th United States Infantry. I knew, and every
+man in it knew, what was before them.
+
+Each man was in for a long tour of duty in trenches knee-deep with
+melted snow and mud. Each platoon commander knew the particular portion
+of that battle-battered bog into which he must lead his men. Each
+company commander knew the section of shell-punctured, swamp land that
+was his to hold, and the battalion commander, a veteran American
+soldier, was well aware of the particular perils of the position which
+his one thousand or more men were going to occupy in the very jaw-joint
+of a narrowing salient.
+
+All branches of the United States military forces may take special pride
+in that first battalion that went into the new American line that night.
+The commander represented the U. S. Officers Reserve Corps, and the
+other officers and men were from the reserves, the regulars, West Point,
+the National Guard and the National Army. Moreover, the organisation
+comprised men from all parts of the United States as well as men whose
+parents had come from almost every race and nationality in the world.
+One company alone possessed such a babble of dialects among its new
+Americans, that it proudly called itself, the Foreign Legion.
+
+For two days the battalion had rested in the mud of the semi-destroyed
+village of Ansauville, several miles back of the front. A broad, shallow
+stream, then at the flood, wound through and over most of the village
+site. Walking anywhere near the border of the water, one pulled about
+with him pounds of tenacious, black gumbo. Dogs and hogs, ducks and
+horses, and men,--all were painted with nature's handiest camouflage.
+
+Where the stream left the gaping ruins of a stone house on the edge of
+the village, there was a well-kept French graveyard, clinging to the
+slope of a small hill. Above the ruins of the hamlet, stood the steeple
+of the old stone church, from which it was customary to ring the alarm
+when the Germans sent over their shells of poison gas.
+
+Our officers busied themselves with, unfinished supply problems. Such
+matters as rubber boots for the men, duck boards for the trenches, food
+for the mules, and ration containers necessary for the conveyance of hot
+food to the front lines, were not permitted to interfere with the
+battalion's movements. In war, there is always the alternative of doing
+without or doing with makeshifts, and that particular battalion
+commander, after three years of war, was the kind of a soldier who made
+the best of circumstances no matter how adverse they may have been.
+
+That commander was Major Griffiths. He was an American fighting man. His
+military record began in the Philippine Insurrection, when, as a
+sergeant in a Tennessee regiment of National Guard, he was mentioned in
+orders for conspicuous gallantry. At the suppression of the
+insurrection, he became a major in the United States Constabulary in the
+Philippines. He resigned his majority in 1914, entered the Australian
+forces, and was wounded with them in the bloody landing at Gallipoli. He
+was invalided to England, where, upon his partial recovery, he was
+promoted to major in the British forces and was sent to France in
+command of a battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. With them, he received
+two more wounds, one at the Battle of Ypres, and another during the
+fighting around Loos.
+
+He was in an English hospital when America entered the war, but he
+hurried his convalescence and obtained a transfer back to the army of
+his own country. He hadn't regained as yet the full use of his right
+hand, his face still retained a hospital pallor, and an X-ray photograph
+of his body revealed the presence of numerous pieces of shell still
+lodged there. But on that night of January 21st, he could not conceal
+the pride that he felt in the honour in having been the one chosen to
+command the battalion of Americans that was to take over the first
+American sector in France. Major Griffiths survived those strenuous days
+on the Pont-a-Mousson front, but he received a fatal wound three months
+later at the head of his battalion in front of Catigny, in Picardy. He
+died fighting under his own flag.
+
+Just before daylight failed that wintry day, three poilus walked down
+the road from the front and into Ansauville. Two of them were helping a
+third, whose bandaged arm and shoulder explained the mission of the
+party. As they passed the rolling kitchens where the Americans were
+receiving their last meal before entering the trenches, there was
+silence and not even an exchange of greetings or smiles.
+
+This lack of expression only indicated the depth of feeling stirred by
+the appearance of this wounded French soldier. The incident, although
+comparatively trivial, seemed to arouse within our men a solemn grimness
+and a more fervent determination to pay back the enemy in kind. In
+silence, our men finished that last meal, which consisted of cold corned
+beef, two slices of dry bread per man, and coffee.
+
+The sight of that one wounded man did not make our boys realise more
+than they already did, what was in front of them. They had already made
+a forty mile march over frozen roads up to this place and had incurred
+discomforts seemingly greater than a shell-shattered arm or a
+bullet-fractured shoulder. After that gruelling hiking experience, it
+was a pleasant prospect to look forward to a chance of venting one's
+feelings on the enemy.
+
+At the same time, no chip-on-the-shoulder cockiness marked the
+disposition of these men about to take first grips with the Germans,--no
+challenging bravado was revealed in the actions or statements of these
+grim, serious trail-blazers of the American front, whose attitude
+appeared to be one of soldierly resignation to the first martial
+principle, "Orders is orders."
+
+As the companies lined up in the village street in full marching order,
+awaiting the command to move, several half-hearted attempts at
+jocularity died cold. One irrepressible made a futile attempt at
+frivolity by announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and was
+so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted jocularity drew as
+much mirth as an undertaker's final invitation to the mourners to take
+the last, long look at the departed.
+
+One bright-faced youngster tingling with the thrill of anticipation,
+leaped on a gun carriage and absently whistled a shrill medley,
+beginning with "Yaka-hula," and ending with "Just a Song at Twilight."
+There was food for thought in the progress of his efforts from the
+frivolous to the pensive, but there was little time for such thoughts.
+No one even told him to shut up.
+
+While there was still light, an aerial battle took place overhead. For
+fifteen minutes, the French anti-aircraft guns banged away at three
+German planes, which were audaciously sailing over our lines. The
+Americans rooted like bleacherites for the guns but the home team failed
+to score, and the Germans sailed serenely home. They apparently had had
+time to make adequate observations.
+
+During the entire afternoon, German sausage balloons had hung high in
+the air back of the hostile line, offering additional advantages for
+enemy observation. On the highroad leading from Ansauville, a
+conspicuous sign _L'enemie vous voit_ informed newcomers that German
+eyes were watching their movements and could interfere at any time with
+a long range shell. The fact was that the Germans held high ground and
+their glasses could command almost all of the terrain back of our lines.
+
+Under this seemingly eternal espionage punctuated at intervals by heavy
+shelling, several old women of the village had remained in their homes,
+living above the ground on quiet days and moving their knitting to the
+front yard dugout at times when gas and shell and bomb interfered. Some
+of these women operated small shops in the front rooms of their damaged
+homes and the Americans lined up in front of the window counters and
+exchanged dirty French paper money for canned _pate de foi gras_ or jars
+of mustard.
+
+A machine gun company with mule-drawn carts led the movement from
+Ansauville into the front. It was followed at fifty yard intervals by
+other sections. Progress down that road was executed in small groups--it
+was better to lose one whole section than an entire company.
+
+That highroad to the front, with its border of shell-withered trees, was
+revealed that night against a bluish grey horizon occasionally rimmed
+with red. Against the sky, the moving groups were defined as impersonal
+black blocks. Young lieutenants marched ahead of each platoon. In the
+hazy light, it was difficult to distinguish them. The only difference
+was that their hips seemed bulkier from the heavy sacks, field glasses,
+map cases, canteens, pistol holsters and cartridge clips.
+
+Each section, as it marched out of the village, passed under the eye of
+Major Griffiths, who sat on his horse in the black shadow of a wall. A
+sergeant commanding one section was coming toward him.
+
+"Halt!" ordered the Major. "Sergeant, where is your helmet?"
+
+"One of the men in my section is wearing it, sir," replied the Sergeant.
+
+"Why?" snapped the Major.
+
+"Somebody took his and he hadn't any," said the Sergeant, "so I made him
+wear mine, sir."
+
+"Get it back and wear it yourself," the Major ordered. "Nothing could
+hurt the head of a man who couldn't hang on to his own helmet."
+
+The order was obeyed, the section marched on and a bareheaded Irishman
+out of hearing of the Major said, "I told the Sergeant not to make me
+wear it; I don't need the damn thing."
+
+Another section passed forward, the moonlight gleaming on the helmets
+jauntily cocked over one ear and casting black shadows over the faces of
+the wearers. From these shadows glowed red dots of fire.
+
+"Drop those cigarettes," came the command from the all watchful, unseen
+presence mounted on the horse in the shadow of the wall. Automatically,
+the section spouted red arcs that fell to the road on either side in a
+shower of sparks.
+
+"It's a damn shame to do that." Major Griffith spoke to me standing
+beside his horse. "You can't see a cigarette light fifty yards away, but
+if there were no orders against smoking, the men would be lighting
+matches or dumping pipes, and such flashes can be seen."
+
+There was need for caution. The enemy was always watchful for an
+interval when one organisation was relieving another on the line. That
+period represented the time when an attack could cause the greatest
+confusion in the ranks of the defenders. But that night our men
+accomplished the relief of the French Moroccan division then in the line
+without incident.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two nights later, in company with a party of correspondents, I paid a
+midnight visit to our men in the front line trenches of that first
+American sector. With all lights out, cigarettes tabooed and the siren
+silenced, our overloaded motor slushed slowly along the shell-pitted
+roads, carefully skirting groups of marching men and lumbering supply
+wagons that took shape suddenly out of the mist-laden road in front of
+us.
+
+Although it was not raining, moisture seemed to drip from everything,
+and vapours from the ground, mixing with the fog overhead, almost
+obscured the hard-working moon.
+
+In the greyness of the night sight and smell lost their keenness, and
+familiar objects assumed unnatural forms, grotesque and indistinct.
+
+From somewhere ahead dull, muffled thumps in the mist brought memories
+of spring house cleaning and the dusting out of old cushions, but it was
+really the three-year-old song of the guns. Nature had censored
+observation by covering the spectacle with the mantle of indefiniteness.
+Still this was the big thing we had come to see--night work in and
+behind the front lines of the American sector.
+
+We approached an engineers' dump, where the phantoms of fog gradually
+materialised into helmeted khaki figures that moved in mud knee-deep and
+carried boxes and planks and bundles of tools. Total silence covered all
+the activity and not a ray of light revealed what mysteries had been
+worked here in surroundings that seemed no part of this world.
+
+An irregular pile of rock loomed grey and sinister before us, and,
+looking upward, we judged, from its gaping walls, that it was the
+remains of a church steeple. It was the dominating ruin in the town of
+Beaumont.
+
+"Turn here to the left," the officer conducting our party whispered into
+the ear of the driver.
+
+The sudden execution of the command caused the officer's helmet to rasp
+against that of the driver with a sound that set the cautious whispering
+to naught.
+
+"Park here in the shadow," he continued. "Make no noise; show no light.
+They dropped shells here ten minutes ago. Gentlemen, this is regimental
+headquarters. Follow me."
+
+In a well buttressed cellar, surmounted by a pile of ruins, we found the
+colonel sitting at a wooden table in front of a grandfather's clock of
+scratched mahogany. He called the roll--five special correspondents,
+Captain Chandler, American press officer, with a goatee and fur coat to
+match; Captain Vielcastel, a French press officer, who is a marquis and
+speaks English, and a lieutenant from brigade headquarters, who already
+had been named "Whispering Willie."
+
+The colonel offered sticks to those with the cane habit. With two
+runners in the lead, we started down what had been the main street of
+the ruined village.
+
+"I can't understand the dropping of that shell over here to-night," the
+colonel said. "When we relieved the French, there had been a
+long-standing agreement against such discourtesy. It's hard to believe
+the Boche would make a scrap of paper out of that agreement. They must
+have had a new gunner on the piece. We sent back two shells into their
+regimental headquarters. They have been quiet since."
+
+Ten minutes' walk through the mud, and the colonel stopped to announce:
+"Within a hundred yards of you, a number of men are working. Can you
+hear 'em?"
+
+No one could, so he showed us a long line of sweating Americans
+stretching off somewhere into the fog. Their job was more of the endless
+trench digging and improving behind the lines. While one party swung
+pick and spade in the trenches, relief parties slept on the ground
+nearby. The colonel explained that these parties arrived after dark,
+worked all night, and then carefully camouflaged all evidences of new
+earth and departed before daylight, leaving no trace of their night's
+work to be discovered by prying airman. Often the work was carried on
+under an intermittent shelling, but that night only two shells had
+landed near them.
+
+An American-manned field gun shattered the silence, so close to us that
+we could feel its breath and had a greater respect for its bite. The
+proximity of the gun had not even been guessed by any of our party. A
+yellow stab of flame seemed to burn the mist through which the shell
+screeched on its way toward Germany.
+
+Correspondent Junius Woods, who was wearing an oversized pair of hip
+rubber boots, immediately strapped the tops to his belt.
+
+"I am taking no chance," he said; "I almost jumped out of them that
+time. They ought to send men out with a red flag before they pull off a
+blast like that."
+
+The colonel then left us and with the whispering lieutenant and runners
+in advance, we continued toward the front.
+
+"Walk in parties of two," was the order of the soft-toned subaltern.
+"Each party keep ten yards apart. Don't smoke. Don't talk. This road is
+reached by their field pieces. They also cover it with indirect machine
+gun fire. They sniped the brigade commander right along here this
+morning. He had to get down into the mud. I can afford to lose some of
+you, but not the entire party. If anything comes over, you are to jump
+into the communicating trenches on the right side of the road."
+
+His instructions were obeyed and it was almost with relief that, ten
+minutes later, we followed him down the slippery side of the muddy bank
+and landed in front of a dugout.
+
+In the long, narrow, low-ceilinged shelter which completely tunnelled
+the road at a depth of twenty feet, two twenty-year-old Americans were
+hugging a brazier filled with charcoal. In this dugout was housed a
+group from a machine gun battalion, some of whose members were snoring
+in a double tier of bunks on the side.
+
+Deep trenches at the other end of the dugout led to the gun pits, where
+this new arm of the service operated at ranges of two miles. These
+special squads fired over the heads of those in front of them or over
+the contours of the ground and put down a leaden barrage on the front
+line of the Germans. The firing not only was indirect but was without
+correction from the rectifying observation, of which the artillery had
+the benefit by watching the burst of their missiles.
+
+Regaining the road, we walked on through the ruins on the edge of the
+village of Seicheprey, where our way led through a drunken colony of
+leaning walls and brick piles.
+
+Here was the battalion headquarters, located underneath the old stones
+of a barn which was topped by the barest skeleton of a roof. What had
+been the first floor of the structure had been weighted down heavily
+with railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the commander's
+dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure bulged outward and were
+prevented from bursting by timber props radiating on all sides like the
+legs of a centipede. A mule team stood in front of the dugout.
+
+"What's that?" the whispering lieutenant inquired in hushed tones from a
+soldier in the road, as he pointed over the mules to the battalion
+headquarters.
+
+"What's what?" the soldier replied without respect.
+
+The obscurity of night is a great reducer of ranks. In the mist officer
+and man look alike.
+
+"Why, that?" repeated "Whispering Willie" in lower, but angrier tones.
+"What's that there?" he reiterated, pointing at the mules.
+
+"Can't you see it's mules?" replied the man in an immoderate tone of
+voice, betraying annoyance.
+
+We were spared what followed. The lieutenant undoubtedly confirmed his
+rank, and the man undoubtedly proffered unto him the respect withheld by
+mistake. When "Whispering Willie" joined us several minutes later in the
+dugout, his helmet rode on the back of his head, but his dignity was on
+straight.
+
+The Battalion Commander, Major Griffith, was so glad to see us that he
+sent for another bottle of the murky grey water that came from a well on
+one side of a well populated graveyard not fifty yards from his post.
+
+"A good night," he said; "haven't seen it so quiet in three years. We
+have inter-battalion relief on. Some new companies are taking over the
+lines. Some of them are new to the front trenches and I'm going out with
+you and put them up on their toes. Wait till I report in."
+
+He rang the field telephone on the wall and waited for an answer. An oil
+lamp hung from a low ceiling over the map table. In the hot, smoky air
+we quietly held our places while the connection was made.
+
+"Hello," the Major said, "operator, connect me with Milwaukee." Another
+wait----
+
+"Hello, Milwaukee, this is Larson. I'm talking from Hamburg. I'm leaving
+this post with a deck of cards and a runner. If you want me you can get
+me at Coney Island or Hinky Dink's. Wurtzburger will sit in here."
+
+"Some code, Major," Lincoln Eyre, correspondent, said. "What does a pack
+of cards indicate?"
+
+[Illustration: GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE
+
+Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic of the
+United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for Justice and for
+Liberty, November 3rd, 1917]
+
+"Why, anybody who comes out here when he doesn't have to is a funny
+card," the Major replied, "and it looks as if I have a pack of them
+to-night. Fritz gets quite a few things that go over our wires and we
+get lots of his. All are tapped by induction.
+
+"Sometimes the stuff we get is important and sometimes it isn't. Our
+wire tapping report last night carried a passage something like
+this:--The German operator at one post speaking to the operator at
+another said:
+
+"'Hello, Herman, where did that last shell drop?'
+
+"Second operator replied, 'It killed two men in a ration party in a
+communicating trench and spilt all the soup. No hot food for you
+to-night, Rudolph.'
+
+"Herman replying: 'That's all right. We have got some beer here.'
+
+"Then there was a confusion of sounds and a German was heard talking to
+some one in his dugout. He said:
+
+"'Hurry, here comes the lieutenant! Hide the can!'
+
+"That's the way it goes," added the Major, "but if we heard that the
+society editor of the _Fliegende Blaetter_ and half a dozen pencil
+strafers were touring the German front line, we'd send 'em over
+something that would start 'em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I
+was joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin's to-night,
+they might give you something to write about and cost me a platoon or
+two. You're not worth it. Come on."
+
+Our party now numbered nine and we pushed off, stumbling through uneven
+lanes in the centre of dimly lit ruins. According to orders, we carried
+gas masks in a handy position.
+
+This sector had a nasty reputation when it comes to that sample of
+Teutonic culture. Fritz's poison shells dropped almost noiselessly and,
+without a report, broke open, liberating to enormous expansion the
+inclosed gases. These spread in all directions, and, owing to the
+lowness and dampness of the terrain, the poison clouds were
+imperceptible both to sight or smell. They clung close to the ground to
+claim unsuspecting victims.
+
+"How are we to know if we are breathing gas or not?" asked the
+Philadelphia correspondent, Mr. Henri Bazin.
+
+"That's just what you DON'T know," replied the Major.
+
+"Then when will we know it is time to adjust our masks?" Bazin
+persisted.
+
+"When you see some one fall who has breathed it," the Major said.
+
+"But suppose we breathe it first?"
+
+"Then you won't need a mask," the Major replied, "You see, it's quite
+simple."
+
+"Halt!" The sharp command, coming sternly but not too loud from
+somewhere in the adjacent mist, brought the party to a standstill in the
+open on the edge of the village. We remained notionless while the Major
+advanced upon command from the unseen. He rejoined us in several minutes
+with the remark that the challenge had come from one of his old men, and
+he only hoped the new companies taking over the line that night were as
+much on their jobs.
+
+"Relief night always is trying," the Major explained. "Fritz always
+likes to jump the newcomers before they get the lay of the land. He
+tried it on the last relief, but we burnt him."
+
+While talking the Major was leading the way through the first trench I
+had ever seen above the surface of the ground. The bottom of the trench
+was not only on a level with the surrounding terrain, but in some places
+it was even higher. Its walls, which rose almost to the height of a
+man's head, were made of large wicker woven cylinders filled with earth
+and stones.
+
+Our guide informed us that the land which we were traversing was so low
+that any trench dug in the ground would simply be a ditch brimful of
+undrainable water, so that, inasmuch as this position was in the first
+line system, walls had been built on either side of the path to protect
+passers-by from shell fragments and indirect machine gun fire. We
+observed one large break where a shell had entered during the evening.
+
+Farther on, this communicating passage, which was more corridor than
+trench, reached higher ground and descended into the earth. We reeled
+through its zig-zag course, staggering from one slanting corner to
+another.
+
+The sides were fairly well retained by French wicker work, but every
+eighth or tenth duck board was missing, making it necessary for trench
+travellers to step knee-deep in cold water or to jump the gap.
+Correspondent Eyre, who was wearing shoes and puttees, abhorred these
+breaks.
+
+We passed the Major's post of command, which he used during intense
+action, and some distance on, entered the front line. With the Major
+leading, we walked up to a place where two Americans were standing on a
+firing step with their rifles extended across the parapet. They were
+silently peering into the grey mist over No Man's Land. One of them
+looked around as we approached. Apparently he recognised the Major's
+cane as a symbol of rank. He came to attention.
+
+"Well," the Major said, "is this the way you let us walk up on you? Why
+don't you challenge me?"
+
+"I saw you was an officer, sir," the man replied.
+
+"Now, you are absolutely sure I am YOUR officer?" the Major said slowly
+and coldly, with emphasis on the word "your." "Suppose I tell you I am a
+German officer and these men behind me are Germans. How do you know?"
+
+With a quick movement the American brought his rifle forward to the
+challenge, his right hand slapping the wooden butt with an audible
+whack.
+
+"Advance one, and give the countersign," he said with a changed voice
+and manner and the Major, moving to within whispering distance, breathed
+the word over the man's extended bayonet. Upon hearing it, the soldier
+lowered his gun and stood at attention.
+
+It was difficult to figure whether his relief over the scare was greater
+than his fears of the censure he knew was coming.
+
+"Next time anybody gets that close to you without being challenged," the
+Major said, "don't be surprised if it is a German. That's the way they
+do it. They don't march in singing 'Deutschland Ueber Alles.'
+
+"If you see them first, you might live through the war. If they see you
+first, we will have wasted a lot of Liberty bonds and effort trying to
+make a soldier out of you. Now, remember, watch yourself."
+
+We pushed on encountering longer patches of trench where duck boards
+were entirely missing and where the wading sometimes was knee-deep. In
+some places, either the pounding of shells or the thawing out of the
+ground had pushed in the revetments, appreciably narrowing the way and
+making progress more difficult. Arriving at an unmanned firing step
+large enough to accommodate the party, we mounted and took a first look
+over the top.
+
+Moonlight now was stronger through the mist which hung fold over fold
+over the forbidden land between the opposing battle lines. At intervals
+nervous machine guns chattered their ghoulish gibberish or tut-tut-ted
+away chidingly like finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sputtering to
+the right and left of us was unenlightening. We couldn't tell whether
+they were speaking German or English. Occasional bullets whining
+somewhere through that wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping
+of linen sheets.
+
+Artillery fire was the exception during the entire night but when a
+shell did trace its unseen arc through the mist mantle, its echoes gave
+it the sound of a street car grinding through an under-river tunnel or
+the tube reverberations of a departing subway train.
+
+We were two hundred yards from the German front lines. Between their
+trenches and ours, at this point, was low land, so boggy as to be almost
+impassable. The opposing lines hugged the tops of two small ridges.
+
+Fifty yards in front was our wire barely discernible in the fog. The
+Major interrupted five wordless reveries by expressing, with what almost
+seemed regretfulness, the fact that in all his fighting experience he
+had never seen it "so damn quiet." His observation passed without a
+remark from us.
+
+The Major appeared to be itching for action and he got into official
+swing a hundred yards farther on, where a turn in the trench revealed to
+us the muffled figures of two young Americans, comfortably seated on
+grenade boxes on the firing step.
+
+From their easy positions they could look over the top and watch all
+approaches without rising. Each one had a blanket wrapped about his legs
+and feet. They looked the picture of ease. Without moving, one, with his
+rifle across his lap, challenged the Major, advanced him, and received
+the countersign. We followed the Major in time to hear his first
+remark:
+
+"Didn't they get the rocking chairs out here yet?" he said with the
+provoked air that customarily accompanies any condemnation of the
+quartermaster department.
+
+"No, sir," replied the seated sentry. "They didn't get here. The men we
+relieved said that they never got anything out here."
+
+"Nor the footstools?" the Major continued, this time with an
+unmistakable tone.
+
+The man didn't answer.
+
+"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the Riviera?" the Major
+asked sternly. "You are less than two hundred yards from the Germans.
+You are all wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could lean over
+the top and snake off your head with a trench knife before you could get
+your feet loose. Take those blankets off your feet and stand up."
+
+The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and removing the
+grenade box chairs. The Major continued:
+
+"You know you are not sitting in a club window in Fifth Avenue and
+watching the girls go by. You're not looking for chickens out there.
+There's a hawk over there and sometimes he carries off precious little
+lambs. Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of that
+trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and gun ready to mix
+things."
+
+The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train of followers who,
+by this time, were beginning to feel that these trenches held other
+lambs, only they carried notebooks instead of cartridge belts.
+
+Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us about to hear the
+conversation that was going on within. Through the cracks of the door,
+we looked down a flight of steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield
+graveyard. There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of
+voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly.
+
+    "Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their ears,
+    The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers,
+    The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers,
+    They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years."
+
+"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice, "but I am ready
+to disown him. They talk a lot about this counter battery work, but it's
+all bunk. A battery in position has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all
+the time. They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves up all
+nice for the day.
+
+"'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, 'I guess we will drop a few shells
+on that German battery on the other side of the hill.' So they pops off
+forty or fifty rounds in that general direction and don't hit anything
+'cause the German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep
+dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back into its holes,
+the German battery comes out and pops back forty or fifty at 'em and, of
+course, don't hurt them neither.
+
+"Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here batteries is
+eating, they get so sore about not having hit each other during the
+morning, that they just call off counter battery work for the day and
+turn their guns on the front lines and blow hell out of the infantry. I
+haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning to think all of
+them Germans and Allies are alike and has an agreement against the
+doughboys."
+
+The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the door.
+
+"Come in," was the polite and innocent invitation guilelessly spoken
+from below. The Major had his helmet on, so he couldn't tear his hair.
+
+"Come up here, you idiots, every one of you."
+
+The Major directed his voice down into the hole in an unmistakable and
+official tone. There was a scurrying of feet and four men emerged
+carrying their guns. They were lined up against the trench wall.
+
+"At midnight," the Major began, "in your dugout in the front line forty
+yards from the Germans, with no sentry at the door, you hear a knock on
+the door and you shout, 'Come in.' I commend your politeness, and I know
+that's what your mothers taught you to say when visitors come, but this
+isn't any tea fight out here. One German could have wiggled over the top
+here and stood in this doorway and captured all four of you
+single-handed, or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down that hole
+and blown all of you to smithereens. What's your aim in life--hard
+labour in a German prison camp or a nice little wooden cross out here
+four thousand miles from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any sentry at
+that door?"
+
+The question remained unanswered but the incident had its effect on the
+quartet. Without orders, all four decided to spend the remainder of the
+night on the firing step with their eyes glued on the enemy's line. They
+simply hadn't realised they were really in the war. The Major knew this,
+but made a mental reservation of which the commander of this special
+platoon got full benefit before the night was over.
+
+The front line from here onward followed a small ridge running generally
+east and west, but now bearing slightly to the northward. We were told
+the German line ran in the same general direction, but at this point
+bore to the southward.
+
+The opposing lines in the direction of our course were converging and we
+were approaching the place where they were the closest in the sector. If
+German listening posts heard the progress of our party through the line,
+only a telephone call back to the artillery was necessary to plant a
+shell among us, as every point on the system was registered.
+
+As we silently considered various eventualities immaterial to the
+prosecution of the war but not without personal concern, our progress
+was brought to a sudden standstill.
+
+"Huh-huh-halt!" came a drawn-out command in a husky, throaty stammer,
+weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted
+in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot
+was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready for a thrust.
+
+"Huh-huh-huh-halt!" came the nervous, whispering command again, although
+we had been motionless since the first whisper.
+
+We heard a click as the safety catch on the man's rifle lock was thrown
+off and the weapon made ready to discharge. The Major was watching the
+nervous hand that rested none too steadily on the trigger stop. He
+stepped to one side, but the muzzle of the gun followed him.
+
+"Huh-huh-huh-halt! I tuh-tuh-tell you."
+
+This time the whisper vibrated with nervous tension and there was no
+mistaking the state of mind of the sentry.
+
+"Take it easy," replied the Major with attempted calm. "I'm waiting for
+you to challenge me. Don't get excited. This is the commanding
+officer."
+
+"What's the countersign?" came from the voice in a hard strain.
+
+"Troy," the Major said, and the word seemed to bring worlds of
+reassurance to the rifleman, who sighed with relief, but forgot to move
+his rifle until the Major said:
+
+"Will you please take that gun off me and put the safety back in?"
+
+The nervous sentry moved the gun six inches to the right and we
+correspondents, standing in back of the Major, looked into something
+that seemed as big as the La Salle street tunnel. I jumped out of range
+behind the Major. Eyre plunged knee-deep into water out of range, and
+Woods with the rubber boots started to go over the top.
+
+The click of the replaced safety lock sounded unusually like the snap of
+a trigger, but no report followed and three hearts resumed their
+beating.
+
+"There is no occasion to get excited," the Major said to the young
+soldier in a fatherly tone. "I'm glad to see you are wide-awake and on
+the job. Don't feel any fears for your job and just remember that with
+that gun and bayonet in your hands you are better than any man who turns
+that trench corner or crosses out there. You've got the advantage of
+him, and besides that you are a better man than he is."
+
+The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the latter conducted the
+party quietly around the trench corner and into a sap leading directly
+out into No Man's Land. Twice the trench passed under broad belts of
+barbed wire, which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, because
+any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons.
+
+After several minutes of this cautious advance, we reached a small
+listening post that marked the closest point in the sector to the German
+line. Several silent sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit.
+Gunny sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above. We
+remained silent while the Major in the lowest whisper spoke with a
+corporal and learned that except for two or three occasions, when the
+watchers thought they heard sounds near our wire, the night had been
+calm.
+
+We departed as silently as we came. The German line from a distance of
+forty yards looked no different from its appearance at a greater
+distance, but since it was closer, it was carried with a constant tingle
+of anticipation.
+
+Into another communicating trench and through better walled
+fortifications of splintered forest, the Major led us to a place where
+the recent shelling had changed twenty feet of trench into a gaping
+gulley almost without sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail
+was endeavouring to repair the damage. In parties of two, we left the
+trench and crossed an open space on the level. The forty steps we
+covered across that forbidden ground were like stolen fruit. Such
+rapture! Bazin, who was seeking a title for a book, pulled "Eureka!"
+
+"Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad, eh?"
+
+Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for our long trip back
+to quarters, he led the way to the entrance of a cemetery, well kept in
+the midst of surrounding chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon
+row.
+
+"I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that held this line until
+we took it over," he said simply. "Our own boys that we've lost since
+we've been here, are buried down in the next village."
+
+We silently saluted the spot as we passed it thirty minutes later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE
+
+
+As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in the Toul sector, it
+was inevitable that belligerent activity would increase and this, in
+spite of the issuance of strict orders that there should be no
+development of the normal daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist
+the temptation to start something.
+
+As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to suspect that they were
+faced by different troops from the ones who had been confronting them.
+The enemy set out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on
+the American line.
+
+It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th that the Germans
+lowered a terrific barrage on one of our advance listening posts and
+then rushed the position with a raiding party outnumbering the
+defendants ten to one.
+
+Two Americans held that post--five more succeeded in making their way
+through the storm of falling shells and in coming to the assistance of
+the first two. That made seven Americans in the fight. When the fighting
+ceased, every one of the seven had been accounted for in the three
+items, dead, wounded or captured.
+
+That little handful of Americans, fought, died or were wounded in the
+positions which they had been ordered to hold. Although the engagement
+was an extremely minor one, it being the first of its kind on the
+American sector, it was sufficient to give the enemy some idea of the
+determination and fighting qualities of the individual American
+soldier. Their comrades were proud of them, and were inclined to
+consider the exploit, "Alamo stuff."
+
+Two of the defenders were killed, four were wounded, and one was
+captured. The wounded men reported that the captured American continued
+to fight even after being severely wounded. He was the last to remain on
+his feet and when a bomb blew his rifle from his hand and injured his
+arm, he succumbed to superior numbers and was carried off by his
+captors.
+
+After the hurried sortie, the Germans beat a hasty retreat so that the
+position was reoccupied immediately by another American detail.
+
+The "Alamo" seven had not been taken by surprise. Through a downpour of
+rather badly placed shells, they held their position on the firing step
+and worked both their rifles and machine guns against the raiding party,
+which they could not see, but knew would be advancing behind the curtain
+of fire. Hundreds of empty cartridges and a broken American bayonet
+constituted impartial testimony to the fierceness of the fighting. After
+the first rush, in which the defenders accounted for a number of
+Germans, the fighting began at close quarters, the enemy peppering the
+listening post with hand-grenades.
+
+In the meantime the German barrage had been lifted and lengthened until
+it was lowered again between the "Alamo" seven and their comrades in the
+rear.
+
+There were calls to surrender, but no acceptances. The fighting became
+hand-to-hand with bayonet and gun butt. The defenders fought on in the
+hope that assistance soon would arrive from the American artillery.
+
+But the Germans had planned the raid well. Their first barrage cut all
+telephone wires leading back from our front lines and the signal rocket
+which one of the men in the listening post had fired into the air, had
+been smothered in the dense mist. That rocket had called for a
+defensive barrage from American artillery and when no answer came to it,
+a second one was fired, but that also was snuffed out by the fog.
+
+The net result of the raid was that the Germans had captured one of our
+wounded men and had thereby identified the organisation opposing them as
+the First Regular Division of the United States Army, composed of the
+16th, 18th, 26th, and 28th Regular U. S. Infantry Regiments and the 5th,
+6th and 7th Regular U. S. Army Field Artillery. The division was under
+the command of Major General Robert Lee Bullard.
+
+In the days and weeks that followed, the daily exchange of shells on the
+sector increased to two and three times the number it had been before
+our men arrived there. There were nightly patrols in No Man's Land and
+several instances where these patrols met in the dark and engaged one
+another with casualties on both sides.
+
+One night a little over a month later--the early morning of March 4th,
+to be exact--it was my privilege to witness from an exceptional vantage
+point, the first planned and concentrated American artillery action
+against the enemy. The German lines selected for this sudden downpour of
+shell, comprised two small salients jutting out from the enemy's
+positions in the vicinity of the ruined village of Lahayville, in the
+same sector.
+
+In company with an orderly who had been despatched as my guide, I
+started from an artillery battalion headquarters shortly before
+midnight, and together we made our way up the dark muddy road that led
+through the dense Bois de la Reine to the battery positions. Half an
+hour's walk and O'Neil, the guide, led me off the road into a darker
+tunnel of overlaced boughs where we stumbled along on the ties of a
+narrow gauge railroad that conveyed heavy shells from the road to the
+guns. We passed through several gun pits and stopped in front of a huge
+_abri_ built entirely above ground.
+
+Its walls and roof must have been between five and seven feet thick and
+were made from layers of logs, sandbags, railroad iron and slabs of
+concrete reinforced with steel. It looked impenetrable.
+
+"Battery commander's headquarters," O'Neil said to me as we entered a
+small hot room lighted by two oil lamps and a candle. Three officers, at
+two large map tables, were working on sheets of figures. Two wooden
+bunks, one above the other, and two posts supporting the low ceiling
+completed the meagre furnishings of the room. A young officer looked up
+from his work, O'Neil saluted, and addressed him.
+
+"The Major sent me up with this correspondent. He said you could let him
+go wherever he could see the fun and that you are not responsible for
+his safety." O'Neil caught the captain's smile at the closing remark and
+withdrew. The captain showed me the map.
+
+"Here we are," he said, indicating a spot with his finger, "and here's
+what we are aiming at to-night. There are two places you can stay to see
+the fun. You can stay in this shelter and hear the sound of it, or you
+can go up a little further front to this point, and mount the platform
+in our observation tree. In this _abri_ you are safe from splinters and
+shrapnel but a direct hit would wipe us out. In the tree you are exposed
+to direct hits and splinters from nearby bursts but at least you can see
+the whole show. It's the highest point around here and overlooks the
+whole sector."
+
+I sensed that the captain expected a busy evening and looked forward
+with no joy to possible interference from a questioning visitor, so I
+chose the tree.
+
+"All right," he said, "you've got helmet and gas masks, I see. Now how's
+your watch? Take the right time off mine. We have just synchronised ours
+with headquarters. Zero is one o'clock. You had better start now."
+
+He called for an orderly with a German name, and the two of us left.
+Before I was out of the room, the captain had returned to his
+mathematics and was figuring out the latest range variations and making
+allowances for latest developments in wind, temperature and barometer.
+The orderly with the German name and I plunged again into the trees and
+brought up shortly on the edge of a group of men who were standing in
+the dark near a large tree trunk. I could hear several other men and
+some stamping horses off to one side.
+
+The party at the foot of the tree was composed of observers, signal
+linemen and runners. All of them were enlisted men. I inquired who were
+to be my comrades in the tree top and three presented themselves. One
+said his name was Pat Guahn, the second gave his as Peter Griffin and
+the third acknowledged Mike Stanton. I introduced myself and Griffin
+said, "I see we are all from the same part of Italy."
+
+At twenty minutes to one, we started up the tree, mounting by rudely
+constructed ladders that led from one to the other of the four crudely
+fashioned platforms. We reached the top breathless and with no false
+impressions about the stability of our swaying perch. The tree seemed to
+be the tallest in the forest and nothing interfered with our forward
+view. The platform was a bit shaky and Guahn put my thoughts to words
+and music by softly singing--
+
+    "Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top,
+    When the shell comes the runners all flop,
+    When the shell busts, good-bye to our station,
+    We're up in a tree, bound for damnation."
+
+The compass gives us north and we locate in the forward darkness an
+approximate sweep of the front lines. Guahn is looking for the flash of
+a certain German gun and it will be his duty to keep his eyes trained
+through the fork of a certain marked twig within arm's reach.
+
+"If she speaks, we want to know it," Guahn says; "I can see her from
+here when she flashes and there's another man who can see her from
+another place. You see we get an intersection of angles on her and then
+we know where she is just as though she had sent her address. Two
+minutes later we drop a card on her and keep her warm."
+
+"Is that that gun from Russia we heard about?" Griffin asks.
+
+"No," answers Guahn, "we are not looking for her from that station.
+Besides, she isn't Russian. She was made by the British, used by the
+Russians, captured by the Germans and in turn is used by them against
+Americans. We have found pieces of her shell and they all have an
+English trade mark on them. She fires big eight inch stuff."
+
+Griffin is watching in another direction for another flash and Stanton
+is on the lookout for signal flares and the flash of a signal light
+projector which might be used in case the telephone communication is
+disturbed by enemy fire. It is then that the runners at the base of the
+tree must carry the message back by horse.
+
+Only an occasional thump is heard forward in the darkness. Now and then
+machine guns chatter insanely as they tuck a seam in the night. At
+infrequent intervals, a star shell curves upward, bursts, suspends its
+silent whiteness in mid-air, and dies.
+
+In our tree top all seems quiet and so is the night. There is no moon
+and only a few stars are out. A penetrating dampness takes the place of
+cold and there is that in the air that threatens a change of weather.
+
+The illuminated dial of my watch tells me that it is three minutes of
+one and I communicate the information to the rest of the Irish quartet.
+In three minutes, the little world that we look upon from our tree top
+is due to change with terrific suddenness and untold possibilities.
+
+Somewhere below in the darkness and to one side, I hear the clank of a
+ponderous breech lock as the mechanism is closed on a shell in one of
+the heavy guns. Otherwise all remains silent.
+
+Two minutes of one. Each minute seems to drag like an hour. It is
+impossible to keep one's mind off that unsuspecting group of humans out
+there in that little section of German trench upon which the heavens are
+about to fall. Griffin leans over the railing and calls to the runners
+to stand by the horses' heads until they become accustomed to the coming
+roar.
+
+One minute of one. We grip the railing and wait.
+
+Two flashes and two reports, the barest distinguishable interval, and
+the black horizon belches red. From extreme left to extreme right the
+flattened proscenium in front of us glows with the ghastliness of the
+Broockon.
+
+Waves of light flush the dark vault above like the night sky over South
+Chicago's blast furnaces. The heavens reflect the glare. The flashes
+range in colour from blinding yellow to the softest tints of pink. They
+seem to form themselves from strange combinations of greens and mauves
+and lavenders.
+
+The sharp shattering crash of the guns reaches our ears almost on the
+instant. The forest shakes and our tree top sways with the slam of the
+heavies close by. The riven air whimpers with the husky whispering of
+the rushing load of metal bolts passing above us.
+
+Looking up into that void, we deny the uselessness of the act and seek
+in vain to follow the trains of those unseen things that make the air
+electric with their presence. We hear them coming, passing, going, but
+see not one of them.
+
+"There's whole blacksmith's shops sailing over our heads on the way to
+Germany," Pat Guahn shouts in my ear. "I guess the Dutchman sure knows
+how to call for help. He doesn't care for that first wallop, and he
+thinks he would like about a half million reserves from the Russian
+front."
+
+"That darkness out in No Man's Land don't make any hit with him either,"
+Stanton contributes. "He's got it lit up so bright I'm homesick for
+Broadway."
+
+Now comes the thunder of the shell arrivals. You know the old covered
+wooden bridges that are still to be found in the country. Have you ever
+heard a team of horses and a farm wagon thumping and rumbling over such
+a bridge on the trot?
+
+Multiply the horse team a thousand times. Lash the animals from the trot
+to the wild gallop. Imagine the sound of their stampede through the
+echoing wooden structure and you approach in volume and effect the
+rumble and roar of the steel as it rained down on that little German
+salient that night.
+
+"Listen to them babies bustin'," says Griffin. "I'm betting them
+groundhogs is sure huntin' their holes right now and trying to dig clear
+through to China."
+
+That was the sound and sight of that opening salvo from all guns, from
+the small trench mortars in the line, the lightest field pieces behind
+them, the heavy field pieces about us and the ponderous railroad
+artillery located behind us.
+
+Its crash has slashed the inkiness in front of us with a lurid red
+meridian. I don't know how many hands had pulled lanyards on exactly the
+same instant but the consequent spread of fire looked like one
+continuous flame.
+
+Now the "seventy-fives" are speaking, not in unison, but at various
+speeds, limited only by the utmost celerity of the sweating gun crews.
+
+But the German front line is not the only locality receiving unsolicited
+attention. Enemy gun positions far behind the lines are being plastered
+with high explosives and anesthetised with gas shells.
+
+So effective is the American artillery neutralisation of the German
+batteries, that it is between fifteen and twenty minutes before the
+first enemy gun replies to the terrific barrage. And though expected
+momentarily, a German counter barrage fails to materialise.
+
+In our tree top we wait for the enemy's counter shelling but the
+retaliation does not develop. When occupying an exposed position, the
+suspense of waiting for an impending blow increases in tenseness as the
+delay continues and the expectations remain unrealised. With no
+inclination to be unreasonable, one even prays for the speedy delivery
+of the blow in the same way that the man with the aching tooth urges the
+dentist to speed up and have it over with.
+
+"Why in hell don't they come back at us?" Griffin asks. "I've had myself
+all tuned up for the last twenty minutes to have a leg blown off and be
+thankful. I hate this waiting stuff."
+
+"Keep your shirt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 'em a chance to get
+their breath and come out of their holes. That barrage drove 'em down a
+couple hundred feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to
+come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."
+
+We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they
+were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into
+lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant
+operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only
+desultory. Only an occasional shell from Kulturland came our way, and
+even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't
+know exactly where they were going and didn't care.
+
+Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless orbit not far above our
+tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly looked as though we were
+shooting all the hard-stuff and the German end of the fireworks party
+was all coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six shells that passed
+us, three failed to explode upon landing.
+
+"That makes three dubs," said Guahn.
+
+"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you mean duds and even
+then you are wrong. Those were gas pills. They just crack open quietly
+so you don't know it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll
+hear the gas alert soon."
+
+Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the throaty gurgling of
+the sirens. The alarm started on our right and spread from station to
+station through the woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our
+muffled faces toward the firing line. Through the moisture fogged
+glasses of my mask, I looked first upon my companions on this rustic
+scaffold above the forest.
+
+War's demands had removed our appearances far from the human. Our heads
+were topped with uncomfortable steel casques, harder than the backs of
+turtles. Our eyes were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and
+owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rubber cloth. Our
+lungs sucked air through tubes from a canvass bag under our chins and we
+were inhabiting a tree top like a family of apes. It really required
+imagination to make it seem real.
+
+"Looks like the party is over," came the muffled remark from the masked
+figure beside me. The cannonading was dying down appreciably. The
+blinking line of lights in front of us grew less.
+
+A terrific upward blast of red and green flame from the ground close to
+our tree, reminded us that one heavy still remained under firing orders.
+The flash seen through the forest revealed in intricate tracings the
+intertwining limbs and branches of the trees. It presented the
+appearance of a piece of strong black lace spread out and held at arm's
+length in front of a glowing grate.
+
+From the German lines an increased number of flares shot skyward and as
+the cannon cracks ceased, save for isolated booms, the enemy machine
+guns could be heard at work, riveting the night with sprays of lead and
+sounding for all the world like a scourge of hungry woodpeckers.
+
+"God help any of the doughboys that are going up against any of that
+stuff," Griffin observed through his mask.
+
+"Don't worry about our doughboys," replied Stanton; "they are all safe
+in their trenches now. That's most likely the reason why our guns were
+ordered to lay off. I guess Fritzie got busy with his typewriters too
+late."
+
+I descended the tree, leaving my companions to wait for the orders
+necessary for their departure. Unfamiliar with the unmarked paths of
+the forest and guided only as to general directions, I made my way
+through the trees some distance in search of the road back from the
+front.
+
+A number of mud and water-filled shell holes intervened to make the
+exertion greater and consequently the demand upon lungs for air greater.
+After floundering several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas
+mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that comes to tear off
+the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxiation for just one breath of fresh
+air.
+
+A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided me to a log cabin
+where I learned from a sentry that the gas scare had just been called
+off. Continuing on the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a
+walking horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly the advantage
+over him as his head was still encased. I told him the gas alarm was off
+and he tore away the mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was
+removing the horse's gas mask.
+
+A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good-night to the battalion
+commander in front of his roadside shack. A party of mounted runners was
+passing on the way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity
+quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in command of regular army
+artillery, he said:
+
+"Good-night, men, we licked hell out of them."
+
+The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans, always maintained a
+high daily rating of artillery activity. The opposing forces were
+continually planning surprises on one another. At any minute of the
+night or day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas might break
+out on either side. Both sides operated their sound ranging apparatus
+to a rather high degree of efficiency.
+
+By these delicate instruments we could locate the exact position of an
+unseen enemy battery. Following that location, the battery would
+immediately be visited with a concentrated downpour of hot steel
+intended to wipe it out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so
+that in the artillery, when the men were not actually manning the guns
+in action, they were digging gun pits for reserve positions which they
+could occupy if the enemy happened to get the proper range of the old
+positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery adopted a
+system by which many lives were saved.
+
+If a German battery began shelling one of our battery positions, the
+artillerymen in that position were not called upon to stand by their
+guns and return the fire. The order would be given to temporarily
+abandon the position and the men would be withdrawn a safe distance. The
+German battery that was firing would be responded to, two to one, by
+other American batteries located nearby and which did not happen to be
+under fire at the time. By this system we conserved our strength.
+
+Our infantry was strong in their praise of the artillery. I observed
+this particularly one day on the Toul front when General Pershing
+dropped in unexpectedly at the division headquarters, then located in
+the hillside village of Bourcq. While the commander and his party were
+awaiting a meal which was being prepared, four muddy figures tramped
+down the hallway of the Chateau. Through the doorway the general
+observed their entrance.
+
+The two leading figures were stolid German soldiers, prisoners of war,
+and behind them marched their captors, two excusably proud young
+Americans. One of them carried his bayoneted rifle at the ready, while
+the second carried the equipment which had been taken from the
+prisoners. The American commander ordered the group brought before him
+and asked one of the Americans to relate the story of the capture.
+
+"We in the infantry got 'em, sir," replied one, "but the artillery
+deserved most of the credit. It happened just at dawn this morning. Jim
+here, and myself, were holding down an advance machine gun post when the
+Germans laid down a flock of shells on our first line trench. We just
+kept at the gun ready to let them have it if they started to come over.
+
+"Pretty soon we saw them coming through the mist and we began to put it
+to 'em. I think we got a bunch of them but they kept on coming.
+
+"Then somebody back in our first line shot up the signal for a barrage
+in our sector. It couldn't have been a minute before our cannon cut
+loose and the shells began to drop right down in the middle of the
+raiding party.
+
+"It was a good heavy barrage, sir, and it cut clean through the centre
+of the raiders. Two Germans were ahead of the rest and the barrage
+landed right in back of them. The rest started running back toward their
+lines, but the first pair could not go back because they would have had
+to pass through the barrage. I kept the machine gun going all the time
+and Jim showed himself above the trench and pointed his rifle at the
+cut-off pair.
+
+"They put up their hands right quick and we waved to 'em to come in.
+They took it on the jump and landed in our trench as fast as they could.
+We took their equipment off them and we were ordered to march them back
+here to headquarters. That's all there was to it, sir."
+
+The enemy in front of Toul manifested an inordinate anxiety to know more
+about the strength of our forces and the character of the positions we
+occupied. A captured German document issued to the Fifth Bavarian
+Landwehr infantry brigade instructed every observer and patrol to do his
+or its best "to bring information about the new enemy."
+
+"Nothing is known as yet about the methods of fighting or leadership,"
+the document set forth, "and all information possible must be gathered
+as to particular features of American fighting and outpost tactics. This
+will then be used for extending the information bulletin. Any
+observation or identification, however insignificant, may be of the
+greatest value."
+
+The document directed that data on the following questions be obtained:
+
+"Are sentry posts sentry posts or stronger posts? Further advanced
+reconnoitring patrols? Manner of challenging? Behaviour on post during
+day and night? Vigilance? Ambush tactics and cunning?
+
+"Do they shoot and signal on every occasion? Do the posts hold their
+ground on the approach of a patrol, or do they fall back?
+
+"Are the Americans careful and cautious? Are they noisy? What is their
+behaviour during smoke screens?"
+
+The enemy's keen desire to acquire this information was displayed in the
+desperate efforts it made. One day the French troops occupying the
+trenches on the right flank of the American sector, encountered a
+soldier in an American uniform walking through their positions.
+
+He was stopped and questioned. He said he had been one of an American
+patrol that had gone out the night before, that he had lost his way in
+No Man's Land and that he thought he was returning to his own trenches,
+when he dropped into those held by the French.
+
+Although the man wore our uniform and spoke excellent English and seemed
+straightforward in his replies, as to his name and rank and
+organisation, the French officer before whom he was brought was not
+completely satisfied. To overcome this hesitancy, the suspected man
+opened his shirt and produced an American identification tag verifying
+his answers.
+
+The French officer, still suspicious, ordered the man held while he
+telephoned to the American organisation mentioned to ascertain whether
+any man of the name given was missing from that unit.
+
+"Yes," replied the American captain. "We lost him last October, when we
+were in the front line down in the Luneville sector. He was captured
+with eight others by the Germans."
+
+"Well, we've got him over here on your right flank. He came into our
+lines this morning--" the French officer started to say.
+
+"Bully," came the American interruption over the wire. "He's escaped
+from the Germans and has come clear through their lines to get back to
+his company. He'll get a D. S. C. for that. We'll send right over for
+him."
+
+"But when we questioned him," replied the Frenchman, "he said he left
+your lines only last night on patrol and got lost in No Man's Land."
+
+"I'll come right over and look at that party, myself," the American
+captain hastily replied.
+
+He reached the French officer's dugout several hours later and the
+suspect was ordered brought in.
+
+"He must be crazy, sir," the French orderly said. "He tried to kill
+himself a few minutes ago and we have had to hold him."
+
+The man was brought into the dugout between two poilus who held his
+arms. The American captain took a careful look and said:
+
+"That's not our man. He wears our uniform correctly and that's our
+regulation identification tag. Both of them must have been taken away
+from our man when he was captured. This man is an impostor."
+
+"He's more than that," replied the Frenchman with a smile. "He's a
+German spy."
+
+The prisoner made no reply, but later made a full confession of his act,
+and also gave to his interrogators much valuable information, which,
+however, did not save him from paying the penalty in front of a firing
+squad. When he faced the rifles, he was not wearing the stolen uniform.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INTO PICARDY TO MEET THE GERMAN PUSH
+
+
+Toward the end of March, 1918, just at the time when the American
+Expeditionary Forces were approaching the desired degree of military
+effectiveness, the fate of civilisation was suddenly imperilled by the
+materialisation of the long expected German offensive.
+
+This push, the greatest the enemy had ever attempted, began on March
+21st, and the place that Hindenburg selected for the drive was Picardy,
+the valley of the Somme, the ancient cockpit of Europe. On that day the
+German hordes, scores upon scores of divisions, hurled themselves
+against the British line between Arras and Noyon.
+
+Before that tremendous weight of manpower, the Allied line was forced to
+give and one of the holding British armies, the Fifth, gave ground on
+the right flank, and with its left as a hinge, swung back like a gate,
+opening the way for the Germans toward Paris.
+
+There have been many descriptions of the fierce fighting put up by the
+French and British to stem the German advance, but the most interesting
+one that ever came to my notice, came from one of the few American
+soldiers that participated in the defence. Two weeks after the opening
+of the battle and at a time when the German advance had been stopped, I
+came upon this American in a United States Military Hospital at Dijon.
+
+An interne led me to the bedside of Jimmy Brady, a former jockey from
+the Pimlico turf in Baltimore, and now a proud wearer of Uncle Sam's
+khaki. In his own quaint way, Jimmy told me the story of what a little
+handful of Americans did in the great battle in Picardy. Jimmy knew.
+Jimmy had been there.
+
+"Lad," he said, "I'm telling you it was a real jam. I learned one hell
+of a headful in the last ten days that I'll not be forgetting in the
+next ten years. I've got new ideas about how long this war is goin' to
+last. Of course, we're going to lick the Boches before it ends, but I've
+sorter given up the picture I had of myself marching up Fifth Avenue in
+a victory parade on this coming Fourth of July. I'll say it can't be
+done in that time.
+
+"Our outfit from old ---- engineers, and believe me there's none better,
+have been working up in the Somme country for the last two months. We
+were billeted at Brie and most of our work had been throwing bridges
+across the Canal du Nord about three miles south of Peronne. I'm telling
+you the Somme ain't a river. It's a swamp, and they just hardly squeeze
+enough water outer it to make a canal which takes the place of a river.
+
+"We was working under the British. Their old bridges over the canal were
+wooden affairs and most of them had signs on them reading, 'This bridge
+won't hold a tank,' and that bridge wouldn't bear trotting horses, and
+so on. Some of 'em we tore down must have been put in for scenery
+purposes only. We were slamming up some husky looking steel structures
+like you see in the States, and believe me it makes me sick to think
+that we had to blow 'em all up again before the Boches got to 'em.
+
+"I see by the papers that the battle began on the 21st, but I've got no
+more idea about the date of it than the King of Honolulu. They say it's
+been on only about ten days, but I couldn't swear it hadn't been on
+since New Year's Eve. It sure seemed a long time. As I told you, we were
+working just south of Peronne on the main road between St. Quentin and
+Amiens. She started on a foggy morning and for two days the music kept
+getting closer. On the first day, all traffic was frontward, men, guns,
+and camions going up towards the lines, and then the tide began to flow
+back.
+
+"Ambulances and camions, full of poor wounded devils, filled the road,
+and then came labour battalions of chattering Chinks, Egyptians, and
+Fiji Islanders and God knows what. None of these birds were lingering,
+because the enemy was sprinkling the roads with shells and sorter
+keeping their marching spirits up. Orders came for us to ditch our packs
+and equipment all except spades, rifles, belts and canteens, and we set
+off toward the rear.
+
+"Do you mind your map of the Somme? Well, we pulls up at Chaulnes for a
+breath. It was a big depot and dump town--aeroplanes and everything
+piled up in it. We were ordered onto demolition work, being as we was
+still classed as non-combatants. I don't know how many billions of
+dollars' worth of stuff we blew up and destroyed, but it seemed to me
+there was no end of it. Fritz kept coming all the time and they hiked us
+on to Aubercourt and then to Dormant, and each place we stopped and dug
+trenches, and then they shoots us into camions and rushes us north to a
+town not far out of Amiens.
+
+"With about forty men, we marched down the road, this time as
+non-combatants no longer. We stopped just east of the village of
+Marcelcave and dug a line of trenches across the road. We had twenty
+machine guns and almost as many different kinds of ammunition as there
+was different nationalities in our trench. Our position was the fifth
+line of defence, we was told, but the guns kept getting closer and a
+lot of that long range stuff was giving us hell. Near me there was a
+squad of my men, one Chink, three Canadians, and we two Dublin
+fusileers.
+
+"Then we begin to see our own guns, that is, British guns, beginning to
+blow hell out of this here village of Marcelcave right in front of us.
+It made me wild to see the artillery making a mistake like that, so I
+says to one of these here Dublin fusileers:
+
+"'Whatinell's 'matter wid dose guns firing on our own men up there in
+the village? If this is the fifth line, then that must be our fourth
+line in the village?'
+
+"'Lad,' says the Dublin fusileer to me, 'I don't want to discourage you
+for the life of me, but this only used to be the fifth line. We are in
+the first line now and it's up to you and me and the Chink and the rest
+of us to keep the Fritzes out of Amiens. At this moment we are all
+that's between.'
+
+"We started to the machine guns and began pouring it in on 'em. The
+minute some of 'em would start out of the town we would wither them.
+Holy mother, but what a beautiful murder it was!
+
+"I didn't know then, and don't know yet, what has become of all the rest
+of our officers and men, but I sorter felt like every shot I sent over
+was paying 'em back for some of their dirty work. We kept handing it to
+'em hot. You oughter seen that Chink talking Mongolian to a machine gun,
+and, believe me, he sure made it understand him. I'm here to say that
+when a Chink fights, he's a fighting son-of-a-gun and don't let anybody
+kid you different.
+
+"Well, our little mob held 'em off till dark and then British Tommies
+piled in and relieved us. We needed it because we hadn't had a bite in
+seventy hours and I had been lying in the mud and water for twice that
+time. Just before relief comes on, two skulking figures comes over the
+top. I was thinking that maybe these was Hindus or Eskimos coming to
+join our little international party and we shouts out to 'em and asks
+'em where they hails from. Both of 'em yelled back, 'Kamerad,' and then
+I knew that we'd not only held the fort, but had captured two prisoners
+even if they was deserters.
+
+"I marched 'em back that night to the next town and took 'em into a
+grocery store, where there was a lot of Tommies helping themselves to
+the first meal in days. While we were eating bread and cheese and
+sardines and also feeding me two prisoners, we talks to them and finds
+out that, as far as they are concerned, the Kaiser will never get their
+vote again.
+
+"One Tommy says to one of my prisoners: 'Kaiser no good--pas bon, ain't
+it?' and the prisoner said, 'Yah,' and I shoved my elbow into his ribs
+and right quick he said, 'Nein.' Then the Tommy said: 'Hindenburg dirty
+rotter, nacy pa?' and the Fritz said, 'Yah. Nein,' and then looked at me
+and said 'Yah' again. They was not bad prisoners and I marched 'em
+twenty miles that night, just the three of us--two of them in front and
+me in back with the rifle over me arm.
+
+"And the joke of it was that both of them could have taken the gun and
+killed me any minute for all I could have done."
+
+"How do you figure that, Corporal?" I asked.
+
+For reply, Jimmy Brady drew from beneath the blankets a pair of knotted
+hands with fingers and thumbs stiffened and bent in and obviously
+impossible to use on a trigger. Brady is not in the hospital for wounds.
+Four days and nights in water and mud in the battle of battles had
+twisted and shrunken him with rheumatism. But he is one rheumatic who
+helped to save Amiens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the heels of the German successes in Picardy, developments followed
+fast. Principal among these, was the materialisation of a unified
+command of all the armies of the Allies. General Ferdinand Foch was
+selected and placed in supreme command of every fighting man under the
+Allied flags.
+
+One of the events that led up to this long delayed action, was the
+unprecedented action of General Pershing, when he turned over the
+command of all the American forces in France to General Foch. He did
+this with the words:
+
+  "I come to say to you that the American people would hold it a great
+  honour for our troops were they engaged in the present battle. I ask
+  it of you in my name and in that of the American people.
+
+  "There is at this moment no other question than that of fighting.
+  Infantry, artillery, aviation--all that we have are yours to dispose
+  of as you will. Others are coming which are as numerous as will be
+  necessary. I have come to say to you that the American people would
+  be proud to be engaged in the greatest battle in history."
+
+The action met with the unqualified endorsement of every officer and man
+in the American forces. From that minute on, the American slogan in
+France was "Let's go," and every regiment began to hope that it would be
+among the American organisations selected to do battle with the German
+in Picardy. Secretary of War Baker, then in France, expressed his
+pleasure over General Pershing's unselfish offer with the following
+public statement on Mar. 30th:
+
+  "I am delighted with the prompt and effective action of General
+  Pershing in placing all American troops at the disposal of the
+  Allies in the present situation. His action will meet with hearty
+  approval in the United States, where the people desire their
+  Expeditionary Force to be of the utmost service to the common cause.
+
+  "I have visited practically all the American troops in France, some
+  of them quite recently, and had an opportunity to observe the
+  enthusiasm with which the officers and men receive the announcement
+  that they may be used in the present conflict. Regiments to which
+  the announcement was made, broke spontaneously into cheers."
+
+Particularly were there cheers when the news spread through the ranks of
+the First United States division, then on duty on the line in front of
+Toul, that it had been the first American division chosen to go into
+Picardy. I was fortunate enough to make arrangements to go with them.
+
+I rode out from old positions with the guns and boarded the troop train
+which took our battery by devious routes to changes of scenery,
+gratifying both to vision and spirit. We lived in our cars on tinned
+meat and hard bread, washed down with swallows of _vin ordinaire_,
+hurriedly purchased at station _buvettes_. The horses rode well.
+
+Officers and men, none of us cared for train schedule simply because
+none of us knew where we were going, and little time was wasted in
+conjecture. Soldierly curiosity was satisfied with the knowledge that we
+were on our way, and with this satisfaction, the hours passed easily.
+In fact, the blackjack game in the officers' compartment had reached the
+point where the battery commander had garnered almost all of the French
+paper money in sight, when our train passed slowly through the environs
+of Paris.
+
+Other American troop trains had preceded us, because where the railroad
+embankment ran close and parallel to the street of some nameless
+Faubourg, our appearance was met with cheers and cries from a welcoming
+regiment of Paris street gamins, who trotted in the street beside the
+slow moving troop train and shouted and threw their hats and wooden
+shoes in the air. Sous and fifty centime pieces and franc pieces
+showered from the side doors of the horses' cars as American soldiers,
+with typical disregard for the value of money, pitched coin after coin
+to the scrambling mob of children. At least a hundred francs must have
+been cast out upon those happy, romping waves of childish faces and
+up-stretched dirty hands.
+
+"A soldier would give his shirt away," said a platoon commander, leaning
+out of the window and watching the spectacle, and surreptitiously
+pitching a few coins himself. "Hope we get out of this place before the
+men pitch out a gun or a horse to that bunch. Happy little devils,
+aren't they? It's great to think we are on our way up to meet their
+daddies."
+
+Unnumbered hours more passed merrily in the troop train before we were
+shunted into the siding of a little town. Work of unloading was started
+and completed within an hour. Guns and wagons were unloaded on the quay,
+while the animals were removed from the cars on movable runways or
+ramps. As each gun or wagon reached the ground, its drivers hitched in
+the horses and moved it away. Five minutes later we rode out of the
+yards and down the main street of the town.
+
+Broad steel tires on the carriages of the heavies bumped and rumbled
+over the clean cobbles and the horses pranced spryly to get the kinks
+out of their legs, long fatigued from vibrations of the train. Women,
+old and young, lined the curbs, smiling and throwing kisses, waving
+handkerchiefs and aprons and begging for souvenirs. If every request for
+a button had been complied with, our battery would have reached the
+front with a shocking shortage of safety pins.
+
+Darkness came on and with it a fine rain, as we cleared the town and
+halted on a level plain between soft fields of tender new wheat, which
+the horses sensed and snorted to get at. In twenty minutes, Mess
+Sergeant Kelly, from his high altar on the rolling kitchen, announced
+that the last of hot coffee had been dispensed. Somewhere up ahead in
+the darkness, battery bugle notes conveyed orders to prepare to mount.
+With the rattle of equipment and the application of endearing epithets,
+which horses unfortunately don't understand, we moved off at the sound
+of "forward."
+
+Off on our left, a noiseless passenger train slid silently across the
+rim of the valley, blue dimmed lights in its coach windows glowing like
+a row of wet sulphur matches. Far off in the north, flutters of white
+light flushed the night sky and an occasional grumbling of the distant
+guns gave us our first impression of the battle of battles. Every man in
+our battery tingled with the thrill. This was riding frontward with the
+guns--this was rolling and rumbling on through the night up toward the
+glare and glamour of war. I was riding beside the captain at the head of
+the column. He broke silence.
+
+"It seems like a far cry from Honolulu with the moon playing through the
+palm trees on the beach," he said quizzically, "to this place and these
+scenes and events to-night, but a little thing like a flip of coin
+decided it for me, and I'm blessing that coin to-night.
+
+"A year ago January, before we came into the war, I was stationed at San
+Antonio. Another officer friend of mine was stationed there and one day
+he received orders to report for duty at Honolulu. He had a girl in San
+Antonio and didn't want to leave her and he knew I didn't have a girl
+and didn't give a damn where I went, or was sent, so long as it was with
+the army. He put up the proposition of mutual exchange being permitted
+under regulations.
+
+"He wanted to take my place in San Antonio and give me his assignment in
+Honolulu, which I must say looked mighty good in those days to anybody
+who was tired of Texas. I didn't think then we'd ever come to war and
+besides it didn't make much difference to me one way or the other where
+I went. But instead of accepting the proposition right off the reel, I
+told Jim we'd flip a coin to decide.
+
+"If it came tails, he would go to Honolulu. If it came heads, I would go
+to Honolulu. He flipped. Tails won. I'm in France and poor Jim is out
+there in Honolulu tending the Ukulele crop with prospects of having to
+stay there for some time. Poor devil, I got a letter from him last week.
+
+"Do you know, man knows no keener joy in the world than that which I
+have to-night. Here I am in France at the head of two hundred and fifty
+men and horses and the guns and we're rolling up front to kick a dent in
+history. The poor unfortunate that ain't in this fight has almost got
+license to shoot himself. Life knows no keener joy than this."
+
+It was a long speech for our captain, but his words expressed not only
+the feeling of our battery, but our whole regiment, from the humblest
+wagon driver up to the colonel who, by the way, has just made himself
+most unpopular with the regiment by being promoted to a Brigadier
+Generalship. The colonel is passing upward to a higher command and the
+regiment is sore on losing him. One of his humblest critics has
+characterised the event as the "first rough trick the old man ever
+pulled."
+
+Midnight passed and we were still wheeling our way through sleeping
+villages, consulting maps under rays of flashlights, gathering
+directions some of the time from mile posts and wall signs, and at other
+times gaining knowledge of roads and turns and hills from sleepy heads
+in curl wrappers that protruded from bedroom chambers and were
+over-generous in advice.
+
+The animals were tired. Rain soaked the cigarettes and made them draw
+badly. Above was drizzle and below was mud. There were a few grumbles,
+but no man in our column would have traded places with a brother back
+home even if offered a farm to boot.
+
+It was after three in the morning when we parked the guns in front of a
+chateau, brought forward some lagging combat wagons and discovered the
+rolling kitchen had gone astray. In another hour the animals had been
+unhitched but not unharnessed, fed and watered in darkness and the men,
+in utter weariness, prepared to lie down and sleep anywhere. At this
+juncture, word was passed through the sections that the battery would
+get ready to move immediately. Orders were to clear the village by six
+o'clock. Neither men nor horses were rested, but we moved out on time
+and breakfasted on the road.
+
+The way seemed long, the roads bad and the guns heavy. But we were
+passing through an Eden of beauty--green fields and rolling hills
+crested by ancient chateaux. At times, the road wound down through
+hillside orchards, white and pink with apple blooms. Fatigue was heavy
+on man and beast, but I heard one walking cannoneer singing, "When It's
+Apple Blossom-time in Normandie." Another rider in the column recalled
+the time when his father used to give him ten cents for standing on the
+bottom of an upturned tin basin and reciting, "Over the mountains
+winding down, horse and foot into Frederickstown."
+
+"The jar of these guns as they grind over the gravel is enough to grind
+the heart out of you," said a sweating cannoneer who was pressing a
+helping shoulder to one of the heavies as we negotiated a steep hill.
+
+"What in hell you kicking about," said the man opposite. "Suppose you
+was travelling with one of them guns the Germans are using on Paris--I
+mean that old John J. Longdistance. You'd know what heavy guns are then.
+They say that the gun's so big and takes so many horses to haul it, that
+the man who drives the lead pair has never spent the night in the same
+town with the fellow who rides wheel swing."
+
+A young reserve lieutenant with mind intensely on his work, combined for
+my benefit his impressions of scenery with a lesson in artillery
+location. His characterisation of the landscape was as technical as it
+was unpoetical.
+
+"A great howitzer country," was the tenor of his remarks. "Look at the
+bottom of that slide. Fine position for one fifty-five. Take that gully
+over there. That's a beaut of a place. No use talking. Great howitzer
+country."
+
+During the afternoon, a veterinarian turned over two horses to a French
+peasant. One was exhausted and unable to proceed, and the other suffered
+a bad hoof, which would require weeks for healing. News that both
+animals were not going to be shot was received with joy by two men who
+had ridden them. I saw them patting the disabled mounts affectionately
+on the neck and heard one of them say,
+
+"'Salright, old timer--'salright. Frenchy here is going to take care of
+you all right. Uncle Sam's paying the bill and I am coming back and get
+you soon's we give Fritzie his bumps."
+
+An hour later, a young cannoneer gave in to fatigue and ignored orders
+to the extent of reclining on gun trail and falling asleep. A rut in the
+road made a stiff jolt, he rolled off and one ponderous wheel of the gun
+carriage passed over him. One leg, one arm and two ribs were broken and
+his feet crushed, was the doctor's verdict as the victim was carried
+away in an ambulance.
+
+"He'll get better all right," said the medico, "but he's finished his
+bit in the army."
+
+The column halted for lunch outside of a small town and I climbed on
+foot to the hilltop castle where mediaeval and modern were mixed in mute
+melange. A drawbridge crossed a long dry moat to cracked walls of rock
+covered with ivy. For all its well preserved signs of artistic ruin, it
+was occupied and well fitted within. From the topmost parapet of one
+rickety looking tower, a wire stretched out through the air to an old,
+ruined mill which was surmounted by a modern wind motor, the tail of
+which incongruously advertised the words "Ideal power," with the
+typical conspicuity of American salesmanship.
+
+Near the base of the old mill was another jumble of moss-covered rocks,
+now used as a summer house, but open on all sides. At a table in the
+centre of this open structure, sat a blond haired young American soldier
+with black receivers clamped to either ear. I approached and watched him
+jotting down words on a paper pad before him. After several minutes of
+intent silence, he removed the harness from his head and told me that he
+belonged to the wireless outfit with the artillery and this station had
+been in operation since the day before.
+
+"Seems so peaceful here with the sun streaming down over these old
+walls," he said.
+
+"What do you hear out of the air?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, we pick up a lot of junk," he replied, "I'm waiting for the German
+communique now. Here's some Spanish stuff I just picked up and some more
+junk in French. The English stations haven't started this afternoon. A
+few minutes ago I heard a German aeroplane signalling by wireless to a
+German battery and directing its fire. I could tell every time the gun
+was ordered to fire and every time the aviator said the shot was short
+or over. It's kinder funny to sit back here in quiet and listen in the
+war, isn't it?" I agreed it was weird and it was.
+
+In darkness again at the end of a hard day on the road, we parked the
+guns that night in a little village which was headquarters for our
+regiment and where I spent the night writing by an old oil lamp in the
+Mayor's office. A former Chicago bellhop who spoke better Italian than
+English and naturally should, was sleeping on a blanket roll on the
+floor near me. On the walls of the room were posted numerous flag-decked
+proclamations, some now yellow with the time that had passed over them
+since their issue back in 1914. They pertained to the mobilisation of
+the men of the village, men whose names remain now only as a memory.
+
+But in their place was the new khaki-clad Chicago bellhop snoring there
+on the floor and several thousand more as sturdy and ready as he, all
+billeted within a stone's throw of that room. They were here to finish
+the fight begun by those village peasants who had marched away four
+years before when the Mayor of the town posted that bulletin. These
+Americans stood ready to go down to honoured graves beside them.
+
+Our division was under the French high command and was buried in the
+midst of the mighty preparations then on foot. Our ranks were full, our
+numbers strong, our morale high. Every officer and man in the
+organisation had the feeling that the eyes of dashing French
+comrades-in-arms and hard fighting British brothers were on them. Our
+inspiration was in the belief that the attention of the Allied nations
+of the world and more particularly the hope and pride of our own people
+across the sea, was centred upon us. With that sacred feeling, the first
+division stood resolute to meet the test.
+
+Some of the disquieting news then prevalent in the nervous civilian
+areas back of the lines, reached us, but its effect, as far as I could
+see, was nil. Our officers and men were as unconcerned about the reports
+of enemy successes as though we were children in the nursery of a
+burning house and the neighbourhood was ringing with fire alarms. German
+advances before Amiens, enemy rushes gaining gory ground in Flanders,
+carried no shock to the high resolve that existed in the Allied reserves
+of which we were a part.
+
+Our army knew nothing but confidence. If there was other than optimism
+to be derived from the current events, then our army was inclined to
+consider such a result as gratifying, because it could be calculated to
+create a greater measure of speed and assistance from the slowly
+functioning powers in America. The reasoning was that any possible
+pessimism would hurry to the wheel every American shoulder that had
+failed to take up its individual war burden under the wave of optimism.
+The army had another reason for its optimism. Our officers knew
+something about the dark days that had preceded the first battle at the
+Marne. They were familiar with the gloomy outlook in 1914 that had led
+to the hurried removal of the French government from Paris to Bordeaux.
+Our men recalled how the enemy was then overrunning Belgium, how the old
+British "Contemptibles" were in retreat, and how the German was within
+twenty miles of the French capital.
+
+In that crisis had come the message by Foch and the brilliant stroke
+with which he backed it up. What followed was the tumble and collapse of
+the straddling German effort and the forced transformation in the
+enemy's plans from a war of six weeks to a war of four years.
+
+Our army knew the man who turned the trick at the Marne. We knew that we
+were under his command, and not the slightest doubt existed but that it
+was now our destiny to take part in another play of the cards which
+would call and cash the German hand. Our forces in the coming
+engagements were staking their lives, to a man, on Foch's ace in the
+hole.
+
+That was the deadly earnestness of our army's confidence in Foch. The
+capture of a hill top in Picardy or the loss of a village in Flanders
+had no effect upon that confidence. It found reinforcement in the
+belief that since March 21st, America had gained a newer and keener
+appreciation of her part in the war.
+
+Our army began to feel that the American people, more than three
+thousand miles away from the battle fronts, would have a better
+understanding of the intense meaning that had been already conveyed in
+General Pershing's words, "Confidence is needed but overconfidence is
+dangerous." In other words, our soldiers in the field began to feel that
+home tendencies that underrated the enemy's strength and underestimated
+the effort necessary to overcome him, had been corrected. The army had
+long felt that such tendencies had made good material for Billy Sunday's
+sermons and spread-eagle speeches, but they hadn't loaded guns or placed
+men in the front line.
+
+We felt that this crisis had brought to America a better realisation of
+the fact that Germany had not been beaten and that she was yet to be
+beaten and that America's share in the administration of that beating
+would have to be greater and more determined than had heretofore been
+deemed necessary. It was the hope of the army that this realisation
+would reach the people with a shock. Shocks were known to make
+realisations less easy to forget. Forgetfulness from then on might have
+meant Allied defeat.
+
+Lagging memories found no billet in the personnel of that First
+Division. Its records, registering five hundred casualties, kept in mind
+the fact that the division had seen service on the line and still had
+scores to settle with the enemy.
+
+Its officers and men, with but few exceptions, had undergone their
+baptism in German fire and had found the experience not distasteful. The
+division had esprit which made the members of every regiment and
+brigade in it vie with the members of any other regiment and brigade.
+If you had asked any enlisted man in the division, he would have told
+you that his company, battery, regiment or brigade "had it all over the
+rest of them."
+
+That was the feeling that our division brought with them when we marched
+into Picardy to meet the German push. That was the spirit that dominated
+officers and men during the ten days that we spent in manoeuvres and
+preparations in that concentration area in the vicinity of the ancient
+town of Chaumont-en-Vexin in the department of the Oise. It was the
+feeling that made us anxious and eager to move on up to the actual
+front.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+UNDER FIRE
+
+
+On the day before our departure for the front from the concentration
+area in Picardy, every officer in the division, and they numbered almost
+a thousand, was summoned to the temporary divisional headquarters, where
+General Pershing addressed to them remarks which have since become known
+as the commander's "farewell to the First." We had passed out from his
+command and from then on our orders were to come from the commander of
+the French army to which the division was to be attached.
+
+General Pershing stood on a mound at the rear of a beautiful chateau of
+Norman architecture, the Chateau du Jard, located on the edge of the
+town of Chaumont-en-Vexin. The officers ranged themselves in informal
+rows on the grass. Birds were singing somewhere above in the dense,
+green foliage, and sunlight was filtering through the leaves of the
+giant trees.
+
+The American commander spoke of the traditions which every American
+soldier should remember in the coming trials. He referred to the
+opportunity then present for us, whose fathers established liberty in
+the New World, now to assist the Old World in throwing off its yoke of
+tyranny. Throughout this touching farewell to the men he had trained--to
+his men then leaving for scenes from which some of them would never
+return--the commander's voice never betrayed the depth of feeling behind
+it.
+
+That night we made final arrangements for the morrow's move. I
+travelled with the artillery where orders were received for the
+reduction of all packs to the lightest possible as all men would be
+dismounted and the baggage wagons would be reserved for food, ammunition
+and officers' luggage only. Officers' packs, by the same order, had to
+shrink from one hundred and fifty pounds to twenty.
+
+There were many misgivings that night as owners were forced to discard
+cherished belongings. Cumbersome camp paraphernalia, rubber bathtubs,
+pneumatic mattresses, extra blankets, socks, sweaters, etc., all parted
+company from erstwhile owners. That order caused many a heart-break and
+the abandonment of thousands of dollars' worth of personal equipment in
+our area.
+
+I have no doubt that some of the village maidens were surprised at the
+remarkable generosity of officers and men who presented them with
+expensive toilet sets. Marie at the village _estaminet_ received five of
+them all fitted in neat leather rolls and inscribed with as many
+different sets of initials. The old men of the town gloried in the
+sweaters, woollen socks and underwear.
+
+There was no chance to fudge on the slim baggage order. An officer,
+bound by duty, weighed each officer's kit as it reached the baggage
+wagons and those tipping the scales at more than the prescribed twenty
+pounds, were thrown out entirely. I happened to be watching the loading
+when it came turn for the regimental band to stow away its encased
+instruments in one wagon. It must be remembered that musicians at the
+front are stretcher bearers. The baggage judge lifted the case
+containing the bass horn.
+
+"No horn in the world ever weighed that much," he said. "Open it up,"
+was the terse command. The case was opened and the base horn pulled out.
+The baggage officer began operations on the funnel. I watched him
+remove from the horn's interior two spare blankets, four pairs of socks,
+an extra pair of pants and a carton of cigarettes. He then inserted his
+arm up to the shoulder in the instrument's innards and brought forth two
+apples, a small tin of blackberry jam and an egg wrapped in an
+undershirt.
+
+The man who played the "umpah umpah" in the band was heartbroken. The
+clarinet player, who had watched the operation and whose case followed
+for inspection, saved the inspector trouble by removing an easily hidden
+chain of sausage. I noticed one musician who was observing the ruthless
+pillage but, strangely, his countenance was the opposite of the others.
+He was actually smiling. I inquired the cause of his mirth.
+
+"When we packed up, those guys with the big hollow instruments all had
+the laugh on me," he said. "Now I've got it on them. I play the
+piccolo."
+
+All the mounted men under the rank of battery commanders were dismounted
+in order to save the horses for any possibilities in the war of
+movement. A dismounted artilleryman carrying a pack and also armed with
+a rifle, is a most disconsolate subject to view just prior to setting
+out for a long tramp. In his opinion, he has been reduced too near the
+status of the despised doughboy.
+
+It really doesn't seem like artillery unless one has a horse to ride and
+a saddle to strap one's pack on. In the lineup before we started, I saw
+two of these gunners standing by weighted down with their cumbersome,
+unaccustomed packs. They were backed against a stone wall and were
+easing their burdens by resting the packs on the stone ledge. Another
+one similarly burdened passed and, in a most serious tone, inquired:
+
+"Say, would either of you fellows like to buy another blanket roll?" The
+reply of two dejected gunners would bar this story from publication.
+
+We were on the march early in the morning, but not without some initial
+confusion by reason of the inevitable higher orders which always come at
+the last minute to change programmes. On parallel roads through that
+zone of unmarred beauty which the Normans knew, our columns swung along
+the dusty highroads.
+
+There were many who held that America would not be thoroughly awake to
+the full meaning of her participation in the war until the day there
+came back from the battlefields a long list of casualties--a division
+wiped out or decimated. Many had heard the opinions expressed in France
+and many firmly believed that nothing short of such a shock would arouse
+our nation to the exertion of the power and speed necessary to save the
+Allied cause from defeat.
+
+On this march, that thought recurred to some and perhaps to many who
+refrained soberly from placing it in words. I knew several in the
+organisation who felt that we were on our way to that sacrifice. I can
+not estimate in how many minds the thought became tangible, but among
+several whom I heard seriously discussing the matter, I found a perfect
+willingness on their part to meet the unknown--to march on to the
+sacrifice with the feeling that if the loss of their life would help
+bring about a greater prosecution of the war by our country, then they
+would not have died in vain.
+
+If this was the underlying spirit, it had no effect whatever upon
+outward appearances which could hardly be better described than with
+Cliff Raymond's lilting words: "There are roses in their rifles just the
+same." If this move was on to the sacrifice--if death awaited at the
+end of the road, then those men were marching toward it with a song.
+
+It takes a hard march to test the morale of soldiers. When the feet are
+road-sore, when the legs ache from the endless pounding of hobnails on
+hard macadam, when the pack straps cut and burn to the shoulder blades,
+and the tin hat weighs down like a crown of thorns, then keep your ear
+open for a jest and if your hearing is rewarded, you will know that you
+march with men.
+
+Many times that first day, those jests came to enliven dejected spirits
+and put smiles on sweat-rinsed faces. I recall our battery as it
+negotiated the steep hills. When the eight horses attached to the gun
+carriages were struggling to pull them up the incline, a certain
+subaltern with a voice slow, but damnably insistent, would sing out,
+"Cannoneers, to the wheels." This reiterated command at every grade
+forced aching shoulders already weary with their own burdens to strain
+behind the heavy carriages and ease the pull on the animals.
+
+Once on a down grade, our way crossed the tracks of a narrow gauge
+railroad. Not far from the crossing could be seen a dinky engine puffing
+and snorting furiously in terrific effort to move up the hill its
+attached train of loaded ammunition cars. The engine was having a hard
+fight when some light-hearted weary one in our column gave voice to
+something which brought up the smile.
+
+"Cannoneers, to the wheel!" was the shout and even the dignified
+subaltern whose pet command was the butt of the exclamation, joined in
+the wave of laughs that went down the line.
+
+An imposing chateau of the second empire now presided over by an
+American heiress, the wife of a French officer, was regimental
+headquarters that night. Its barns and outbuildings were the cleanest
+in France according to individuals who had slept in so many barns that
+they feel qualified to judge.
+
+"Painfully sanitary," said a young lieutenant, who remarked that the
+tile floor might make a stable smell sweeter but it hardly offered the
+slumbering possibilities of a straw shakedown. While the men arranged
+their blankets in those quarters, the horses grazed and rolled in green
+paddocks fenced with white painted rails. The cooks got busy with the
+evening meal and the men off duty started exploring the two nearby
+villages.
+
+For the American soldier, financial deals were always a part of these
+explorations. It was seldom more than an hour after his arrival in a
+populated village before the stock market and board of trade were in
+full operation. These mobile establishments usually were set up in the
+village square if headquarters did not happen to be located too close.
+There were plenty to play the roles of bulls and bears; there was much
+bidding and shouting of quotations.
+
+The dealings were not in bushels of wheat or shares in oils or rails.
+Delicacies were the bartered commodities and of these, eggs were the
+strongest. The German intelligence service could have found no surer way
+to trace the peregrinations of American troops about France, than to
+follow up the string of eggless villages they left behind them.
+
+As soon as billets were located, those without extra duty began the egg
+canvass of the town. There was success for those who made the earliest
+start and struck the section with the most prolific hens. Eggs were
+bought at various prices before news of the American arrivals had caused
+peasants to set up a new scale of charges. The usual late starter and
+the victim of arrangements was the officer's striker who lost valuable
+time by having to take care of his officer's luggage and get the latter
+established in billets. It was then his duty to procure eggs for the
+officer's mess.
+
+By that time, all natural egg sources had been obliterated and the only
+available supply was cornered by the soldiers' board of trade. The
+desired breakfast food could be obtained in that place only. It was the
+last and only resort of the striker, who is euphoniously known as a dog
+robber. In the board of trade he would find soldiers with helmets full
+of eggs which could be bought at anywhere from two to three times their
+original price. It was only by the payment of such prices that the
+officer was able to get anything that could possibly leave a trace of
+yellow on his chin. If there was a surplus, the soldiers themselves had
+ample belt room to accommodate it.
+
+In one village tavern, I saw one soldier eat fourteen eggs which he
+ordered Madame to fry in succession. I can believe it because I saw it.
+Madame saw it also, but I feel that she did not believe her eyes. A
+captain of the Judge Advocate's office also witnessed the gastronomic
+feat.
+
+"Every one of those eggs was bought and paid for," he said. "Our
+department handles claims for all stolen or destroyed property and we
+have yet to receive the first claim from this town. Of course every one
+knows that a hungry man will steal to eat and there are those who hold
+that theft for the purpose of satisfying demands of the stomach is not
+theft. But our records show that the American soldier in France is ready
+to, willing to, and capable of buying what he needs outside of his
+ration allowance.
+
+"We have some instances of stealing, but most of them are trivial.
+Recently, we took from the pay of one whole battalion the cost of
+thirty-one cheeses which were taken from a railroad restaurant counter.
+The facts were that some of our troops en route were hungry and the
+train was stopping only for five minutes and the woman behind the
+counter didn't have time to even take, much less change, the money
+offered, so the men grabbed the cheeses and ran out just in time to
+board the train as it was moving off.
+
+"There was one case, though, in which Uncle Sam didn't have the heart to
+charge any one. He paid the bill himself and maybe if you could send the
+story back home, the citizens who paid it would get a laugh worth the
+money. It happened during a recent cold spell when some of our troops
+were coming from seaboard to the interior. They travelled in semi-opened
+horse cars and it was cold, damn cold.
+
+"One of the trains stopped in front of a small railroad station and six
+soldiers with cold hands and feet jumped from the car and entered the
+waiting room, in the centre of which was a large square coal stove with
+red hot sides. One man stood on another one's shoulders and disjointed
+the stove pipe. At the same time, two others placed poles under the
+bottom of the stove, lifted it off the floor and walked out of the room
+with it.
+
+"They placed it in the horse car, stuck the pipe out of one door and
+were warm for the remainder of the trip. It was the first time in the
+history of that little village that anybody had ever stolen a red hot
+stove. The French government, owning the railroads, made claim against
+us for four hundred francs for the stove and eleven francs' worth of
+coal in it. Uncle Sam paid the bill and was glad to do it.
+
+"I know of only one case to beat that one and that concerned an
+infantryman who stole a hive full of honey and took the bees along with
+it. The medical department handled one aspect of the case and the
+provost marshal the other. The bees meted out some of the punishment and
+we stung his pay for the costs."
+
+There was one thing, however, that men on the move found it most
+difficult to steal and that was sleep. So at least it seemed the next
+morning when we swung into the road at daybreak and continued our march
+into the north. Much speculation went the rounds as to our destination.
+The much debated question was as to whether our forces would be
+incorporated with Foch's reserve armies and held in readiness for a
+possible counter offensive, or whether we should be placed in one of the
+line armies and assigned to holding a position in the path of the German
+push. But all this conjecture resulted in nothing more than passing the
+time. Our way led over byroads and side lanes which the French master of
+circulation had laid down for us.
+
+Behind an active front, the French sanctified their main roads and
+reserved them for the use of fast motor traffic and the rushing up of
+supplies or reserves in cases of necessity. Thousands of poilus too old
+for combat duty did the repair work on these main arteries. All minor
+and slow moving traffic was side-tracked to keep the main line clear. At
+times we were forced to cross the main highroads and then we encountered
+the forward and backward stream of traffic to and from the front. At one
+of those intersections, I sought the grass bank at the side of the road
+for rest. Two interesting actors in this great drama were there before
+me. One was an American soldier wearing a blue brassard with the white
+letters M. P. He was a military policeman on duty as a road marker
+whose function is to regulate traffic and prevent congestion.
+
+Beside him was seated a peculiar looking person whose knee length skirts
+of khaki exposed legs encased in wrap puttees. A motor coat of yellow
+leather and the visored cap of a British Tommy completed the costume.
+The hair showing beneath the crown of the cap was rather long and
+straight, but betrayed traces of having been recently close cropped. For
+all her masculine appearance, she was French and the young road marker
+was lavishing upon her everything he had gleaned in a Freshman year of
+French in a Spokane high school.
+
+I offered my cigarette case and was surprised when the girl refrained.
+That surprise increased when I saw her extract from a leather case of
+her own a full fledged black cigar which she proceeded to light and
+smoke with gusto. When I expressed my greater surprise, she increased it
+by shrugging her shoulders prettily, plunging one gauntleted hand into a
+side pocket and producing a pipe with a pouch of tobacco.
+
+There was nothing dainty about that pipe. It had no delicate amber stem
+nor circlet of filigree gold. There was no meerschaum ornamentation. It
+was just a good old Jimmy pipe with a full-grown cake in the black burnt
+bowl, and a well bitten, hard rubber mouth piece. It looked like one of
+those that father used to consent to have boiled once a year, after
+mother had charged it with rotting the lace curtains. If war makes men
+of peace-time citizens, then----
+
+[Illustration: FIRST OF THE GREAT FRANCO-AMERICAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AT
+CHATEAU-THIERRY. THE FRENCH BABY TANKS, KNOWN AS "CHARS D'ASSAUTS,"
+ENTERING THE WOOD OF VILLERS-COTTERETS, SOUTHWEST OF SOISSONS]
+
+[Illustration: YANKS AND POILUS VIEWING THE CITY OF CHATEAU-THIERRY,
+WHERE, IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, THE YANKS TURNED THE TIDE OF BATTLE
+AGAINST THE HUNS]
+
+But she was a girl and her name was Yvonne. The red-winged letter on her
+coat lapel placed her in the automobile service and the motor ambulance
+stationed at the road side explained her special branch of work. She
+inquired the meaning of my correspondent's insignia and then
+explained that she had drawn pastelles for a Paris publication before
+the war, but had been transporting _blesses_ since. The French lesson
+proceeded and Spokane Steve and I learned from her that the longest word
+in the French language is spelled "Anticonstitutionellement." I
+expressed the hope that some day both of us would be able to pronounce
+it.
+
+On the girl's right wrist was a silver chain bracelet with
+identification disk. In response to our interested gaze, she exhibited
+it to us, and upon her own volition, informed us that she was a
+descendant of the same family as Jeanne d'Arc. Steve heard and winked to
+me with a remark that they couldn't pull any stuff like that on anybody
+from Spokane, because he had never heard that that Maid of Orleans had
+been married. Yvonne must have understood the last word because she
+explained forthwith that she had not claimed direct descendence from the
+famous Jeanne, but from the same family. Steve looked her in the eye and
+said, "Jay compraw."
+
+She explained the meaning of the small gold and silver medals suspended
+from the bracelet. She detached two and presented them to us. One of
+them bore in relief the image of a man in flowing robes carrying a child
+on his shoulder, and the reverse depicted a tourist driving a motor
+through hilly country.
+
+"That is St. Christophe," said Yvonne. "He is the patron saint of
+travellers. His medal is good luck against accidents on the road. Here
+is one of St. Elias. He is the new patron saint of the aviators. You
+remember. Didn't he go to heaven in a fiery chariot, or fly up on golden
+wings or something like that? Anyhow, all the aviators wear one of his
+medals."
+
+St. Christophe was attached to my identification disk. Steve declared
+infantrymen travelled too slowly ever to have anything happen to them
+and that he was going to give his to a friend who drove a truck. When I
+fell in line with the next passing battery and moved down the road,
+Spokane Steve and the Yvonne of the family of Jeanne had launched into a
+discussion of prize fighting and chewing tobacco.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In billets that night, in a village not far from Beauvais, the singing
+contest for the prize of fifty dollars offered by the battalion
+commander Major Robert R. McCormick was resumed with intense rivalry
+between the tenors and basses of batteries A and B. A "B" Battery man
+was croaking Annie Laurie, when an "A" Battery booster in the audience
+remarked audibly,
+
+"Good Lord, I'd rather hear first call." First call is the bugle note
+that disturbs sleep and starts the men on the next day's work.
+
+A worried lieutenant found me in the crowd around the rolling kitchen
+and inquired:
+
+"Do you know whether there's a provost guard on that inn down the road?"
+I couldn't inform him, but inquired the reason for his alarm.
+
+"I've got a hunch that the prune juice is running knee deep to-night,"
+he replied, "and I don't want any of my section trying to march
+to-morrow with swelled heads."
+
+"Prune juice" is not slang. It is a veritable expression and anybody who
+thinks that the favourite of the boarding house table cannot produce a
+fermented article that is _tres fort_ in the way of a throat burner, is
+greatly mistaken. In France the fermented juice of the prune is called
+"water of life," but it carries a "dead to the world" kick. The simple
+prune, which the army used to call "native son" by reason of its
+California origin, now ranks with its most inebriating sisters of the
+vine.
+
+The flow of _eau de vie_ must have been dammed at the inn. On the road
+the next day, I saw a mule driver wearing a sixteen candle power black
+eye. When I inquired the source of the lamp shade, he replied:
+
+"This is my first wound in the war of movement. Me and the cop had an
+offensive down in that town that's spelt like Sissors but you say it
+some other way." I knew he was thinking of Gisors.
+
+The third and fourth day's march brought us into regions nearer the
+front, where the movement of refugees on the roads seemed greater, where
+the roll of the guns came constantly from the north, where enemy motors
+droned through the air on missions of frightfulness.
+
+There was a major in our regiment whose knowledge of French was confined
+to the single affirmative exclamation, "Ah, oui." He worked this
+expression constantly in the French conversation with a refugee woman
+from the invaded districts. She with her children occupied one room in
+the cottage. When the major started to leave, two days later, the
+refugee woman addressed him in a reproving tone and with tears. He could
+only reply with sympathetic "Ah, oui's," which seemed to make her all
+the more frantic.
+
+An interpreter straightened matters out by informing the major that the
+woman wanted to know why he was leaving without getting her furniture.
+
+"What furniture?" replied the puzzled major.
+
+"Why, she says," said the interpreter, "that you promised her you would
+send three army trucks to her house back of the German lines and bring
+all of her household goods to this side of the line. She says that she
+explained all of it to you and you said, 'Ah, oui.'"
+
+The major has since abandoned the "ah, oui" habit.
+
+At one o'clock one morning, orders reached the battalion for
+reconnaissance detail; each battery to be ready to take road by
+daylight. We were off at break of day in motor trucks with a reel cart
+of telephone wire hitched on behind. Thirty minutes later we rumbled
+along roads under range of German field pieces and arrived in a village
+designated as battalion headquarters to find that we were first to reach
+the sector allotted for American occupation. The name of the town was
+Serevilliers.
+
+Our ears did not delude us about the activity of the sector, but I found
+that officers and men of the detail were inclined to accept the heavy
+shelling in a non-committal manner until a French interpreter attached
+to us remarked that artillery action in the sector was as intense as any
+he had experienced at Verdun.
+
+If the ever present crash of shells reminded us that we were opposite
+the peak of the German push, there was plenty of work to engage minds
+that might otherwise have paid too much attention to the dangers of
+their location. A chalk cellar with a vaulted ceiling and ventilators,
+unfortunately opening on the enemy side of the upper structure, was
+selected as the battalion command post. The men went to work immediately
+to remove piles of dirty billeting straw under which was found glass,
+china, silverware and family portraits, all of which had been hurriedly
+buried by the owners of the house not two weeks before.
+
+While linemen planned communications, and battery officers surveyed gun
+positions, the battalion commander and two orienting officers went
+forward to the frontal zone to get the first look at our future targets
+and establish observation posts from which our firing could be
+directed. I accompanied the small party, which was led by a French
+officer familiar with the sector. It was upon his advice that we left
+the roads and took cuts across fields, avoiding the path and road
+intersections and taking advantage of any shelter offered by the ground.
+
+Virgin fields on our way bore the enormous craters left by the explosion
+of poorly directed German shells of heavy calibre. Orders were to throw
+ourselves face downward upon the ground upon the sound of each
+approaching missile. There is no text book logic on judging from the
+sound of a shell whether it has your address written on it, but it is
+surprising how quick that education may be obtained by experience.
+Several hours of walking and dropping to the ground resulted in an
+attuning of the ears which made it possible to judge approximately
+whether that oncoming, whining, unseen thing from above would land
+dangerously near or ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common
+to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the sounds. Time
+after time the collective judgment and consequent prostration of the
+entire party was proven well timed by the arrival of a shell
+uncomfortably close.
+
+We gained a wooded hillside that bristled with busy French
+seventy-fives, which the German tried in vain to locate with his
+howitzer fire. We mounted a forest plateau, in the centre of which a
+beautiful white chateau still held out against the enemy's best efforts
+to locate it with his guns. One shell addressed in this special
+direction fortunately announced its coming with such unmistakable
+vehemence that our party all landed in the same shell hole at once.
+
+Every head was down when the explosion came. Branches and pieces of tree
+trunk were whirled upward, and the air became populated with deadly
+bumble bees and humming birds, for such is the sound that the shell
+splinters make. When I essayed our shell hole afterward, I couldn't
+fathom how five of us had managed to accommodate ourselves in it, but in
+the rush of necessity, no difficulty had been found.
+
+Passing from the woods forward, one by one, over a bald field, we
+skirted a village that was being heavily shelled, and reached a trench
+on the side of the hill in direct view of the German positions. The
+enemy partially occupied the ruined village of Cantigny not eight
+hundred yards away, but our glasses were unable to pick up the trace of
+a single person in the debris. French shells, arriving endlessly in the
+village, shot geysers of dust and wreckage skyward. It was from this
+village, several days later, that our infantry patrols brought in
+several prisoners, all of whom were suffering from shell shock. But our
+men in the village opposite underwent the same treatment at the hands of
+the German artillery.
+
+It was true of this sector that what corresponded to the infantry front
+line was a much safer place to be in than in the reserve positions, or
+about the gun pits in villages or along roads in our back area. Front
+line activity was something of minor consideration, as both sides seemed
+to have greater interests at other points and, in addition to that, the
+men of both sides were busy digging trenches and shelters. There were
+numerous machine gun posts which swept with lead the indeterminate
+region between the lines, and at night, patrols from both sides explored
+as far as possible the holdings of the other side.
+
+Returning to the battalion headquarters that night by a route apparently
+as popular to German artillery as was the one we used in the forenoon,
+we found a telephone switchboard in full operation in the sub-cellar,
+and mess headquarters established in a clean kitchen above the ground.
+Food was served in the kitchen and we noticed that one door had suffered
+some damage which had caused it to be boarded up and that the plaster
+ceiling of the room was full of fresh holes and rents in a dozen places.
+At every shock to the earth, a little stream of oats would come through
+the holes from the attic above. These falling down on the officer's neck
+in the midst of a meal, would have no effect other than causing him to
+call for his helmet to ward off the cereal rain.
+
+We learned more about the sinister meaning of that broken door and the
+ceiling holes when it became necessary later in the evening to move mess
+to a safer location. The kitchen was located just thirty yards back of
+the town cross roads and an unhealthy percentage of German shells that
+missed the intersection caused too much interruption in our cook's work.
+
+We found that the mess room was vacant by reason of the fact that it had
+become too unpleasant for French officers, who had relinquished it the
+day before. We followed their suite and were not surprised when an
+infantry battalion mess followed us into the kitchen and just one day
+later, to the hour, followed us out of it.
+
+Lying on the floor in that chalk cellar that night and listening to the
+pound of arriving shells on nearby cross roads and battery positions, we
+estimated how long it would be before this little village would be
+completely levelled to the ground. Already gables were disappearing from
+houses, sturdy chimneys were toppling and stone walls were showing
+jagged gaps. One whole wall of the village school had crumbled before
+one blast, so that now the wooden desks and benches of the pupils and
+their books and papers were exposed to view from the street. On the
+blackboard was a penmanship model which read:
+
+"Let no day pass without having saved something."
+
+An officer came down the dark stone steps into the cellar, kicked off
+his boots and lay down on some blankets in one corner.
+
+"I just heard some shells come in that didn't explode," I remarked. "Do
+you know whether they were gas or duds?"
+
+"I don't know whether they were gas or not," he said, "but I do know
+that that horse out in the yard is certainly getting ripe."
+
+The defunct animal referred to occupied an uncovered grave adjoining our
+ventilator. Sleeping in a gas mask was not the most unpleasant form of
+slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE CANTIGNY
+
+
+It is strange how sleep can come at the front in surroundings not unlike
+the interior of a boiler factory, but it does. I heard of no man who
+slept in the cellars beneath the ruins of Serevilliers that night being
+disturbed by the pounding of the shells and the jar of the ground, both
+of which were ever present through our dormant senses. Stranger still
+was the fact that at midnight when the shelling almost ceased, for small
+intervals, almost every sleeper there present was aroused by the sudden
+silence. When the shelling was resumed, sleep returned.
+
+"When I get back on the farm outside of Chicago," said one officer, "I
+don't believe I will be able to sleep unless I get somebody to stand
+under my window and shake a thunder sheet all night."
+
+It is also remarkable how the tired human, under such conditions, can
+turn off the switch on an energetic imagination and resign himself
+completely to fate. In those cellars that night, every man knew that one
+direct hit of a "two ten" German shell on his particular cellar wall,
+would mean taps for everybody in the cave. Such a possibility demands
+consideration in the slowest moving minds.
+
+Mentalities and morale of varying calibre cogitate upon this matter at
+varying lengths, but I doubt in the end if there is much difference in
+the conclusion arrived at. Such reflections produce the inevitable
+decision that if one particular shell is coming into your particular
+abode, there is nothing you can do to keep it out, so "What the hell!"
+You might just as well go to sleep and forget it because if it gets you,
+you most probably will never know anything about it anyway. I believe
+such is the philosophy of the shelled.
+
+It must have been three o'clock in the morning when a sputtering motor
+cycle came to a stop in the shelter of our cellar door and a gas guard
+standing there exchanged words with some one. It ended in the sound of
+hobnails on the stone steps as the despatch rider descended, lighting
+his way with the yellow shaft from an electric pocket lamp.
+
+"What is it?" inquired the Major, awakening and rolling over on his
+side.
+
+"Just come from regimental headquarters," said the messenger. "I'm
+carrying orders on to the next town. Adjutant gave me this letter to
+deliver to you, sir. The Adjutant's compliments, sir, and apologies for
+waking you, but he said the mail just arrived and the envelope looked
+important and he thought you might like to get it right away."
+
+"Hmm," said the Major, weighing the official looking envelope in one
+hand and observing both the American stamps in one corner and numerous
+addresses to which the missive had been forwarded. He tore off one end
+and extracted a sheet which he unfolded and read while the messenger
+waited at his request. I was prepared to hear of a promotion order from
+Washington and made ready to offer congratulations. The Major smiled and
+tossed the paper over to me, at the same time reaching for a notebook
+and fountain pen.
+
+"Hold a light for me," he said to the messenger as he sat on the edge of
+the bed and began writing. "This is urgent and I will make answer now.
+You will mail it at regimental headquarters." As his pen scratched
+across the writing pad, I read the letter he had just received. The
+stationery bore the heading of an alumni association of a well-known
+eastern university. The contents ran as follows:
+
+  "Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country? What are you doing
+  to help win the war? While our brave boys are in France facing the
+  Kaiser's shell and gas, the alumni association has directed me as
+  secretary to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite
+  them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We ask your
+  subscription to a fund which we are raising to send cigarettes to
+  young students of the university who are now serving with the
+  colours and who are so nobly maintaining the traditions of our Alma
+  Mater. Please fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession
+  and present occupation. Fraternally yours, ---- Secretary."
+
+The Major was watching me with a smile as I concluded reading.
+
+"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook leaf:
+
+  "Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little village in France.
+  With regard to my present profession, will inform you that I am an
+  expert in ammunition trafficking and am at present occupied in
+  exporting large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route.
+  Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes for
+  youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding the sacred
+  traditions of our school. After all, we old boys should do something
+  to help along the cause. Yours to best the Kaiser. ----, Major.
+  ---- Field Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France."
+
+"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major as he folded the
+letter and addressed an envelope. It rather seemed to me that it would
+but before I could finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his
+blankets.
+
+By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc wrought by the shells
+that had arrived in the night. I had thought in seeing refugees moving
+southward along the roads, that there was little variety of articles
+related to human existence that they failed to carry away with them. But
+one inspection of the abandoned abodes of the unfortunate peasants of
+Serevilliers was enough to convince me of the greater variety of things
+that had to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and the French
+peasants pride themselves upon never throwing anything away.
+
+The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded clothing of all ages,
+discarded but saved. Old shoes and dresses, ceremonial high hats and
+frock coats, brought forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on
+the floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. Shutters
+and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the village _estaminet_ much
+mud had been tracked in by exploring feet and the red tiled floor was
+littered with straw and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the
+antiquary.
+
+The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the
+six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this
+discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with
+three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet
+ball is a romping substitute when it hits the green cushions.
+
+That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the next town to the
+north. Men who do this job are, in my opinion, the most daring in any
+organisation that depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone
+communication. For them, there is no shelter when a deluge of shells
+pours upon a field across which their wire is laid. Without protection
+of any kind from the flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot
+to repair the cut wires and restore communication. During one of these
+shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side _abri_ and prepared to
+await clearer weather.
+
+In the distance, down the road, appeared a scudding cloud of dust. An
+occasional shell dropping close on either side of the road seemed to add
+speed to the apparition. As it drew closer, I could see that it was a
+motor cycle of the three wheeled bathtub variety. The rider on the cycle
+was bending close over his handle bars and apparently giving her all
+there was in her, but the bulky figure that filled to overflowing the
+side car, rode with his head well back.
+
+At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub contraption bounced on
+its springs, bow and stern rising and falling like a small ship in a
+rough sea. Its nearer approach revealed that the giant torso apparent
+above its rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment which might
+have marked the wearer as either the master of a four in hand or a
+Mississippi steamboat of the antebellum type. The enormous shoulders,
+thus draped, were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its
+rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as chin and double
+chin. The whole was topped by a huge fat cigar which sprouted upward
+from the elevated chin and at times gave forth clouds like the forward
+smoke-stack on the _Robert E. Lee_.
+
+I was trying to decide in my mind whether the elevated chin posture of
+the passenger was the result of pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's
+apple, when the scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting
+bank in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I occupied. As
+the machine came to halt, the superior chin depressed itself ninety
+degrees, and brought into view the smiling features of that smile-making
+gentleman from Paducah--Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine, rider and passenger
+stopped for breath and I made bold to ask the intrepid humourist if he
+suffered from a too keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar.
+
+"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an inordinate
+admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge Priest explained with
+reference to his former stiff-necked pose, "but George here," waving to
+the driver, "took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The jolt
+almost took my head off and the wind kept me from getting it back into
+position. George stuck his spurs into this here flying bootblack stand
+just about the time something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen
+stove half loaded with window weights and window panes. I think George
+made a record for this road. I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard."
+
+When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached the next deserted
+town without incident. It was almost the vesper hour or what had been
+the allotted time for that rite in those parts when I entered the yard
+of the village church, located in an exposed position at a cross roads
+on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable whirr sounded above and I
+threw myself on the ground just as the high velocity, small calibre
+German shell registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof
+and wall met.
+
+While steel splinters whistled through the air, an avalanche of slate
+tiles slid down the slanting surface of the roof, and fell in a
+clattering cascade on the graves in the yard below. I sought speedy
+shelter in the lee of a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the
+churchyard and one of them had landed on the final resting place of the
+family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble slab which had sealed the
+top of the sunken vault had been heaved aside and one wall was
+shattered, leaving open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy
+caskets lying in an orderly row.
+
+Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, surmounted by now unpainted
+wooden crosses on which were inscribed in pencil the names of French
+soldiers with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the
+tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior. In the soil at the
+head of each grave, an ordinary beer bottle had been planted neck
+downward, and through the glass one could see the paper scroll on which
+the name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved. While I
+wondered at this prosaic method of identification, an American soldier
+came around the corner of the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down
+on an old tombstone.
+
+"Stick around if you want to hear something good," he said, "That is if
+that last shell didn't bust the organ. There's a French poilu who has
+come up here every afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and
+he plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is great. Reminds
+me of when I was an altar boy, back in St. Paul."
+
+We waited and soon there came from the rickety old organ loft the
+soothing tones of an organ. The ancient pipes, sweetened by the
+benedictions of ages, poured forth melody to the touch of one whose
+playing was simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the graves as
+the rays of the dying sun brought to life new colouring in the leaded
+windows of stained glass behind which a soldier of France swayed at the
+ivory keyboard and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of death
+and destruction that might arrive through the air any minute.
+
+My companion informed me that the poilu at the organ wore a uniform of
+horizon blue which marked him as casual to this village, whose French
+garrisons were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki worn by all French
+colonials in service. The sign of the golden crescent on their collar
+tabs identified them as children of Mahomet and one would have known as
+much anyway upon seeing the use to which the large crucifix standing in
+what was the market place had been put.
+
+So as not to impede traffic through the place, it had become necessary
+to elevate the field telephone wires from the ground and send them
+across the road overhead. The crucifix in the centre of the place had
+presented itself as excellent support for this wire and the sons of the
+prophet had utilised it with no intention of disrespect. The uplifted
+right knee of the figure on the cross was insulated and wired. War, the
+moderniser and mocker of Christ, seemed to have devised new pain for the
+Teacher of Peace. The crucifixion had become the electrocution.
+
+At the foot of the cross had been nailed a rudely made sign conveying to
+all who passed the French warning that this was an exposed crossing and
+should be negotiated rapidly. Fifty yards away another board bore the
+red letters R. A. S. and by following the direction indicated by arrows,
+one arrived at the cellar in which the American doctor had established a
+Relief Aid Station. The Medico had furnished his subterranean apartments
+with furniture removed from the house above.
+
+"Might as well bring it down here and make the boys comfortable," he
+said, "as to leave it up there and let shells make kindling out of it.
+Funny thing about these cellars. Ones with western exposure--that is,
+with doors and ventilators opening on the side away from the enemy seem
+scarcest. That seems to have been enough to have revived all that talk
+about German architects having had something to do with the erection of
+those buildings before the war. You remember at one time it was said
+that a number of houses on the front had been found to have plaster
+walls on the side nearest the enemy and stone walls on the other side.
+There might be something to it, but I doubt it."
+
+Across the street an American battalion headquarters had been
+established on the first floor and in the basement of the house, which
+appeared the most pretentious in the village. Telephone wires now
+entered the building through broken window panes, and within maps had
+been tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to the hard
+usage demanded by war. An old man conspicuous by his civilian clothes
+wandered about the yard here and there, picking up some stray implement
+or nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or placing it carefully aside.
+
+"There's a tragedy," the battalion commander told me. "That man is mayor
+of this town. He was forced to flee with the rest of the civilians. He
+returned to-day to look over the ruins. This is his house we occupy. I
+explained that much of it is as we found it, but that we undoubtedly
+have broken some things. I could see that every broken chair and window
+and plate meant a heart throb to him, but he only looked up at me with
+his wrinkled old face and smiled as he said, 'It is all right, Monsieur.
+I understand. _C'est la guerre._'"
+
+The old man opened one of his barn doors, revealing a floor littered
+with straw and a fringe of hobnailed American boots. A night-working
+detail was asleep in blankets. A sleepy voice growled out something
+about closing the door again and the old man with a polite,
+"_Pardonnez-moi, messieurs_," swung the wooden portal softly shut. His
+home--his house--his barn--his straw--_c'est la guerre_.
+
+An evening meal of "corn willy" served on some of the Mayor's remaining
+chinaware, was concluded by a final course of fresh spring onions. These
+came from the Mayor's own garden just outside the door. As the cook
+affirmed, it was no difficulty to gather them.
+
+"Every night Germans drop shells in the garden," he said. "I don't even
+have to pull 'em. Just go out in the morning and pick 'em up off the
+ground."
+
+I spent part of the night in gun pits along the road side, bordering the
+town. This particular battery of heavies was engaged on a night long
+programme of interdiction fire laid down with irregular intensity on
+cross roads and communication points in the enemy's back areas. Under
+screens of camouflage netting, these howitzers with mottled bores
+squatting frog-like on their carriages, intermittently vomited flame,
+red, green and orange. The detonations were ear-splitting and cannoneers
+relieved the recurring shocks by clapping their hands to the sides of
+their head and balancing on the toes each time the lanyard was pulled.
+
+Infantry reserves were swinging along in the road directly in back of
+the guns. They were moving up to forward positions and they sang in an
+undertone as they moved in open order.
+
+    "Glor--ree--us, Glor--ree--us!
+    One keg of beer for the four of us.
+    Glory be to Mike there are no more of us,
+    For four of us can drink it all alone."
+
+Some of these marchers would come during an interval of silence to a
+position on the road not ten feet from a darkened, camouflaged howitzer
+just as it would shatter the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness
+and unexpectedness of the detonation would make the marchers start and
+jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions, the gun crews would laugh
+heartily and indulge in good natured raillery with the infantrymen.
+
+"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened. We were just shipping
+a load of sauerkraut to the Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner.
+"Haven't you heard the orders against running your horses? Come down to
+a gallop and take it easy."
+
+"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman, "You smell like a
+livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork for a bayonet and come on up
+where there's some fighting."
+
+"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy," came another voice
+from the dark gun pit. "This is a tray forte sector. If you don't get
+killed the first eight days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing.
+You're marching over what's called 'the road you don't come back on.'"
+
+A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the moment when the
+road was unoccupied, put in appearance as the end of the infantry column
+passed, and the captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading
+and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men received big shells
+in their arms and carried them to the roadside dumps where they were
+piled in readiness for the guns. The road was in an exposed position and
+this active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time, so the
+ammunition train captain was anxious to get his charges away in a hurry.
+
+His fears were not without foundation, because in the midst of the
+unloading, one German missile arrived in a nearby field and sprayed the
+roadway with steel just as every one flattened out on the ground. Five
+ammunition hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swearing at
+the shell fragment which had gone through the radiator of his truck and
+liberated the water contents. The unloading was completed with all
+speed, and the ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck. With
+some of the gunners who had helped in unloading, I crawled into the
+chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters in the straw.
+
+"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as he sat in the straw,
+unwrapping his puttees. I told him.
+
+"Do you want to know the most popular publication around this place?" he
+asked, and I replied affirmatively.
+
+"It's called the _Daily Woollen Undershirt_," he said. "Haven't you seen
+everybody sitting along the roadside reading theirs and trying to keep
+up with things? Believe me, it's some reading-matter, too."
+
+"Don't let him kid you," said the section chief, "I haven't had to read
+mine yet. The doctor fixed up the baths in town and yesterday he passed
+around those flea charms. Have you seen them?"
+
+For our joint inspection there was passed the string necklace with two
+linen tabs soaked in aromatic oil of cedar, while the section chief
+gave an impromptu lecture on personal sanitation. It was concluded by a
+peremptory order from without for extinction of all lights. The candle
+stuck on the helmet top was snuffed and we lay down in darkness with the
+guns booming away on either side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our positions were located in a country almost as new to war as were the
+fields of Flanders in the fall of '14. A little over a month before it
+had all been peaceful farming land, far behind the belligerent lines.
+Upon our arrival, its sprouting fields of late wheat and oats were
+untended and bearing their first harvest of shell craters.
+
+The abandoned villages now occupied by troops told once more the mute
+tales of the homeless. The villagers, old men, old women and children,
+had fled, driving before them their cows and farm animals even as they
+themselves had been driven back by the train of German shells. In their
+deserted cottages remained the fresh traces of their departure and the
+ruthless rupturing of home ties, generations old.
+
+On every hand were evidences of the reborn war of semi-movement. One day
+I would see a battery of light guns swing into position by a roadside,
+see an observing officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the
+firing of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the next morning,
+they would have changed position, rumbled off to other parts, leaving
+beside the road only the marks of their cannon wheels and mounds of
+empty shell cases.
+
+Between our infantry lines and those of the German, there was yet to
+grow the complete web of woven wire entanglements that marred the
+landscapes on the long established fronts. Still standing, silent
+sentinels over some of our front line positions were trees, church
+steeples, dwellings and barns that as yet had not been levelled to the
+ground. Dugouts had begun to show their entrances in the surface of the
+ground and cross roads had started to sprout with rudely constructed
+shelters. Fat sandbags were just taking the places of potted geraniums
+on the sills of first floor windows. War's toll was being exacted daily,
+but the country had yet to pay the full price. It was going through that
+process of degeneration toward the stripped and barren but it still held
+much of its erstwhile beauty.
+
+Those days before Cantigny were marked by particularly heavy artillery
+fire. The ordnance duel was unrelenting and the daily exchange of shells
+reached an aggregate far in excess of anything that the First Division
+had ever experienced before.
+
+Nightly the back areas of the front were shattered with shells. The
+German was much interested in preventing us from bringing up supplies
+and munition. We manifested the same interest toward him. American
+batteries firing at long range, harassed the road intersections behind
+the enemy's line and wooded places where relief troops might have been
+assembled under cover of darkness. The expenditure of shells was
+enormous but it continued practically twenty-four hours a day. German
+prisoners, shaking from the nervous effects of the pounding, certified
+to the untiring efforts of our gunners.
+
+The small nameless village that we occupied almost opposite the German
+position in Cantigny seemed to receive particular attention from the
+enemy artillery. In retaliation, our guns almost levelled Cantigny and a
+nearby village which the enemy occupied. Every hour, under the rain of
+death, the work of digging was continued and the men doing it needed no
+urging from their officers. There was something sinister and emphatic
+about the whine of a "two ten German H. E." that inspired one with a
+desire to start for the antipodes by the shortest and most direct route.
+
+The number of arrivals by way of the air in that particular village
+every day numbered high in the thousands. Under such conditions, no
+life-loving human could have failed to produce the last degree of
+utility out of a spade. The continual dropping of shells in the ruins
+and the unending fountains of chalk dust and dirt left little for the
+imagination, but one officer told me that it reminded him of living in a
+room where some one was eternally beating the carpet.
+
+This taste of the war of semi-movement was appreciated by the American
+soldier. It had in it a dash of novelty, lacking in the position warfare
+to which he had become accustomed in the mud and marsh of the Moselle
+and the Meuse. For one thing, there were better and cleaner billets than
+had ever been encountered before by our men. Fresh, unthrashed oats and
+fragrant hay had been found in the hurriedly abandoned lofts back of the
+line and in the caves and cellars nearer the front.
+
+In many places the men were sleeping on feather mattresses in
+old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that had been removed from jeopardy above
+ground to comparative safety below. Whole caves were furnished, and not
+badly furnished, by this salvage of furniture, much of which would have
+brought fancy prices in any collection of antiques.
+
+Forced to a recognition solely of intrinsic values, our men made prompt
+utilisation of much of the material abandoned by the civilian
+population. Home in the field is where a soldier sleeps and after all,
+why not have it as comfortable as his surroundings will afford? Those
+caves and vegetable cellars, many with walls and vaulted ceilings of
+clean red brick or white blocks of chalk, constituted excellent shelters
+from shell splinters and even protected the men from direct hits by
+missiles of small calibre.
+
+Beyond the villages, our riflemen found protection in quickly scraped
+holes in the ground. There were some trenches but they were not
+contiguous. "No Man's Land" was an area of uncertain boundary. Our
+gunners had quarters burrowed into the chalk not far from their gun
+pits. All communication and the bringing up of shells and food were
+conducted under cover of darkness. Under such conditions, we lived and
+waited for the order to go forward.
+
+Our sector in that battle of the Somme was so situated that the opposing
+lines ran north and south. The enemy was between us and the rising sun.
+Behind our rear echelons was the main road between Amiens and Beauvais.
+Amiens, the objective of the German drive, was thirty-five kilometres
+away on our left, Beauvais was the same distance on our right and two
+hours by train from Paris.
+
+We were eager for the fight. The graves of our dead dotted new fields in
+France. We were holding with the French on the Picardy line. We were
+between the Germans and the sea. We were before Cantigny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS--"ZERO AT 2 A. M."
+
+
+While the First U. S. Division was executing in Picardy a small, planned
+operation which resulted in the capture of the German fortified
+positions in the town of Cantigny, other American divisions at other
+parts along the line were indulging in that most common of frontal
+diversions--the raid.
+
+I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front. The 26th
+Division, composed of National Guard troops from New England, made the
+raid. On Memorial Day, I had seen those men of the Yankee Division
+decorating the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the
+line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw them come trooping
+back across No Man's Land after successfully decorating the enemy
+positions with German graves.
+
+It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the ruined village of
+Hamondville and came into first contact with the American soldiers that
+had been selected for the raid. Their engineers were at work in the
+street connecting sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were to
+be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire. In interested
+circles about them were men who were to make the dash through the break
+even before the smoke cleared and the debris ceased falling. They were
+to be distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that the
+helmets worn by the raiders were covered with burlap and some of them
+had their faces blackened.
+
+In the failing evening light, we walked on through several heaps of
+stone and rafters that had once been villages, and were stopped by a
+military policeman who inquired in broad Irish brogue for our passes.
+These meeting with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road
+ahead with its dangerous twist, known as "Dead Man's Curve," for the
+reason that the enemy was at that minute placing his evening
+contribution of shells in that vicinity. Acting on the policeman's
+suggestion, we took a short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old
+craters were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with which
+this country abounds at this time of year. Newer punctures showed as
+wounds in the yellow soil and contained pools of evil-smelling water,
+green with scum.
+
+Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened us from direct
+enemy observation, we advanced toward the jagged skyline of a ruined
+village on the crest. The odour of open graves befouled the sheltered
+slope, indicating that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection
+and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen.
+
+Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the winding duckboards and
+were led by small signs painted on wood to the colonel's headquarters.
+We descended the stone steps beneath a rickety looking ruin and entered.
+
+"Guests for our party," was the Colonel's greeting. The command post had
+a long narrow interior which was well lighted but poorly ventilated, the
+walls and floor were of wood and a low beamed ceiling was supported by
+timbers. "Well, I think it will be a good show."
+
+"We are sending over a little party of new boys just for practice and a
+'look-see' in Hunland. We have two companies in this regiment which feel
+they've sorter been left out on most of the fun to date, so this affair
+has been arranged for them. We put the plans together last week and
+pushed the boys through three days of training for it back of the
+lines. They're fit as fiddlers to-night and it looks like there'll be no
+interruption to their pleasure.
+
+"No one man in the world, be he correspondent or soldier, could see
+every angle of even so small a thing as a little raid like this," the
+Colonel explained. "What you can't see you have got to imagine. I'm
+suggesting that you stay right in here for the show. That telephone on
+my adjutant's desk is the web centre of all things occurring in this
+sector to-night and the closer you are to it, the more you can see and
+learn. Lieutenant Warren will take you up the road first and give you a
+look out of the observatory, so you'll know in what part of Germany our
+tourists are going to explore."
+
+Darkness had fallen when we emerged, but there were sufficient stars out
+to show up the outline of the gaping walls on either side of our way. We
+passed a number of sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a
+ruin. After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened passage for
+some minutes, we entered a small room where several officers were
+gathered around a table on which two burning candles were stuck in
+bottles. Our guide, stepping to one end of the room, pulled aside a
+blanket curtain and passed through a narrow doorway. We followed.
+
+Up a narrow, steep, wooden stairway between two walls of solid masonry,
+not over two feet apart, we passed, and arrived on a none too stable
+wooded runway with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through the
+ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now almost nude of tiles, we
+could see the starry sky. Proceeding along the runway, we arrived,
+somewhere in that cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose
+interior blackness was relieved by a lighter slit, an opening facing
+the enemy.
+
+Against the starry skyline, we could see the black outline of a flat
+tableland in the left distance which we knew to be that part of the
+heights of Meuse for whose commanding ridge there have been so many
+violent contests between the close-locked lines in the forest of
+Apremont. More to the centre of the picture, stood Mont Sec, detached
+from the range and pushing its summit up through the lowland mist like
+the dorsal fin of a porpoise in a calm sea. On the right the lowland
+extended to indistinct distances, where it blended with the horizon.
+
+In all that expanse of quiet night, there was not a single flicker of
+light, and at that time not a sound to indicate that unmentionable
+numbers of our men were facing one another in parallel ditches across
+the silent moor.
+
+"See that clump of trees way out there?" said the lieutenant, directing
+our vision with his arm. "Now then, hold your hand at arm's length in
+front of you, straight along a line from your eyes along the left edge
+of your hand to that clump of trees. Now then, look right along the
+right edge of your hand and you will be looking at Richecourt. The Boche
+hold it. We go in on the right of that to-night."
+
+We looked as per instructions and saw nothing. As far as we were
+concerned Richecourt was a daylight view, but these owls of the lookout
+knew its location as well as they knew the streets of their native towns
+back in New England. We returned to the colonel's command post, where
+cots were provided, and we turned in for a few hours' sleep on the
+promise of being called in time.
+
+It was 2 A. M. when we were summoned to command post for the colonel's
+explanation of the night's plans. The regimental commander, smoking a
+long pipe with a curved stem, sat in front of a map on which he
+conducted the exposition.
+
+"Here," he said, placing his finger on a section of the line marking the
+American trenches, "is the point of departure. That's the jumping off
+place. These X marks running between the lines is the enemy wire, and
+here, and here, and here are where we blow it up. We reach the German
+trenches at these points and clean up. Then the men follow the enemy
+communicating trenches, penetrate three hundred metres to the east edge
+of Richecourt, and return.
+
+"Zero hour is 2:30. It's now 2:10. Our raiders have left their trenches
+already. They are out in No Man's Land now. The engineers are with them
+carrying explosives for the wire. There are stretcher bearers in the
+party to bring back our wounded and also signal men right behind them
+with wire and one telephone. The reports from that wire are relayed here
+and we will also be kept informed by runners. The whole party has thirty
+minutes in which to crawl forward and place explosives under the wire.
+They will have things in readiness by 2:30 and then the show begins."
+
+Five minutes before the hour, I stepped out of the dugout and looked at
+the silent sky toward the front. Not even a star shell disturbed the
+blue black starlight. The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all
+this was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash and crash.
+There is always that minute of uncertainty before the raiding hour when
+the tensity of the situation becomes almost painful. Has the enemy
+happened to become aware of the plans? Have our men been deprived of the
+needed element of surprise? But for the thousands of metres behind us,
+we know that in black battery pits anxious crews are standing beside
+their loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the jerk of
+the lanyard.
+
+Suddenly the earth trembles. Through the dugout window facing back from
+the lines, I see the night sky burst livid with light. A second later
+and the crash reaches our ears. It is deafening. Now we hear the whine
+of shells as they burn the air overhead. The telephone bell rings.
+
+"Yes, this is Boston," the Adjutant speaks into the receiver. We listen
+breathlessly. Has something gone wrong at the last minute?
+
+"Right, I have it," said the Adjutant, hanging up the receiver and
+turning to the Colonel; "X-4 reports barrage dropped on schedule."
+
+"Good," said the Colonel. "Gentlemen, here's what's happening. Our
+shells are this minute falling all along the German front line, in front
+of the part selected for the raid and on both flanks. Now then, this
+section of the enemy's position is confined in a box barrage which is
+pounding in his front and is placing a curtain of fire on his left and
+his right and another in his rear. Any German within the confines of
+that box trying to get out will have a damn hard time and so will any
+who try to come through it to help him."
+
+"Boston talking," the Adjutant is making answer over the telephone. He
+repeats the message. "233, all the wire blown up, right."
+
+"Fine," says the Colonel. "Now they are advancing and right in front of
+them is another rolling barrage of shells which is creeping forward on
+the German lines at the same pace our men are walking. They are walking
+in extended order behind it. At the same time our artillery has taken
+care of the enemy's guns by this time so that no German barrage will be
+able to come down on our raiders. Our guns for the last three minutes
+have been dumping gas and high explosives on every battery position
+behind the German lines. That's called 'Neutralisation.'"
+
+"Boston talking." The room grows quiet again as the Adjutant takes the
+message.
+
+"2:36. Y-1 reports O. K."
+
+"Everything fine and dandy," the Colonel observes, smiling.
+
+"Boston talking." There is a pause.
+
+"2:39. G-7 reports sending up three red rockets east of A-19. The
+operator thinks it's a signal for outposts to withdraw and also for
+counter barrage."
+
+"Too late," snaps the Colonel. "There's a reception committee in Hades
+waiting for 'em right now."
+
+At 2:40 the dugout door opens and in walks Doc Comfort from the Red
+Cross First Aid Station across the road.
+
+"Certainly is a pretty sight, Colonel. Fritzies' front door is lit up
+like a cathedral at high mass."
+
+At 2:41. "A very good beginning," remarks a short, fat French Major who
+sits beside the Colonel. He represents the French army corps.
+
+2:43. "Boston talking,--Lieutenant Kernan reports everything quiet in
+his sector."
+
+2:45. "Boston talking," the Adjutant turns to the Colonel and repeats,
+"Pittsburgh wants to know if there's much coming in here."
+
+"Tell them nothing to amount to anything," replies the Colonel and the
+Adjutant repeats the message over the wire. As he finished, one German
+shell did land so close to the dugout that the door blew open. The
+officer stepped to the opening and called out into the darkness.
+
+"Gas guard. Smell anything?"
+
+"Nothing, sir. Think they are only high explosives."
+
+2:47. "Boston talking--enemy sent up one red, one green rocket and then
+three green rockets from B-14," the Adjutant repeats.
+
+"Where is that report from?" asks the Colonel.
+
+"The operator at Jamestown, sir," replies the Adjutant.
+
+"Be ready for some gas, gentlemen," says the Colonel. "I think that's
+Fritzie's order for the stink. Orderly, put down gas covers on the doors
+and windows."
+
+I watched the man unroll the chemically dampened blankets over the doors
+and windows.
+
+2:49. "Boston talking--23 calls for barrage."
+
+The Colonel and Major turn immediately to the wall map, placing a finger
+on 23 position.
+
+"Hum," says the Colonel. "Counter attack, hey? Well, the barrage will
+take care of them, but get me Watson on the line."
+
+"Connect me with Nantucket," the Adjutant asks the operator. "Hello,
+Watson, just a minute," turning to Colonel, "here's Watson, sir."
+
+"Hello, Watson," the Colonel says, taking the receiver. "This is Yellow
+Jacket. Watch out for counter attack against 23. Place your men in
+readiness and be prepared to support Michel on your right. That's all,"
+returning 'phone to the Adjutant, "Get me Mr. Lake."
+
+While the Adjutant made the connection, the Colonel explained quickly
+the planned flanking movement on the map. "If they come over there," he
+said to the French Major, "not a God-damn one of them will ever get back
+alive."
+
+The French Major made a note in his report book.
+
+"Hello, Lake," the Colonel says, taking the 'phone. "This is Yellow
+Jacket. Keep your runners in close touch with Michel and Watson. Call me
+if anything happens. That's all."
+
+3:00. "Boston talking--G-2 reports all O.K. Still waiting for the
+message from Worth."
+
+3:02. "Storming party reports unhindered progress. No enemy encountered
+yet."
+
+This was the first message back from the raiders. It had been sent over
+the wire and the instruments they carried with them and then relayed to
+the Colonel's command post.
+
+"_Magnifique_," says the French Major.
+
+3:04. "Boston talking. X-10 reports gas in Bois des Seicheprey."
+
+3:05. "Boston talking. Hello, yes, nothing coming in here to amount to
+anything. Just had a gas warning but none arrived yet."
+
+3:07. "Boston talking,----Yes, all right" (turning to Colonel),
+"operator just received message from storming party 'so far so good.'"
+
+"Not so bad for thirty-seven minutes after opening of the operation,"
+remarks the Colonel.
+
+"What is 'so far so good'?" inquires the French Major, whose knowledge
+of English did not extend to idioms. Some one explained.
+
+3:09. "Boston talking--Watson reports all quiet around 23 now."
+
+"Guess that barrage changed their minds," remarks the Colonel.
+
+With gas mask at alert, I walked out for a breath of fresh air. The
+atmosphere in a crowded dugout is stifling. From guns still roaring in
+the rear and from in front came the trampling sound of shells arriving
+on German positions. The first hints of dawn were in the sky. I
+returned in time to note the hour and hear:
+
+3:18. "Boston talking--O-P reports enemy dropping line of shells from
+B-4 to B-8."
+
+"Trying to get the boys coming back, hey?" remarks the Colonel. "A fat
+chance. They're not coming back that way."
+
+3:21. "Boston talking--23 reports that the barrage called for in their
+sector was because the enemy had advanced within two hundred yards of
+his first position. Evidently they wanted to start something, but the
+barrage nipped them and they fell back fast."
+
+"Perfect," says the French Major.
+
+3:25. "Boston talking--two green and two red rockets were sent up by the
+enemy from behind Richecourt."
+
+"Hell with 'em, now," the Colonel remarks.
+
+3:28. "Boston talking--all O. K. in Z-2. Still waiting to hear from
+Michel."
+
+"I rather wish they had developed their counter attack," says the
+Colonel. "I have a reserve that would certainly give them an awful
+wallop."
+
+3:30. "Boston talking--more gas in Bois des Seicheprey."
+
+3:33. "Boston talking--white stars reported from Richecourt."
+
+"They must be on their way back by this time," says the Colonel, looking
+at his watch.
+
+3:37. "Boston talking,--enemy now shelling on the north edge of the
+town. A little gas."
+
+3:40. "Boston talking--X-1 reports some enemy long range retaliation on
+our right.
+
+"They'd better come back the other way," says the Colonel.
+
+"That was the intention, sir," the lieutenant reported from across the
+room.
+
+3:42. "Boston talking--signalman with the party reports everything O.
+K."
+
+"We don't know yet whether they have had any losses or got any
+prisoners," the Colonel remarks. "But the mechanism seems to have
+functioned just as well as it did in the last raid. We didn't get a
+prisoner that time, but I sorter feel that the boys will bring back a
+couple with them to-night."
+
+3:49. "Boston talking--G-9 reports some of the raiding party has
+returned and passed that point."
+
+"Came back pretty quick, don't you think so, Major?" said the Colonel
+with some pride. "Must have returned over the top."
+
+It is 3:55 when we hear fast footsteps on the stone stairs leading down
+to the dugout entrance. There is a sharp rap on the door followed by the
+Colonel's command, "Come in."
+
+A medium height private of stocky build, with shoulders heaving from
+laboured breathing and face wet with sweat, enters. He removes his
+helmet, revealing disordered blonde hair. He faces the Colonel and
+salutes.
+
+"Sir, Sergeant Ransom reports with message from Liaison officer. All
+groups reached the objectives. No enemy encountered on the right, but a
+party on the left is believed to be returning with prisoners. We blew up
+their dugouts and left their front line in flames."
+
+"Good work, boy," says the Colonel, rising and shaking the runner's
+hand. "You got here damn quick. Did you come by the Lincoln trench?"
+
+"No, sir, I came over the top from the battalion post. Would have been
+here quicker, but two of us had to carry back one boy to that point
+before I could get relieved."
+
+"Wounded?"
+
+"No, sir,--dead."
+
+"Who was it?" asks the young lieutenant.
+
+"Private Kater, sir, my squad mate."
+
+As the sergeant raised his hand in parting salute, all of us saw
+suspended from his right wrist a most formidable weapon, apparently of
+his own construction. It was a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one
+end and the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled up like
+a ball of yarn. He smiled as he noticed our gaze.
+
+"It's the persuader, sir," he said. "We all carried them."
+
+He had hardly quitted the door when another heavily breathing figure
+with shirt half torn off by barbed wire appeared.
+
+"K Company got there, sir; beg pardon, sir. I mean sir, Sergeant Wiltur
+reports, sir, with message from Liaison officer. All groups reached the
+objectives. They left their dugouts blazing and brought back one machine
+gun and three prisoners."
+
+"Very good, Sergeant," said the Colonel. "Orderly, get some coffee for
+these runners."
+
+"I'd like to see the doctor first, sir," said the runner with the torn
+shirt. "Got my hand and arm cut in the wire."
+
+"Very well," said the Colonel, turning to the rest of the party, "I knew
+my boys would bring back bacon."
+
+More footsteps on the entrance stairway and two men entered carrying
+something between them. Sweat had streaked through the charcoal coating
+on their faces leaving striped zebra-like countenances.
+
+"Lieutenant Burlon's compliments, sir," said the first man. "Here's one
+of their machine guns."
+
+"Who got it?" inquired the Colonel.
+
+"Me and him, sir."
+
+"How did you get it?"
+
+"We just rolled 'em off it and took it."
+
+"Rolled who off of it?"
+
+"Two Germans, sir."
+
+"What were they doing all that time?"
+
+"Why, sir, they weren't doing anything. They were dead."
+
+"Oh, very well, then," said the Colonel. "How did you happen to find the
+machine gun?"
+
+"We knew where it was before we went over, sir," said the man simply.
+"We were assigned to get it and bring it back. We expected we'd have to
+fight for it, but I guess our barrage laid out the crew. Anyhow we
+rushed to the position and found them dead."
+
+"All right," said the Colonel, "return to your platoon. Leave the gun
+here. It will be returned to you later and will be your property."
+
+I went out with the machine gun captors and walked with them to the
+road. There was the hum of motors high overhead and we knew that
+American planes were above, going forward to observe and photograph
+German positions before the effects of our bombardments could be
+repaired. A line of flame and smoke pouring up from the enemy's front
+line showed where their dugouts and shelters were still burning.
+
+Daylight was pouring down on a ruined village street, up which marched
+the returning raiders without thought of order. They were a happy,
+gleeful party, with helmets tipped back from their young faces wet and
+dirty, with rifles swung over their shoulders and the persuaders
+dangling from their wrists. Most of them were up to their knees and
+their wrap puttees were mostly in tatters from the contact with the
+entanglements through which they had penetrated.
+
+As they approached, I saw the cause for some of the jocularity. It was a
+chubby, little, boyish figure, who sat perched up on the right shoulder
+of a tall, husky Irish sergeant. The figure steadied itself by grasping
+the sergeant's helmet with his left hand. The sergeant steadied him by
+holding one right arm around his legs.
+
+But there was no smile on the face of the thus transformed object. His
+chubby countenance was one of easily understood concern. He was not a
+day over sixteen years and this was quite some experience for him. He
+was one of the German prisoners and these happy youngsters from across
+the seas were bringing him in almost with as much importance as though
+he had been a football hero. He was unhurt and it was unnecessary to
+carry him, but this tribute was voluntarily added, not only as an
+indication of extreme interest, but to reassure the juvenile captive of
+the kindly intentions of his captors.
+
+"Jiggers, here's the Colonel's dugout," one voice shouted. "Put him down
+to walk, now."
+
+The big sergeant acted on the suggestion and the little Fritz was
+lowered to the ground. He immediately caught step with the big sergeant
+and took up the latter's long stride with his short legs and feet
+encased in clumsy German boots. His soiled uniform had been the German
+field grey green. His helmet was gone but he wore well back on his head
+the flat round cloth cap. With his fat cheeks he looked like a typical
+baker's boy, and one almost expected to see him carrying a tray of rolls
+on his head.
+
+"For the luva Mike, Tim," shouted an ambulance man, "do you call that a
+prisoner?"
+
+"Sure he does look like a half portion," replied Sergeant Tim with a
+smile. "We got two hundred francs for a whole one. I don't know what we
+can cash this one in for."
+
+"He ought to be worth more," some one said; "that barrage cost a million
+dollars. He's the million dollar baby of the raid."
+
+"Sergeant, I'm not kidding," came one serious voice. "Why turn him in as
+a prisoner? I like the kid's looks. Why can't we keep him for the
+company mascot?"
+
+The discussion ended when the Sergeant and his small charge disappeared
+in the Colonel's quarters for the inevitable questioning that all
+prisoners must go through. Several wounded were lying on the stretchers
+in front of the first aid dugout waiting for returning ambulances and
+passing the time meanwhile by smoking cigarettes and explaining how
+close each of them had been to the shell that exploded and "got 'em."
+
+But little of the talk was devoted to themselves. They were all praise
+for the little chaplain from New England who, without arms, went over
+the top with "his boys" and came back with them. It was their opinion
+that their regiment had some sky pilot. And it was mine, also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ON LEAVE IN PARIS
+
+
+"So this--is Paris,"--this observation spoken in mock seriousness, in a
+George Cohan nasal drawl and accompanied by a stiff and stagy wave of
+the arm, was the customary facetious pass-word with which American
+soldiers on leave or on mission announced their presence in the capital
+of France.
+
+Paris, the beautiful--Paris, the gay--Paris, the historical--Paris, the
+artistic--Paris, the only Paris, opened her arms to the American soldier
+and proceeded toward his enlightenment and entertainment on the sole
+policy that nothing was too good for him.
+
+I saw the first American soldiers under arms reach Paris. It was early
+in the morning of July 3rd, 1917, when this first American troop train
+pulled into the Gare d'Austerlitz. It was early in the morning, yet
+Paris was there to give them a welcome. The streets outside the station
+were jammed with crowds. They had seen Pershing; they had seen our staff
+officers and headquarters details, but now they wanted to see the type
+of our actual fighting men--they wanted to see the American poilus--the
+men who were to carry the Stars and Stripes over the top.
+
+The men left the cars and lined up in the station yard. It had been a
+long, fifteen hour night ride and the cramped quarters of the troop
+train had permitted but little sleep. There was no opportunity for them
+to breakfast or wash before they were put on exhibition. Naturally, they
+were somewhat nervous.
+
+The standing line was ordered to produce its mess cups and hold them
+forward. Down the line came a bevy of pretty French girls, wearing the
+uniform of Red Cross nurses. They carried canisters of black coffee and
+baskets of cigarettes. They ladled out steaming cupfuls of the black
+liquid to the men. The incident gave our men their first surprise.
+
+Rum or alcohol has never been a part of the United States army ration.
+In the memory of the oldest old-timers in the ranks of our old regular
+army, "joy water" had never been issued. On the other hand, its use had
+always been strictly forbidden in the company messes. Our men never
+expected it. Thus it was that, with no other idea occurring to them,
+they extended their mess cups to be filled with what they thought was
+simply strong hot coffee. Not one of them had the slightest suspicion
+that the French cooks who had prepared that coffee for their new
+American brothers in arms, had put a stick in it--had added just that
+portion of cognac which they had considered necessary to open a man's
+eyes and make him pick up his heels after a long night in a troop train.
+
+I watched one old-timer in the ranks as he lifted the tin cup to his
+lips and took the initial gulp. Then he lowered the cup. Across his face
+there dawned first an expression of curious suspicion, then a look of
+satisfied recognition, and then a smile of pleased surprise, which he
+followed with an audible smacking of the lips. He finished the cup and
+allowed quite casually that he could stand another.
+
+"So this is Paris,"--well, it wasn't half bad to start with. With that
+"coffee" under their belts, the men responded snappily to the march
+order, and in column of four, they swung into line and moved out of the
+station yard, at the heels of their own band, which played a stirring
+marching air.
+
+Paris claimed them for her own. All that the war had left of Paris' gay
+life, all the lights that still burned, all the music that still played,
+all the pretty smiles that had never been reduced in their quality or
+quantity, all that Paris had to make one care-free and glad to be
+alive--all belonged that day to that pioneer band of American
+infantrymen.
+
+The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed men removed their hats
+to them and shook their hands and street boys followed in groups at
+their heels making the air ring with shrill "Vive's." There were not
+many of them, only three companies. The men looked trim and clean-cut.
+They were tall and husky-looking and the snap with which they walked was
+good to the eyes of old Paris that loves verve.
+
+With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their following admirers stretch
+their legs, the boys in khaki marched from the Austerlitz station to the
+Neuilly barracks over a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris
+was in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the following
+day, the shop windows and building fronts were decked with American
+flags.
+
+Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street intersections
+and the gendarmes were unable to prevent the crowds from overflowing the
+sidewalks and pressing out into the streets where they could smile their
+greetings and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking a
+column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the curb reached out,
+grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A snicker ran through the platoon
+as the sergeant, with face red beneath the tan, withdrew his hand and
+recaught his step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes front!"
+and tried to look at ease.
+
+How the bands played that day! How the crowds cheered! How the flags and
+handkerchiefs and hats waved in the air, and how thousands of throats
+volleyed the "Vive's!" This was the reception of our first fighting men.
+But on the following day they received even a greater demonstration,
+when they marched through the streets of the city on parade, and
+participated in the first Parisian celebration of American Independence
+Day.
+
+Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so many flags, not even
+during the days three years before, when the sons of France had marched
+away to keep the Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary
+clusters of Allied flags had been almost entirely replaced for the day
+by groups composed solely of the French tri-colour and the Stars and
+Stripes. Taxis and fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable
+places. Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded streets.
+Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogising Uncle Sam and his
+nephews, and garnered harvests of sous for their efforts.
+
+The three companies of our regulars marched with a regiment of French
+colonials, all veterans of the war and many of them incapacitated for
+front service through wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the
+trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle front life,
+cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of middinettes waved their aprons
+from the windows of millinery shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les
+Teddies!" America--the great, good America--the sister republic from
+across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day long. Paris
+capitulated unconditionally to three companies of American infantry.
+
+From that day on, every American soldier visiting Paris has been made to
+feel himself at home. And the unrestricted hospitality did not seem to
+be the result of an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For
+months afterward, any one wearing an American uniform along the
+boulevards could hear behind him dulcet whispers that carried the words
+_tres gentil_.
+
+At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed for work in the
+city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie Barracks, where other
+soldiers from all of the Allied armies in the world were quartered. Our
+men mingled with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese, tall
+blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians and New
+Zealanders. At considerable expense to these comrades in arms, our men
+instructed them in the all-American art of plain and fancy dice rolling.
+
+Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other arrangements for
+housing were made. The American policing of Paris, under the direction
+of the Expeditionary Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was
+turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our men conducted
+themselves in Paris with the orderliness of a guest at the home of his
+host, or whether it was that the Marines with their remarkable
+discipline suppressed from all view any too hearty outbursts of American
+exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and the bearing of
+American soldiers in Paris were always above reproach.
+
+I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in Paris, in spite of
+the fact that more opportunities presented themselves for drinking than
+had ever before been presented to an American army. The privilege of
+sitting at a table in front of a sidewalk cafe on a busy boulevard and
+drinking a small glass of beer unmolested, was one that our men did not
+take advantage of. It was against the law to serve any of the stronger
+liqueurs to men in uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all
+the time. All cafes closed at 9:30. In spite of the ever present
+opportunity to obtain beverages of the above character, there was many
+and many an American soldier who tramped the boulevards and canvassed
+the cafes, drug stores and delicatessen shops in search of a
+much-desired inexistent, ice cream soda.
+
+Many of our men spent their days most seriously and most studiously,
+learning the mysteries of transportation on the busses and the Paris
+underground system, while they pored over their guide books and digested
+pages of information concerning the points of interest that Paris had to
+offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the tiled corridors of the
+Invalides or looking down into the deep crypt at the granite tomb of the
+great Napoleon. In the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the
+Tuilleries, or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever present.
+At least one day out of every ten day leave was spent in the palace and
+the grounds at Versailles.
+
+The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of amusement. One of
+the most popular among these was the Folies Bergeres. Some of our men
+didn't realise until after they entered the place that it was a French
+theatre. Due to the French pronunciation of the name, some of the
+American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon run by an Irishman
+by the name of Foley. "Bergere" to some was unpronounceable, so the
+Folies Bergeres was most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley's
+place."
+
+Another popular amusement place was the Casino de Paris, where an echo
+from America was supplied by an American negro jazz band, which
+dispensed its questionable music in the _promenoir_ during the
+intermission. There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one of
+them seemed to have an ardent dislike for the remaining four.
+Individually they manifested their mutual contempt by turning their
+backs on one another while they played. Strange as it may seem, a most
+fascinating type of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of
+shoulders, nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among the American
+soldiers in the crowd. French men and women, with their old world
+musical taste, would consider the musical gymnastics of the demented
+drummer in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and come to
+the conclusion that the world had gone plumb to hell.
+
+All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca as soon as the
+desired permissions had been granted. One day I sat opposite a
+remarkable type whom I found dining in a small restaurant. I noticed the
+absence of either beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained
+that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked me, but refused
+to accept a cigarette I offered, saying without aside that he had yet
+his first one to smoke. When I heard him tell Madame that he did not
+care for coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother had
+always told him it was injurious and he had never tasted it.
+
+I became more interested in this ideal, young American soldier and
+questioned him about his life. I found that he and his father had worked
+in the copper mines in Michigan. They were both strong advocates of
+union labour and had participated vigorously in the bloody Michigan
+strikes.
+
+"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he said. "Our union
+demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as
+we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that
+Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions
+for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world's greatest scab. I am
+over here to help get him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining with an American
+Brigadier General, when an American soldier of the ranks approached the
+table. At a respectful distance of five feet, the soldier halted,
+clicked his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the orderly
+desires permission to take the General's car to headquarters and deliver
+the packages."
+
+"All right, Smith," replied the General, looking at his watch. "Find out
+if my other uniform is back yet and then get back here yourself with the
+car in half an hour."
+
+"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, executed a snappy right
+about face and strode out of the dining-room.
+
+"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said the General to me. "I
+had a lot of extra work yesterday on his account. I had to make out his
+income tax returns. He and his dad own almost all the oil in Oklahoma.
+When he paid his income tax, Uncle Sam got a little over a hundred
+thousand dollars. He went in the army in the ranks. He is only an
+enlisted private now, but he's a good one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man in an American
+uniform and a French Gendarme vainly trying to talk with each other. The
+Frenchman was waving his arms and pointing in various directions and the
+American appeared to be trying to ask questions. With the purpose of
+offering my limited knowledge of French to straighten out the
+difficulty, I approached the pair and asked the American soldier what he
+wanted. He told me but I don't know what it was to this day. He spoke
+only Polish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our soldiers spread the
+fame of America. In the peaceful countrysides far behind the flaming
+fronts, the Yankee fighting men won their way into the hearts of the
+French people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebration in a
+little French village in the Vosges.
+
+Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the murky half-light of the
+village street. A long line of soldiers wound their way past flaming
+stoves of the mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out
+of the cold morning stomachs.
+
+Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on the snow-clad
+furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for centuries, the village of
+Saint Thiebault has drowsed more or less happily beside its ancient
+canal and in the shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint
+Thiebault.
+
+Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal-helmeted, know the huts
+and stables of Saint Thiebault as their billets, and the seventy little
+boys and girls of the parish know those same thousand men as their new
+big brothers--_les bons Americains_.
+
+The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those seventy youngsters
+have been away from Saint Thiebault for a long time now--yes, this is
+the fourth Christmas that the urgent business in northern France has
+kept them from home. They may never return but that is unknown to the
+seventy young hopefuls.
+
+[Illustration: MARINES MARCHING DOWN THE AVENUE PRESIDENT WILSON ON THE
+FOURTH OF JULY IN PARIS]
+
+[Illustration: BRIDGE CROSSING MARNE RIVER IN CHATEAU-THIERRY DESTROYED
+BY GERMANS IN THEIR RETREAT FROM TOWN]
+
+There was great activity in the colonel's quarters during the morning,
+and it is said that a sleuthing seventy were intent on unveiling the
+mystery of these unusual American preparations. They stooped to get a peep
+through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, walking his post in
+front of the sacred precincts, had to shoo them away frequently with
+threatening gestures and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay
+veet--Allay veet t'ell outer here."
+
+An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook shack indicated that one
+juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul
+Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold
+hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of
+his breeches.
+
+Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the cook shack shaking
+a soup ladle after the departing Paul and shouting imprecations in
+Italian-American.
+
+"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the low camp stove and
+removed a hot pan, the surface of whose bubbling contents bore an
+unmistakable imprint. "Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de
+finger in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He fall over
+de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He spoila de mess. He burn
+heese pants. Tam good!"
+
+And over there in front of the regimental wagon train picket line, a
+gesticulating trio is engaged in a three cornered Christmas discussion.
+One is M. Lecompte, who is the uniformed French interpreter on the
+Colonel's staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, the
+tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the triangle is little
+Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte's hand and looks up in awe at
+the huge Irish soldier.
+
+"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, pointing to the
+enormous hip boots which Moriarity is wearing.
+
+"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the Irishman. "And for
+the love of heavin, what would he be after doin' wid it? Sure and the
+top of it is higher than the head of him."
+
+"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. "The French children
+do not hang up their stockings for Christmas. Instead they place their
+wooden shoes on the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them.
+You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."
+
+"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one boot and hopping on
+one foot toward the stables. "Take it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it
+filled wid dimonds and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near
+the fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a oyster."
+
+The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace of red-whiskered
+ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking his lips. Then little Pierre
+was off to his mother's cottage, dragging the seven league boot after
+him.
+
+With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had been tied with red
+cords and labelled, and the interior of the Colonel's quarters looked
+like an express office in the rush season. The packages represented the
+purchases made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battalion had
+contributed for the purpose of having Christmas come to Saint Thiebault
+in good style.
+
+M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white covering which is to
+be worn by "Hindenburg," the most docile mule in the wagon train, upon
+whom has fallen the honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the
+Christmas saint.
+
+"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man in the
+battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red garments, trimmed with
+white fur and tassels, all made out of cloth by hands whose familiarity
+with the needle has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has donned
+his white wig and whiskers and his red cap, tasseled in white. He is
+receiving his final instructions from the colonel.
+
+"You may grunt, Powers," the colonel is saying, "but don't attempt to
+talk French with that Chicago accent. We don't want to frighten the
+children. And remember, you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel.
+That's what the French children call Santa Claus."
+
+It is three o'clock, and the regimental band, assembled in marching
+formation in the village street, blares out "I Wish I Were in the Land
+of Cotton," and there is an outpouring of children, women and soldiers
+from every door on the street. The colonel and his staff stand in front
+of their quarters opposite the band, and a thousand American soldiers,
+in holiday disregard for formation, range along either side of the
+street.
+
+The large wooden gate of the stable yard, next to the commandant's
+quarters, swings open; there is a jingle of bells, and "Hindenburg,"
+resplendent in his fittings, and Papa Noel Powers sitting high on the
+package-heaped sleigh, move out into the street. Their appearance is met
+with a crash of cymbals, the blare of the band's loudest brass, and the
+happy cries of the children and the deeper cheers of the men.
+
+Christmas had come to Saint Thiebault. Up the street went the
+procession, the band in the lead playing a lively jingling piece of
+music well matched to the keenness of the air and the willingness of
+young blood to tingle with the slightest inspiration.
+
+"Hindenburg," with a huge pair of tin spectacles goggling his eyes,
+tossed his head and made the bells ring all over his gala caparison.
+Papa Noel, mounted on the pyramid of presents, bowed right and left and
+waved his hands to the children, to the soldiers, to the old men and the
+old women.
+
+As the youngsters followed in the wake of the sleigh, the soldiers
+picked them up and carried them on their shoulders, on "piggy" back, or
+held them out so they could shake hands with Papa Noel and hear that
+dignitary gurgle his appreciation in wonderful north pole language.
+
+When Papa Noel found out that he could trust the flour paste and did not
+have to hold his whiskers on by biting them, he gravely announced, "Wee,
+wee," to all the bright-eyed, red-cheeked salutations directed his way.
+
+The band halted in front of the ancient church of Saint Thiebault, where
+old Father Gabrielle stood in the big doorway, smiling and rubbing his
+hands. Upon his invitation the children entered and were placed in the
+first row of chairs, the mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and young
+women sat in back of them, and further back sat the regimental officers.
+The soldiers filled the rest of the church to the doors.
+
+The brief ceremony ended with a solemn benediction and then the curtains
+were drawn back from one of the arches in front of and to the left of
+the main altar.
+
+There stood Saint Thiebault's first Christmas tree, or at least the
+first one in four years. It was lighted with candles and was resplendent
+with decorations that represented long hours of work with shears and
+paste on the part of unaccustomed fingers. Suggestions from a thousand
+Christmas minds were on that tree, and the result showed it. The star of
+Bethlehem, made of tinsel, glistened in the candlelight.
+
+Not even the inbred decorum of the church was sufficient to restrain the
+involuntary expressions of admiration of the saint by the seventy
+youngsters. They oh-ed and ah-ed and pointed, but they enjoyed it not a
+whit more than did the other children in the church, some of whose ages
+ran to three score and more.
+
+Papa Noel walked down the centre aisle leading a file of soldiers, each
+of whom carried a heaping armful of packages. Young necks craned and
+eyes bulged as the packages were deposited on the tables in front of the
+communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for silence and spoke.
+
+"These Americans," he said, "have come to our country to march and to
+fight side by side with your fathers and your big brothers and your
+uncles and all the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiebault so
+long. These Americans want to take their places for you to-day. These
+Americans in doing these things for you are thinking of their own little
+girls and little boys away back across the ocean who are missing their
+fathers and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you miss
+yours."
+
+There were wet eyes among the women and some of the older men in khaki
+closed their eyes and seemed to be transporting themselves thousands of
+miles away to other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only for
+a minute.
+
+M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribution of gifts and
+the children of Saint Thiebault began their excited progress toward the
+tables. Here Papa Noel delivered the prized packages.
+
+"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a hair ribbon of gold and
+black with a tortoise bandeau."
+
+"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six German soldiers at
+least to shoot."
+
+"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with a collar of wool."
+
+"For Alphonse Benois, an aeroplane that flies on a string."
+
+"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks."
+
+"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather soles and tops."
+
+"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheepskin muff."
+
+"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the American flag."
+
+It continued for more than an hour. The promoters of the celebration
+were wise to their work. There was more than one present for each child.
+They did not know how many. Time after time, their names were called and
+they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each new surprise.
+
+The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games, candies and nuts,
+but the joy was in sitting there and waiting for one's name to be called
+and going forward to partake of that most desirable "more."
+
+Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served as a climax to
+the distribution. He had whispered something to M. Lecompte and the
+result was that one little duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and
+hugged an enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to hear
+the name "Pierre Lafite" called out.
+
+All the other names had been called once and not his. He waited. All the
+names had been called twice and still not his. He waited through the
+third and the fourth calling in vain, and his chin was beginning to
+tremble suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the sound
+of his name.
+
+The piles of packages on the tables had been getting smaller all the
+time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced the very last name.
+
+"Pierre Lafite," he called.
+
+Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and started up the
+aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The rest of the children had
+returned to their seats. All the elders in the church were watching his
+progress.
+
+"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up the enormous boot.
+"A pair of real leather shoes to fit in the foot of the boot." He placed
+them there.
+
+"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He so placed them.
+
+"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a general
+commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured them into the boot.
+
+"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top of the soldiers.
+
+"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.
+
+"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets.
+_Voila_, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in
+overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment.
+
+Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward
+his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty,
+and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more
+than his companions in five.
+
+Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band
+struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone
+down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.
+
+"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness.
+
+There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame
+sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green.
+
+"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more
+rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other
+commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and
+pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was
+economically combined with signal practice.
+
+The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and
+French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French
+people learned to love us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU
+
+
+I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the
+young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to
+the creation of units capable of independent action on the front. Only
+that intense and thorough training made it possible for our oversea
+forces to play the veteran part they did play in the great Second Battle
+of the Marne.
+
+The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's Western Front
+offensives of the year. The increasing strength of the American forces
+overseas forced Germany to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn
+hope of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines could
+have the advantage of America's weight.
+
+On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first powerful offensive
+on a front of fifty miles from Arras to Noyon in Picardy and had
+advanced their lines from St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens.
+
+On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in Flanders on a front of
+twenty miles from Lens northward to the River Lys and had cut into the
+Allied front as far as Armentieres.
+
+There followed what was considered an abnormal delay in the third act of
+the demonstration. It was known that the Germans were engaged in making
+elaborate arrangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy hope
+in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow against the
+hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising power could be thrown
+into the fight.
+
+The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front selected for the
+assault was twenty-five miles in width, extending from the Ailette near
+Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown
+Prince was the titular chief of the group of armies used in the assault.
+One of these forces was the army of General von Boehm, which before the
+attack had numbered only nine divisions and had extended from the Oise
+at Noyon to east of Craconne. The other army was that of General Fritz
+von Buelow, previously composed of eight divisions and supporting a front
+that extended from Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near
+Auberive. On the day of the attack, these armies had been strengthened
+to twice their normal number of divisions, and subsequently captured
+German plans revealed that the enemy expected to use forty-five
+divisions or practically half a million men in the onslaught.
+
+The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the weakly held French
+positions on the Chemin des Dames. It was preceded by a three hour
+bombardment of terrific intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered
+four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage that was two miles
+deep. It destroyed all wire communications and flooded battery
+emplacements and machine gun posts with every brand of poison gas known
+to German kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated the
+defenders into small groups and screened the attacking waves until they
+had actually penetrated the French positions.
+
+The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood across the Chemin des
+Dames with its ground sacred with tragic memories, but a withdrawal was
+necessary. The French command was forced to order a retreat to the
+Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units of the British
+Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in Picardy in March, made an
+orderly withdrawal southward.
+
+On the second day of the fight the enemy made a strong thrust toward
+Soissons, and after keeping the city under continual bombardment,
+succeeded in overcoming all resistance and occupying the city on May
+29th. On the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand explosive,
+incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in amongst the hospitals in
+Soissons. American ambulance units did heroic work in the removal of the
+wounded.
+
+The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the following day, May
+30th, they had crossed the Vesle River and had captured
+Fere-en-Tardenois. On the following day their victorious hordes had
+reached the Marne and were closing in on Chateau-Thierry.
+
+Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offensive may be gained
+from a recapitulation which would show that in five days the Germans had
+pushed through five successive lines of Allied defence, and had
+penetrated more than twenty-five miles. On the first day, they had
+captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second day, they had overcome all
+resistance on the Aisne, on the third day, their forces, pushing
+southward, had crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had
+destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the fifth day,
+they had reached the Marne.
+
+It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle with the apex
+pointing southward toward Paris. The west side of the triangle extended
+fifty miles northward from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east
+side of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims. The
+point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north bank of the Marne
+at Chateau-Thierry. The enemy had advanced to within forty miles of the
+capital of France; the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance.
+
+Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that I know the real
+reason why the German hordes stopped at Chateau-Thierry on the north
+bank of the Marne. To me that reason will always be this--because on the
+south bank of the Marne stood the Americans.
+
+On that day and in that event there materialised the German fears which
+had urged them on to such great speed and violence. In the eleventh
+hour, there at the peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of
+Germany's triumphant advances, there at the point where a military
+decision for the enemy seemed almost within grasp, there and then the
+American soldier stepped into the breech to save the democracy of the
+world.
+
+The Marne River makes a loop at this place and Chateau-Thierry lies on
+both banks. The Marne there is called a river, but it would hardly come
+up to the American understanding of the word. The waterway is more like
+a canal with banks built up with stone blocks. There are streets on
+either bank, and these being the principal streets of the town, are
+bordered with comparatively high buildings.
+
+While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city, American forces had
+made brilliant counter attacks on both sides. To the west of
+Chateau-Thierry the German advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly
+Wood, had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east of
+Chateau-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing the Marne in the
+vicinity of Jaulgonne.
+
+This operation was carried out by the German 36th Division. On the night
+of May 30th, at a point where the Marne looped northward eight miles to
+the east of Chateau-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few men
+across the river.
+
+Along the south bank of the river at that place, the Paris-Chalons ran
+through a number of deep cuts and one tunnel. The enemy took shelter in
+these natural protections. They suffered serious losses from the Allied
+artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons across the river,
+but in spite of this, the Germans succeeded in re-enforcing the units on
+the south bank to the strength of about a battalion.
+
+Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this place received
+re-enforcements from the Americans. Units of the 3rd United States
+Regular Division and the 28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of
+Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training
+areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in fitting
+themselves for line duty. These incompletely trained American units
+abandoned their bayonet-stabbing of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare
+to rush forward into the real thing.
+
+On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of French officers, began
+the counter attack to sweep the Germans back from the south bank. By
+that time the enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges
+across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead position with a
+number of machine guns and a strong force of men in the railway station
+on the south bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.
+
+This position was attacked frontally by the Americans and French. Our
+novices in battle were guilty of numerous so-called strategical
+blunders, but in the main purpose of killing the enemy, they proved
+irresistible. The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the French
+artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges crossing the river,
+with the result that many of the fleeing enemy were killed and more
+drowned. Only thirty or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them
+threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder of the battalion
+was wiped out. At the close of the engagement the Americans and the
+French were in full command of the south bank.
+
+But it was in Chateau-Thierry itself that the Germans made their most
+determined effort to cross the river and get a footing on the south
+bank, and it was there, again, that their efforts were frustrated by our
+forces. On May 31st, American machine gun units, then in training
+seventy-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly bundled into
+motor lorries and rushed northward into Chateau-Thierry.
+
+The Germans were advancing their patrols into the north side of the
+city. They were pouring down the streets in large numbers, with the
+evident purpose of crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on
+the south bank.
+
+It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that those American
+machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. That night while
+the German artillery raked the south bank of the river with high
+explosive shells, those Americans, shouldering their machine guns,
+marched into the city and took up defensive positions on the south bank
+of the river.
+
+During the night many houses were turned into ruins. Shells striking the
+railroad station had caused it to burn. In the red glare our men saw the
+houses about them collapse under clouds of dust and debris. Under cover
+of darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the north side
+of the river. The American machine gunners went into position in the
+windows of houses on the south bank and in gardens between the houses,
+and from these positions it was possible to command all of the bridge
+approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite side.
+
+During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young Pittsburgher but
+recently graduated from West Point, started across one of the bridges
+and reached the north bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine
+guns. This little unit went into position in a place commanding the
+forked highways which converged not far from the northern approach of
+the iron bridge crossing the river. It was this unit's function to
+prevent the enemy advance from this direction. The unit was separated
+from its comrades on the south bank by the river and about two hundred
+yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy artillery intensified its
+shelling of the south bank, the American machine gunners remained at
+their posts without firing and played a waiting game.
+
+With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make their rushes for the
+bridges. Small compact forces would dart forward carrying light machine
+guns and ammunition with them. They encountered a terrific burst of
+American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that survived crawled
+back to the shelter of protecting walls, where they were re-enforced
+with fresh units, and again the massed formations charged down the
+streets toward the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until the
+approaches were dotted with bodies of the enemy slain.
+
+On June 1st, the Germans having consolidated positions on the hills
+commanding the city from the north, they directed a terrific artillery
+and machine gun fire into our exposed positions on the south bank, as
+well as the small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant
+Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position held by the
+little American group had long been considered untenable, the members of
+it stuck it out until nightfall, when they received orders to retire to
+the south bank. At the same time, French colonials which had held a
+position throughout the day on the north bank on the edge of the town,
+withdrew in accordance with the same plan. The retirement of both
+parties was covered by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured
+a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began occupying them.
+
+By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement was signalised by a
+terrific explosion, as the French colonials blew up one of the stone
+bridges over which they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge
+had cut off the little band of Americans and left them almost surrounded
+by the enemy on the north bank of the river, which was now becoming
+strongly populated by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard the
+sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above the crack of the
+guns there came the weird swish of the grey coats as they pushed forward
+in mass formations.
+
+The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their guns and, with
+each man carrying his allotted piece, they began working their way along
+the river bank toward the main bridge, where they discovered that the
+enemy was almost upon them. They immediately went into position behind
+the stone parapet on the very brink of the river, and, although in
+constant danger from the American fire that poured out from the south
+bank, they poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing German
+ranks.
+
+The Americans on the south bank were not aware of the plight of the
+little party on the north bank. In spite of their losses, the Germans
+continued their grewsome rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge
+across which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating fire.
+Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to cross the bridge, but
+were forced to crawl back to shelter on the north bank, carrying with
+them three of their wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire.
+Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and the first
+intimation that the Americans on the south bank had of the fact that
+Americans were in front of them was when Lieutenant Cobey heard
+Bissell's voice calling his name. A cease fire order was immediately
+given and Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying their
+wounded with them.
+
+On the following day the Germans were in occupation of all the houses
+facing the north bank of the river, and could be seen from time to time
+darting from one shelter to another. Throughout the day their artillery
+maintained a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held by our
+men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle fire and activity of
+snipers, that it meant death to appear in the open. The Americans manned
+their guns throughout the day, but refrained from indulging in machine
+gun fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations of the guns.
+Nightfall approached with a quiet that was deadly ominous of impending
+events.
+
+At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward to the attack. Their
+dense masses charged down the streets leading toward the river. They
+sang as they advanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured
+later, came straight from the high command and demanded the acquisition
+of a foothold on the south bank at all costs. They paid the costs, but
+never reached the south bank.
+
+The American machine gun fire was withering. Time after time, in the
+frequent rushes throughout the night, the remnants of enemy masses would
+reach sometimes as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them
+succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge became carpeted with
+German dead and wounded. They lay thick in the open streets near the
+approaches. By morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and
+subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the bodies of their fallen
+comrades. In this battle of the bridges and the streets, our men showed
+a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of the French
+officers, who were aware by this time that forty-eight hours before
+these same American soldiers had seen battle for the first time.
+
+Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the river into a No
+Man's Land. Their vigilance was unrelenting and every enemy attempt to
+elude it met with disaster. There were serious American casualties
+during that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with the
+thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets and clogged the
+runways of the big bridge in piles. The last night of the fight enormous
+charges of explosive were placed beneath the bridge and discharged.
+
+The bridge was destroyed. High into the air were blown bits of stone,
+steel, timber, debris, wreckage and the bodies of German dead, all to
+fall back into the river and go bobbing up and down in the waters of the
+Marne.
+
+Thus did the Americans save the day at Chateau-Thierry, but it became
+immediately necessary for the French high command to call upon our young
+forces for another great effort. In response to this call, the Second
+United States Division, including one brigade of the United States
+Marines, the 5th and 6th Regiments, started for the front. The division
+was then occupying support positions in the vicinity of Gisors behind
+the Picardy line. At four o'clock on the morning of May 31st the Marine
+brigade and regiments of United States infantry, the 9th and the 23rd
+Regulars, boarded camions, twenty to thirty men and their equipment in
+each vehicle.
+
+They were bound eastward to the valley of the Marne. The road took them
+through the string of pretty villages fifteen miles to the north of
+Paris. The trucks loaded with United States troops soon became part of
+the endless traffic of war that was pouring northward and eastward
+toward the raging front. Our men soon became coated with the dust of the
+road. The French people in the villages through which they passed at top
+speed cheered them and threw flowers into the lorries.
+
+Between Meaux and Chateau-Thierry, where the road wound along the Marne,
+our men encountered long trains of French refugees, weary mothers
+carrying hungry babies at the breast, farm wagons loaded with household
+belongings, usually surmounted by feather mattresses on which rode
+grey-haired grandfathers and grandmothers. This pitiful procession was
+moving toward the rear driving before it flocks of geese and herds of
+cattle. On the other side of the road war, grim war, moved in the
+opposite direction.
+
+The Second Division was bound for the line to the northwest of
+Chateau-Thierry. On June 1st, the 6th Marines relieved the French on the
+support lines. The sector of the 6th Regiment joined on the left the
+sector held by two battalions of the 5th. The line on the right was held
+by the French. On June 2nd, the hard-pressed French line, weak and weary
+from continual rear guard actions, over a hard fighting period of
+almost a week, fell back by prearranged plan and passed through the
+support positions which we held. To fill gaps between units, the Marines
+extended their brigade sector to between twelve and fourteen kilometres.
+As the French withdrew to the rear, hard pressed by the enemy, the
+Marines held the new first line.
+
+The regimental headquarters of the 6th was located in a stone farmhouse
+at a cross-roads called La Voie Chatel, situated between the villages of
+Champillon and Lucy-le-Bocage. There was clear observation from that
+point toward the north. At five o'clock in the afternoon on that day of
+clear visibility, the Germans renewed their attacks from the north and
+northeast toward a position called Hill 165, which was defended by the
+5th Regiment.
+
+The Germans advanced in two solid columns across a field of golden
+wheat. More than half of the two columns had left the cover of the trees
+and were moving in perfect order across the field when the shrapnel fire
+from the American artillery in the rear got range on the target. Burst
+after burst of white smoke suddenly appeared in the air over the column,
+and under each burst the ground was marked with a circle of German dead.
+It was not barrage fire: it was individual firing against two individual
+moving targets and its success spoke well for the training which that
+brigade of American artillery had received.
+
+French aviators from above directed the fire of our guns, and from high
+in the air signalled down their "bravos" in congratulation on the
+excellent work. At the same time, the machine gunners of the 5th covered
+the ravines and wooded clumps with a hot fire to prevent small bodies of
+the enemy from infiltrating through our lines. The French marvelled at
+the deliberateness and accuracy of our riflemen.
+
+The Germans, unaware that a change had taken place in the personnel that
+faced them, reeled back demoralised and unable to understand how such a
+sudden show of resistance had been presented by the weakened French
+troops which they had been driving before them for a week. The enemy's
+advance had been made openly and confidently in the mistaken flush of
+victory. Their triumphant advances of the previous week had more than
+supported the statements of the German officers, who had told their men
+that they were on the road to Paris--the end of the war and peace. It
+was in this mood of victory that the enemy encountered the Marines'
+stone wall and reeled back in surprise.
+
+That engagement, in addition to lowering the enemy morale, deprived them
+of their offensive spirit and placed them on the defensive. The next few
+days were spent in advancing small strong points and the strengthening
+of positions. In broad daylight one group of Marines rushed a German
+machine gun pit in the open, killed or wounded every man in the crew,
+disabled the gun and got back to their lines in safety.
+
+It was at five o'clock on the bright afternoon of June 6th that the
+United States Marines began to carve their way into history in the
+battle of the Bois de Belleau. Major General Harbord, former Chief of
+Staff to General Pershing, was in command of the Marine brigade. Orders
+were received for a general advance on the brigade front. The main
+objectives were the eastern edge of the Bois de Belleau and the towns of
+Bussiares, Torcy and Bouresches.
+
+Owing to the difficulty of liaison in the thickets of the wood, and
+because of the almost impossible task of directing it in conjunction
+with the advancing lines, the artillery preparation for the attack was
+necessarily brief. At five o'clock to the dot the Marines moved out from
+the woods in perfect order, and started across the wheat fields in four
+long waves. It was a beautiful sight, these men of ours going across
+those flat fields toward the tree clusters beyond from which the Germans
+poured a murderous machine gun fire.
+
+The woods were impregnated with nests of machine guns, but our advance
+proved irresistible. Many of our men fell, but those that survived
+pushed on through the woods, bayoneting right and left and firing as
+they charged. So sweeping was the advance that in some places small
+isolated units of our men found themselves with Germans both before and
+behind them.
+
+The enemy put up a stubborn resistance on the left, and it was not until
+later in the evening that this part of the line reached the northeast
+edge of the woods, after it had completely surrounded a most populous
+machine gun nest which was located on a rocky hill. During the fighting
+Colonel Catlin was wounded and Captain Laspierre, the French liaison
+officer, was gassed, two casualties which represented a distinct blow to
+the brigade, but did not hinder its further progress.
+
+On the right Lieutenant Robertson, with twenty survivors out of his
+entire platoon, emerged from the terrific enemy barrage and took the
+town of Bouresches at the point of the bayonet. Captain Duncan,
+receiving word that one Marine company, with a determination to engage
+the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, had gone two hundred yards in advance,
+raced forward on the double quick with the 96th Marine Company, and was
+met by a terrific machine gun barrage from both sides of Bouresches.
+
+Lieutenant Robertson, looking back, saw Duncan and the rest of his
+company going down like flies as they charged through the barrage. He
+saw Lieutenant Bowling get up from the ground, his face white with pain,
+and go stumbling ahead with a bullet in his shoulder. Duncan, carrying a
+stick and with his pipe in his mouth, was mowed down in the rain of
+lead. Robertson saw Dental Surgeon Osborne pick Duncan up. With the aid
+of a Hospital Corps man, they had just gained the shelter of some trees
+when a shell wiped all three of them out.
+
+In the street fighting that ensued in Bouresches, Lieutenant Robertson's
+orderly, Private Dunlavy, who was later killed in the defence of the
+town, captured one of the enemy's own machine guns and turned it against
+them.
+
+In the dense woods the Germans showed their mastery of machine gun
+manipulation and the method of infiltration by which they would place
+strong units in our rear and pour in a deadly fire. Many of these guns
+were located on rocky ridges, from which they could fire to all points.
+These Marines worked with reckless courage against heavy odds, and the
+Germans exacted a heavy toll for every machine gun that was captured or
+disabled, but in spite of losses the Marine advance continued.
+
+Lieutenant Overton, commanding the 76th Company, made a brilliant charge
+against a strong German position at the top of a rocky hill. He and his
+men captured all of the guns and all of their crews. Overton was hit
+later when the Germans retaliated by a concentration of fire against the
+captured position for forty-eight hours.
+
+Lieutenant Robertson, according to the report brought back by a
+regimental runner, was last seen flat on a rock not twenty yards away
+from one enemy gun, at which he kept shooting with an automatic in each
+hand. He was hit three times before he consented to let his men carry
+him to the rear.
+
+"There was not an officer left in the 82nd Company," according to a
+letter by Major Frank E. Evans, Adjutant of the Sixth. "Major Sibley and
+his Adjutant reorganised them under close fire and led them in a charge
+that put one particular machine gun nest out of business at the most
+critical time in all the fighting. I heard later that at that stage some
+one said: 'Major Sibley ordered that--' and another man said: 'Where in
+hell is Sibley?' Sibley was twenty yards away at that time and a hush
+went down the line when they saw him step out to lead the charge.
+
+"And when the word got around through that dead-tired, crippled outfit
+that 'the Old Man' was on the line, all hell could not have stopped that
+rush."
+
+In such fashion did the Marines go through the Bois de Belleau. Their
+losses were heavy, but they did the work. The sacrifice was necessary.
+Paris was in danger. The Marines constituted the thin line between the
+enemy and Paris. The Marines not only held that line--they pushed it
+forward.
+
+The fighting was terrific. In one battalion alone the casualties
+numbered sixty-four per cent. officers and sixty-four per cent. men.
+Several companies came out of the fighting under command of their first
+sergeants, all of the officers having been killed or wounded.
+
+I witnessed some of that fighting. I was with the Marines at the opening
+of the battle. I never saw men charge to their death with finer spirit.
+I am sorry that wounds prevented me from witnessing the victorious
+conclusion of the engagement. In view of my subsequent absence from the
+fight, I wish to give credit and thanks at this place to Major Frank E.
+Evans, who as Adjutant of the 6th Regiment of Marines, provided me with
+much of the foregoing material which occurred while I was in the
+hospital.
+
+The bravery of that Marine brigade in the Bois de Belleau fight will
+ever remain a bright chapter in the records of the American Army. For
+the performance of deeds of exceptional valour, more than a hundred
+Marines were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses. General Pershing, in
+recognition of the conduct of the Second Division, issued the following
+order:
+
+  "It is with inexpressible pride and satisfaction that your commander
+  recounts your glorious deeds on the field of battle. In the early
+  days of June on a front of twenty kilometres, after night marches
+  and with only the reserve rations which you carried, you stood like
+  a wall against the enemy advance on Paris. For this timely action
+  you have received the thanks of the French people whose homes you
+  saved and the generous praise of your comrades in arms.
+
+  "Since the organisation of our sector, in the face of strong
+  opposition, you have advanced your lines two kilometres on a front
+  of eight kilometres. You have engaged and defeated with great loss
+  three German divisions and have occupied important strong
+  points--Belleau Wood, Bouresches, and Vaux. You have taken about
+  1,400 prisoners, many machine guns, and much other material. The
+  complete success of the infantry was made possible by the splendid
+  co-operation of the artillery, by the aid and assistance of the
+  engineer and signal troops, by the diligent and watchful care of the
+  medical and supply services, and by the unceasing work of the
+  well-organised staff. All elements of the division have worked
+  together as a well-trained machine.
+
+  "Amid the dangers and trials of battle, every officer and every man
+  has done well his part. Let the stirring deeds, hardships, and
+  sacrifices of the past month remain forever a bright spot in our
+  history. Let the sacred memory of our fallen comrades spur us on to
+  renewed effort and to the glory of American arms."
+
+All of the German prisoners captured by the Marines in the Bois de
+Belleau could express only surprise over the fighting capacity of their
+captors. Prisoners' statements are not entirely trustworthy, but here is
+one that was not intended for American consumption. It was written by a
+German soldier, who was killed in the Bois de Belleau before he had an
+opportunity to mail it. It was removed from his body. It reads:
+
+                                         "France, June 21, 1918.
+
+  "We are now in the battle zone and canteens dare not come to us on
+  account of the enemy, for the Americans are bombarding the villages
+  fifteen kilometres behind the present front with long-range guns,
+  and you will know that the canteen outfit and the others who are
+  lying in reserve do not venture very far, for it is not 'pleasant to
+  eat cherries' with the Americans. The reason for that is that they
+  have not yet had much experience. The American divisions are still
+  too fiery. They are the first divisions that the French have
+  entered.... We will also show the Americans how good we are, for the
+  day before yesterday we bombarded them heavily with our gas. About
+  400 of us are lying around here. We have one corner of the woods and
+  the American has the other corner. That is not nice, for all of a
+  sudden he rushes forward and one does not know it beforehand.
+  Therefore, one must shoot at every little noise, for one cannot
+  trust them. Here always two men have dug a hold for themselves. Here
+  one lies day and night without a blanket, only with a coat and a
+  shelter-half. One freezes at night like a tailor, for the nights are
+  fiercely cold. I hope that I will be lucky enough to escape from
+  this horrible mess, for up to now I have always been lucky. Many of
+  my comrades are already buried here. The enemy sweeps every evening
+  the whole countryside with machine gun and rifle fire, and then
+  artillery fire. But we in front line are safer than in the support
+  position. At present our food is miserable. We are now fed upon
+  dried vegetables and marmalade and when at night we obtain more food
+  it is unpalatable. It is half sour and all cold. In the daytime we
+  receive nothing."
+
+But it might be wise to support this statement from a German soldier in
+the ranks by excerpts from an official German army report which was
+captured July 7th on a German officer. The document was a carefully
+weighed treatise on the fighting capacity of the United States Marines.
+The document had the following heading:
+
+  _"Intelligence Officer of the Supreme Command at Army Headquarters,
+  Number 7, J. Number 3,528, Army Headquarters, June 17, 1917._
+
+  _"Second American Infantry Division._
+
+  _"Examination of Prisoners from the 5th, 6th, 9th and 23rd
+  Regiments, captured from June 5th to 14th, in the Bouresches
+  Sector."_
+
+After setting forth all information gained, concerning the purpose of
+attack and the arrival of the American units on the line, the German
+Intelligence Report continues, as follows:
+
+  "The Second American Division may be classed as a very good
+  division, perhaps even as assault troops. The various attacks of
+  both regiments on Belleau Wood were carried out with dash and
+  recklessness. The moral effect of our firearms did not materially
+  check the advances of the enemy. The nerves of the Americans are
+  still unshaken.
+
+  "VALUE OF THE INDIVIDUAL--the individual soldiers are very good.
+  They are healthy, vigorous, and physically well-developed men, of
+  ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-eight, who at present lack only
+  necessary training to make them redoubtable opponents. The troops
+  are fresh and full of straightforward confidence. A remark of one of
+  the prisoners is indicative of their spirit: 'We kill or get
+  killed.'
+
+  "MORALE--the prisoners in general make an alert and pleasing
+  impression. Regarding military matters, however, they do not show
+  the slightest interest. Their superiors keep them purposely without
+  knowledge of the military subjects. For example, most of them have
+  never seen a map. They are no longer able to describe the villages
+  and roads through which they marched. Their idea of the organisation
+  of their unit is entirely confused. For example, one of them told us
+  that his brigade had six regiments and his division twenty-four.
+  They still regard the war from the point of view of the 'big
+  brother' who comes to help his hard-pressed brethren and is
+  therefore welcomed everywhere. A certain moral background is not
+  lacking. The majority of the prisoners simply took as a matter of
+  course that they have come to Europe to defend their country.
+
+  "Only a few of the troops are of pure American origin; the majority
+  is of German, Dutch and Italian parentage, but these semi-Americans,
+  almost all of whom were born in America and never have been in
+  Europe before, fully feel themselves to be true born sons of their
+  country.
+
+                                           (Signed) "VON BERG,
+                               "Lieutenant and Intelligence Officer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since the days I read Hugo's chapters on the Battle of Waterloo in "Les
+Miserables," I always considered as an ideal of fighting capacity and
+the military spirit of sacrifice the old sergeant of Napoleon's Old
+Guard. Hugo made me vividly see that old sergeant standing on a field
+with a meagre remnant of the Old Guard gathered around him. Unable to
+resist further, but unwilling to accept surrender, he and his followers
+faced the British cannon. The British, respecting this admirable
+demonstration of courage, ceased firing and called out to them, "Brave
+Frenchmen, surrender."
+
+The old sergeant, who was about to die, refused to accept this offer of
+his life from the enemy. Into the very muzzles of the British cannon the
+sergeant hurled back the offer of his life with one word. That word was
+the vilest epithet in the French language. The cannons roared and the
+old sergeant and his survivors died with the word on their lips. Hugo
+wisely devoted an entire chapter to that single word.
+
+But I have a new ideal to-day. I found it in the Bois de Belleau. A
+small platoon line of Marines lay on their faces and bellies under the
+trees at the edge of a wheat field. Two hundred yards across that flat
+field the enemy was located in trees. I peered into the trees but could
+see nothing, yet I knew that every leaf in the foliage screened scores
+of German machine guns that swept the field with lead. The bullets
+nipped the tops of the young wheat and ripped the bark from the trunks
+of the trees three feet from the ground on which the Marines lay. The
+minute for the Marine advance was approaching. An old gunnery sergeant
+commanded the platoon in the absence of the lieutenant, who had been
+shot and was out of the fight. This old sergeant was a Marine veteran.
+His cheeks were bronzed with the wind and sun of the seven seas. The
+service bar across his left breast showed that he had fought in the
+Philippines, in Santo Domingo, at the walls of Pekin, and in the streets
+of Vera Cruz. I make no apologies for his language. Even if Hugo were
+not my precedent, I would make no apologies. To me his words were
+classic, if not sacred.
+
+As the minute for the advance arrived, he arose from the trees first and
+jumped out onto the exposed edge of that field that ran with lead,
+across which he and his men were to charge. Then he turned to give the
+charge order to the men of his platoon--his mates--the men he loved. He
+said:
+
+"COME ON, YOU SONS-O'-BITCHES! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WOUNDED--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT
+
+
+Just how does it feel to be shot on the field of battle? Just what is
+the exact sensation when a bullet burns its way through your flesh or
+crashes through your bones?
+
+I always wanted to know. As a police reporter I "covered" scores of
+shooting cases, but I could never learn from the victims what the
+precise feeling was as the piece of lead struck. For long years I had
+cherished an inordinate curiosity to know that sensation, if possible,
+without experiencing it. I was curious and eager for enlightenment just
+as I am still anxious to know how it is that some people willingly drink
+buttermilk when it isn't compulsory.
+
+I am still in the dark concerning the inexplicable taste for the sour,
+clotted product of a sweet, well-meaning cow and the buttery, but I have
+found out how it feels to be shot. I know it now by experience.
+
+Three Germans bullets that violated my person left me as many scars and
+at the same time completely satisfied my curiosity. I think now if I can
+ever muster up enough courage to drink a glass of buttermilk, I shall
+have bereft myself of my last inquisitiveness.
+
+It happened on June 6th just to the northwest of Chateau-Thierry in the
+Bois de Belleau. On the morning of that day I left Paris by motor for a
+rush to the front. The Germans were on that day within forty miles of
+the capital of France. On the night before, the citizens of Paris, in
+their homes and hotels, had heard the roll of the guns drawing ever
+nearer. Many had left the city.
+
+But American divisions were in the line between the enemy and their
+goal, and the operation of these divisions was my object in hustling to
+the front. On the broad, paved highway from Paris to Meaux, my car
+passed miles and miles of loaded motor trucks bound frontward. Long
+lines of these carried thousands of Americans. Other long lines were
+loaded down with shells and cartridge boxes. On the right side of the
+road, bound for Paris and points back of the line, was an endless stream
+of ambulances and other motor trucks bringing back wounded. Dense clouds
+of dust hung like a pall over the length of the road. The day was hot,
+the dust was stifling.
+
+From Meaux we proceeded along the straight highway that borders the
+south banks of the Marne to LaFerte, at which place we crossed the river
+and turned north to Montreuil, which was the newly occupied headquarters
+of the Second United States Army Division, General Omar Bundy
+commanding. On the day before, the two infantry brigades of that
+division, one composed of the 5th and 6th U. S. Marines, under command
+of Brigadier General Harbord, the other composed of the 9th and 23rd U.
+S. Infantry, had been thrown into the line which was just four miles to
+the north and east.
+
+The fight had been hot during the morning. The Marines on the left flank
+of the divisional sector had been pushing their lines forward through
+triangle woods and the village of Lucy-le-Bocage. The information of
+their advances was given to me by the Divisional Intelligence officer,
+who occupied a large room in the rear of the building that was used as
+Divisional Headquarters. The building was the village _Mairie_, which
+also included the village school-house. Now the desks of the school
+children were being used by our staff officers and the walls and
+blackboards were covered with maps.
+
+I was accompanied by Lieutenant Oscar Hartzell, formerly of the _New
+York Times_ staff. We learned that orders from the French High Command
+called for a continuation of the Marine advance during the afternoon and
+evening, and this information made it possible for us to make our plans.
+Although the Germans were shelling roads immediately behind the front,
+Lieutenant Hartzell and I agreed to proceed by motor from Montreuil a
+mile or so to a place called La Voie du Chatel, which was the
+headquarters of Colonel Neveille of the 5th Marines. Reaching that place
+around four o'clock, we turned a despatch over to the driver of our
+staff car with instructions that he proceed with all haste to Paris and
+there submit it to the U. S. Press Bureau.
+
+Lieutenant Hartzell and I announced our intentions of proceeding at once
+to the front line to Colonel Neveille.
+
+"Go wherever you like," said the regimental commander, looking up from
+the outspread maps on the kitchen table in the low-ceilinged stone
+farm-house that he had adopted as headquarters. "Go as far as you like,
+but I want to tell you it's damn hot up there."
+
+An hour later found us in the woods to the west of the village of Lucy
+le Bocage, in which German shells were continually falling. To the west
+and north another nameless cluster of farm dwellings was in flames. Huge
+clouds of smoke rolled up like a smudge against the background of blue
+sky.
+
+The ground under the trees in the wood was covered with small bits of
+white paper. I could not account for their presence until I examined
+several of them and found that these were letters from American mothers
+and wives and sweethearts--letters--whole packages of them, which the
+tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to remove from their packs and
+destroy in order to ease the straps that cut into aching grooves in
+their shoulders. Circumstances also forced the abandonment of much other
+material and equipment.
+
+Occasional shells were dropping in the woods, which were also within
+range from a long distance, indirect machine gun fire from the enemy.
+Bits of lead, wobbling in their flight at the end of their long
+trajectory, sung through the air above our heads and clipped leaves and
+twigs from the branches. On the edge of the woods we came upon a hastily
+dug out pit in which there were two American machine guns and their
+crews.
+
+The field in front of the woods sloped gently down some two hundred
+yards to another cluster of trees. This cluster was almost as big as the
+one we were in. Part of it was occupied by the Germans. Our machine
+gunners maintained a continual fire into that part held by the enemy.
+
+Five minutes before five o'clock, the order for the advance reached our
+pit. It was brought there by a second lieutenant, a platoon commander.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at the green brassard and
+red "C" on my left arm.
+
+"Looking for the big story," I said.
+
+"If I were you I'd be about forty miles south of this place," said the
+Lieutenant, "but if you want to see the fun, stick around. We are going
+forward in five minutes."
+
+That was the last I saw of him until days later, when both of us,
+wounded, met in the hospital. Of course, the first thing he said was, "I
+told you so."
+
+We hurriedly finished the contents of the can of cold "Corned Willy"
+which one of the machine gunners and I were eating. The machine guns
+were taken down and the barrels, cradles and tripods were handed over to
+the members of the crew whose duties it was to carry them.
+
+And then we went over. There are really no heroics about it. There is no
+bugle call, no sword waving, no dramatic enunciation of catchy commands,
+no theatricalism--it's just plain get up and go over. And it is done
+just the same as one would walk across a peaceful wheat field out in
+Iowa.
+
+But with the appearance of our first line, as it stepped from the
+shelter of the woods into the open exposure of the flat field, the woods
+opposite began to cackle and rattle with the enemy machine gun fire. Our
+men advanced in open order, ten and twelve feet between men. Sometimes a
+squad would run forward fifty feet and drop. And as its members
+flattened on the ground for safety another squad would rise from the
+ground and make another rush.
+
+They gained the woods. Then we could hear shouting. Then we knew that
+work was being done with the bayonet. The machine gun fire continued in
+intensity and then died down completely. The wood had been won. Our men
+consolidated the position by moving forward in groups ever on the
+watch-out for snipers in the trees. A number of these were brought down
+by our crack pistol shots.
+
+At different times during the advance runners had come through the woods
+inquiring for Major John Berry, the battalion commander. One of these
+runners attached himself to Lieutenant Hartzell and myself and together
+the three of us located the Major coming through the woods. He granted
+permission for Lieutenant Hartzell and me to accompany him and we
+started forward, in all a party of some fifteen, including ten runners
+attached to the battalion commander.
+
+Owing to the continual evidences of German snipers in the trees, every
+one in our party carried a revolver ready in his hand, with the
+exception of myself. Correspondents, you will remember, are
+non-combatants and must be unarmed. I carried a notebook, but it was
+loaded. We made our way down the slope of the wooded hillside.
+
+Midway down the slope, the hill was bisected by a sunken road which
+turned forward on the left. Lying in the road were a number of French
+bodies and several of our men who had been brought down but five minutes
+before. We crossed that road hurriedly knowing that it was covered from
+the left by German machine guns.
+
+At the bottom of the slope there was a V-shaped field. The apex of the V
+was on the left. From left to right the field was some two hundred yards
+in width. The point where we came out of the woods was about one hundred
+yards from the apex. At that point the field was about one hundred yards
+across. It was perfectly flat and was covered with a young crop of oats
+between ten and fifteen inches high.
+
+This V-shaped oat field was bordered on all sides by dense clusters of
+trees. In the trees on the side opposite the side on which we stood,
+were German machine guns. We could hear them. We could not see them but
+we knew that every leaf and piece of greenery there vibrated from their
+fire and the tops of the young oats waved and swayed with the streams of
+lead that swept across.
+
+Major Berry gave orders for us to follow him at intervals of ten or
+fifteen yards. Then he started across the field alone at the head of the
+party. I followed. Behind me came Hartzell. Then the woods about us
+began to rattle fiercely. It was unusually close range. That lead
+travelled so fast that we could not hear it as it passed. We soon had
+visual demonstration of the hot place we were in when we began to see
+the dust puffs that the bullets kicked up in the dirt around our feet.
+
+Major Berry had advanced well beyond the centre of the field when I saw
+him turn toward me and heard him shout:
+
+"Get down everybody."
+
+We all fell on our faces. And then it began to come hot and fast.
+Perfectly withering volleys of lead swept the tops of the oats just over
+us. For some reason it did not seem to be coming from the trees hardly a
+hundred yards in front of us. It was coming from a new direction--from
+the left.
+
+I was busily engaged flattening myself on the ground. Then I heard a
+shout in front of me. It came from Major Berry. I lifted my head
+cautiously and looked forward. The Major was making an effort to get to
+his feet. With his right hand he was savagely grasping his left wrist.
+
+"My hand's gone," he shouted. One of the streams of lead from the left
+had found him. A ball had entered his left arm at the elbow, had
+travelled down the side of the bone, tearing away muscles and nerves of
+the forearm and lodging itself in the palm of his hand. His pain was
+excruciating.
+
+"Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he dropped to the ground.
+I did not know the extent of his injuries at that time but I did know
+that he was courting death every minute he stood up.
+
+"We've got to get out of here," said the Major. "We've got to get
+forward. They'll start shelling this open field in a few minutes."
+
+I lifted my head for another cautious look.
+
+I judged that I was lying about thirty yards from the edge of the trees
+in front of us. The Major was about ten yards in front of me.
+
+"You are twenty yards from the trees," I shouted to the Major. "I am
+crawling over to you now. Wait until I get there and I'll help you. Then
+we'll get up and make a dash for it."
+
+"All right," replied the Major, "hurry along."
+
+I started forward, keeping as flat on the ground as it was possible to
+do so and at the same time move. As far as was feasible, I pushed
+forward by digging in with my toes and elbows extended in front of me.
+It was my object to make as little movement in the oats as possible. I
+was not mistaken about the intensity of fire that swept the field. It
+was terrific.
+
+And then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette touched me in the
+fleshy part of my upper left arm. That was all. It just felt like a
+sudden burn and nothing worse. The burned part did not seem to be any
+larger in area than that part which could be burned by the lighted end
+of a cigarette.
+
+At the time there was no feeling within the arm, that is, no feeling as
+to aches or pain. There was nothing to indicate that the bullet, as I
+learned several days later, had gone through the bicep muscle of the
+upper arm and had come out on the other side. The only sensation
+perceptible at the time was the burning touch at the spot where the
+bullet entered.
+
+I glanced down at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and could not even see
+the hole where the bullet had entered. Neither was there any sudden flow
+of blood. At the time there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm
+and I continued to use it to work my way forward.
+
+Then the second one hit. It nicked the top of my left shoulder. And
+again came the burning sensation, only this time the area affected
+seemed larger. Hitting as it did in the meaty cap of the shoulder, I
+feared that there would be no further use for the arm until it had
+received attention, but again I was surprised when I found upon
+experiment that I could still use it. The bone seemed to be affected in
+no way.
+
+Again there was no sudden flow of blood, nor stiffness. It seemed hard
+for me to believe at the time, but I had been shot twice, penetrated
+through by two bullets and was experiencing not any more pain than I had
+experienced once when I dropped a lighted cigarette on the back of my
+hand. I am certain that the pain in no way approached that sensation
+which the dentist provides when he drills into a tooth with a live nerve
+in it.
+
+So I continued to move toward the Major. Occasionally I would shout
+something to him, although, at this time, I am unable to remember what
+it was. I only wanted to let him know I was coming. I had fears, based
+on the one look that I had obtained of his pain-distorted face, that he
+had been mortally shot in the body.
+
+And then the third one struck me. In order to keep as close to the
+ground as possible, I had swung my chin to the right so that I was
+pushing forward with my left cheek flat against the ground and in order
+to accommodate this position of the head, I had moved my steel helmet
+over so that it covered part of my face on the right.
+
+Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like some one had dropped a
+glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. A barrel of whitewash tipped over
+and it seemed that everything in the world turned white. That was the
+sensation. I did not recognise it because I have often been led to
+believe and often heard it said that when one receives a blow on the
+head everything turns black.
+
+Maybe I am contrarily constructed, but in my case everything became pure
+white. I remember this distinctly because my years of newspaper training
+had been in but one direction--to sense and remember. So it was that,
+even without knowing it, my mind was making mental notes on every
+impression that my senses registered.
+
+I did not know yet where I had been hit or what the bullet had done. I
+knew that I was still knowing things. I did not know whether I was alive
+or dead but I did know that my mind was still working. I was still
+mentally taking notes on every second.
+
+The first recess in that note-taking came when I asked myself the
+following question:
+
+"Am I dead?"
+
+I didn't laugh or didn't even smile when I asked myself the question
+without putting it in words. I wanted to know. And wanting to know, I
+undertook to find out. I am not aware now that there was any appreciable
+passage of time during this mental progress. I feel certain, however,
+that I never lost consciousness.
+
+How was I to find out if I was dead? The shock had lifted my head off
+the ground but I had immediately replaced it as close to the soil as
+possible. My twice punctured left arm was lying alongside my body. I
+decided to try and move my fingers on my left hand. I did so and they
+moved. I next moved my left foot. Then I knew I was alive.
+
+[Illustration: HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING DAMAGE
+CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL]
+
+Then I brought my right hand up toward my face and placed it to the left
+of my nose. My fingers rested on something soft and wet. I withdrew the
+hand and looked at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked at it,
+I was not aware that my entire vision was confined to my right eye,
+although there was considerable pain in the entire left side of my face.
+
+This was sufficient to send me on another mental investigation. I closed
+my right eye and--all was dark. My first thought following this
+experiment was that my left eye was closed. So I again counselled with
+myself and tried to open my left eye--that is, tried to give the mental
+command that would cause the muscles of the left eye to open the lid and
+close it again.
+
+I did this but could not feel or verify in any way whether the eye lid
+responded or not. I only knew that it remained dark on that side. This
+brought me to another conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I
+simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had struck me in
+the eye and had closed it.
+
+I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet striking the ground
+immediately under my left cheek bone, had ricocheted upward, going
+completely through the left eye and then crashing out through my
+forehead, leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved, the
+lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of the skull.
+
+Further progress toward the Major was impossible. I must confess that I
+became so intensely interested in the weird sensations and subjective
+research, that I even neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer
+that I would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held this view
+in spite of the fact that my original intentions were strong. Lying
+there with my left cheek flat on the ground, I was able to observe some
+minutes later the wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail
+of lead rush forward and out of my line of vision.
+
+It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned that he
+reached the shelter of the woods beyond without being hit again, and in
+that place, although suffering intense pain, was able to shout back
+orders which resulted in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun
+nest that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort, General
+Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross.
+
+I began to make plans to get out of the exposed position in which I was
+lying. Whereas the field when I started across it had seemed perfectly
+flat, now it impressed me as being convex and I was further impressed
+with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost and most exposed
+curvature of it. There is no doubt that the continued stream of machine
+gun lead that swept the field superinduced this belief. I got as close
+to the ground as a piece of paper on top of a table. I remember
+regretting sincerely that the war had reached the stage of open movement
+and one consequence of which was that there wasn't a shell hole anywhere
+to crawl into.
+
+This did not, however, eliminate the dangerous possibility of shelling.
+With the fatalism that one acquires along the fronts, I was ready to
+take my chances with the casual German shell that one might have
+expected, but I devoted much thought to a consideration of the French
+and American artillery some miles behind me. I considered the
+possibility of word having been sent back that our advancing waves at
+this point had been cut down by enemy machine gunners who were still in
+position preventing all progress at this place. I knew that such
+information, if sent back, would immediately be forwarded to our guns
+and then a devastating concentration of shells would be directed toward
+the location of the machine gun nests.
+
+I knew that I was lying one hundred yards from one of those nests and I
+knew that I was well within the fatal bursting radius of any shells our
+gunners might direct against that German target. My fear was that myself
+and other American wounded lying in that field would die by American
+guns. That is what would have happened if that information had reached
+our artillery and it is what should have happened.
+
+The lives of the wounded in that field were as nothing compared with the
+importance of wiping out that machine gun nest on our left which was
+holding up the entire advance.
+
+I wanted to see what time it was and my watch was attached to my left
+wrist. In endeavouring to get a look at it, I found out that my left arm
+was stiff and racked with pain. Hartzell, I knew, had a watch, but I did
+not know where he was lying, so I called out.
+
+He answered me from some distance away but I could not tell how far or
+in what direction. I could see dimly but only at the expense of great
+pain. When he answered I shouted back to him:
+
+"Are you hit?"
+
+"No, are you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, what time is it?" I said.
+
+"Are you hit badly?" he asked in reply.
+
+"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think I'm all right."
+
+"Where are you hit?" he asked.
+
+"In the head," I said; "I think something hit my eye."
+
+"In the head, you damn fool," he shouted louder with just a bit of anger
+and surprise in his voice. "How the hell can you be all right if you are
+hit in the head? Are you bleeding much?"
+
+"No," I said. "What time is it, will you tell me?"
+
+"I'm coming over to get you," shouted Hartzell.
+
+"Don't move, you damn fool, you want to kill both of us?" I hastened to
+shout back. "If you start moving, don't move near me. I think they think
+I'm dead."
+
+"Well you can't lie there and bleed to death," Hartzell replied. "We've
+got to do something to get to hell out of here. What'll we do?"
+
+"Tell me what time it is and how long it will be before it's dark," I
+asked.
+
+"It's six o'clock now," Hartzell said, "and it won't be dark 'til nine;
+this is June. Do you think you can stick it out?"
+
+I told him that I thought I could and we were silent for some time. Both
+of us had the feeling that other ears--ears working in conjunction with
+eyes trained along the barrels of those machine guns a hundred yards on
+our left--would be aroused to better marksmanship if we continued to
+talk.
+
+I began to take stock of my condition. During my year or more along the
+fronts I had been through many hospitals and from my observations in
+those institutions I had cultivated a keen distaste for one thing--gas
+gangrene. I had learned from doctors its fatal and horrible results and
+I also had learned from them that it was caused by germs which exist in
+large quantities in any ground that has been under artificial
+cultivation for a long period.
+
+Such was the character of the very field I was lying in and I came to
+the realisation that the wound in the left side of my face and head was
+resting flatly on the soil. With my right hand I drew up my British box
+respirator or gas mask and placed this under my head. Thus I rested with
+more confidence, although the machine gun lead continued to pass in
+sheets through the tops of the oats not two or three inches above my
+head.
+
+All of it was coming from the left,--coming from the German nests
+located in the trees at the apex of the V-shaped field. Those guns were
+not a hundred yards away and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply
+of ammunition. Twenty feet away on my left a wounded Marine was lying.
+Occasionally I would open my right eye for a painful look in his
+direction.
+
+He was wounded and apparently unconscious. His pack, "the khaki doll,"
+was still strapped between his shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing
+that which all wounded men do--that is, to assume the position that is
+the most comfortable. He was trying to roll over on his back.
+
+But the pack was on his back and every time he would roll over on this
+it would elevate his body into full view of the German gunners. Then a
+withering hail of lead would sweep the field. It so happened that I was
+lying immediately in line between those German guns and this unconscious
+moving target. As the Marine would roll over on top of the pack his
+chest would be exposed to the fire.
+
+I could see the buttons fly from his tunic and one of the shoulder
+straps of the back pack part as the sprays of lead struck him. He would
+limply roll off the pack over on his side. I found myself wishing that
+he would lie still, as every movement of his brought those streams of
+bullets closer and closer to my head. I even considered the thickness of
+the box respirator on which I had elevated my head off the ground. It
+was about two inches thick.
+
+I remembered my French gas mask hanging from my shoulder and recalled
+immediately that it was much flatter, being hardly half an inch in
+thickness. I forthwith drew up the French mask to my head, extracted the
+British one and rested my cheek closer to the ground on the French one.
+Thus, I lowered my head about an inch and a half--an inch and a half
+that represented worlds of satisfaction and some optimism to me.
+
+Sometimes there were lulls in the firing. During those periods of
+comparative quiet, I could hear the occasional moan of other wounded on
+that field. Very few of them cried out and it seemed to me that those
+who did were unconscious when they did it. One man in particular had a
+long, low groan. I could not see him, yet I felt he was lying somewhere
+close to me. In the quiet intervals, his unconscious expression of pain
+reminded me of the sound I had once heard made by a calf which had been
+tied by a short rope to a tree. The animal had strayed round and round
+the tree until its entanglements in the rope had left it a helpless
+prisoner. The groan of that unseen, unconscious wounded American who
+laid near me on the field that evening sounded exactly like the pitiful
+bawl of that calf.
+
+Those three hours were long in passing. With the successive volleys that
+swept the field, I sometimes lost hope that I could ever survive it. It
+seemed to me that if three German bullets had found me within the space
+of fifteen minutes, I could hardly expect to spend three hours without
+receiving the fatal one. With such thoughts on my mind I reopened
+conversation with Hartzell.
+
+"How's it coming, old man?" I shouted.
+
+"They're coming damn close," he said; "how is it with you? Are you
+losing much blood?"
+
+"No, I'm all right as far as that goes," I replied, "but I want you to
+communicate with my wife, if its 'west' for me."
+
+"What's her address?" said Hartzell.
+
+"It's a long one," I said. "Are you ready to take it?"
+
+"Shoot," said Hartzell.
+
+"'Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, No. 12 Bis, Rue de la Chevalier de la Barre,
+Dijon, Cote d'Or, France.'" I said slowly.
+
+"My God," said Hartzell, "say it again."
+
+Back and forth we repeated the address correctly and incorrectly some
+ten or twelve times until Hartzell informed me that he knew it well
+enough to sing it. He also gave me his wife's address. Then just to make
+conversation he would shout over, every fifteen minutes, and tell me
+that there was just that much less time that we would have to lie there.
+
+I thought that hour between seven and eight o'clock dragged the most,
+but the one between eight and nine seemed interminable. The hours were
+so long, particularly when we considered that a German machine gun could
+fire three hundred shots a minute. Dusk approached slowly. And finally
+Hartzell called over:
+
+"I don't think they can see us now," he said; "let's start to crawl
+back."
+
+"Which way shall we crawl?" I asked.
+
+"Into the woods," said Hartzell.
+
+"Which woods?" I asked.
+
+"The woods we came out of, you damn fool," he replied.
+
+"Which direction are they in?" I said, "I've been moving around and I
+don't know which way I am heading. Are you on my left, or on my right?"
+
+"I can't tell whether I'm on your left or your right," he replied. "How
+are you lying, on your face or on your back?"
+
+"On my face," I said, "and your voice sounds like it comes from in back
+of me and on the left."
+
+"If that's the case," said Hartzell, "your head is lying toward the
+wrong woods. Work around in a half circle and you'll be facing the right
+direction."
+
+I did so and then heard Hartzell's voice on my right. I started moving
+toward him. Against my better judgment and expressed wishes, he crawled
+out toward me and met me half way. His voice close in front of me
+surprised me.
+
+"Hold your head up a little," he said, "I want to see where it hit you."
+
+"I don't think it looks very nice," I replied, lifting my head. I wanted
+to know how it looked myself, so I painfully opened the right eye and
+looked through the oats eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the
+look of horror on it as he looked into mine.
+
+Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through the interminable
+yards of young oats, we reached the edge of the woods and safety.
+
+That's how it feels to be shot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"GOOD MORNING, NURSE"
+
+
+Weakness from the loss of blood began to grow on me as Lieutenant
+Hartzell and I made our way through the deepening shadows of the wooded
+hillside in the rear of the field on which I had been shot. In an
+upright position of walking the pains in my head seemed to increase. We
+stopped for a minute and, neither of us having first aid kits with us, I
+resurrected a somewhat soiled silk handkerchief with which Hartzell
+bound up my head in a manner that applied supporting pressure over my
+left eye and brought a degree of relief.
+
+Hartzell told me later that I was staggering slightly when we reached a
+small relief dugout about a mile back of the wood. There a medical corps
+man removed the handkerchief and bound my head with a white gauze
+bandage. I was anxious to have the wound cleaned but he told me there
+was no water. He said they had been forced to turn it over to the men to
+drink. This seemed to me to be as it should be because my thirst was
+terrific, yet there was no water left.
+
+We stumbled rearward another half mile and, in the darkness, came upon
+the edge of another wooded area. A considerable number of our wounded
+were lying on stretchers on the ground. The Germans were keeping up a
+continual fire of shrapnel and high explosive shell in the woods,
+apparently to prevent the mobilisation of reserves, but the doctors,
+taking care of the wounded, proceeded with their work without notice to
+the whine of the shells passing overhead or the bursting of those that
+landed nearby. They went at their work just as though they were caring
+for injured men on a football field.
+
+Hartzell stretched me out on the ground and soon had a doctor bending
+over me. The doctor removed the eye bandage, took one look at what was
+beneath it and then replaced it. I remember this distinctly because at
+the time I made the mental note that the doctor apparently considered my
+head wound beyond anything he could repair. He next turned his attention
+to my arm and shoulder. He inserted his scissors into my left sleeve at
+the wrist and ripped it up to the shoulder. He followed this operation
+by cutting through my heavy khaki tunic from the shoulder to the collar.
+A few more snips of the nickel-plated blades and my shirt and undershirt
+were cut away. He located the three bullet holes, two in the arm and one
+across the top of the shoulder, and bound them up with bandages.
+
+"We're awful shy on ambulances," he said; "you will have to lie here a
+while."
+
+"I feel that I can walk all right if there is no reason why I
+shouldn't," I replied.
+
+"You ought to be in an ambulance," said the doctor, "but if you feel
+that you can make it, you might take a try at it."
+
+Then turning to Lieutenant Hartzell, he said, "Keep right with him, and
+if he begins to get groggy, make him lie down."
+
+So Hartzell and I resumed our rearward plodding or staggering. He walked
+at my right side and slightly in front of me, holding my right arm over
+his right shoulder and thereby giving me considerable support. We had
+not proceeded far before we heard the racing motor of an automobile
+coming from behind us. An occasional shell was dropping along the road
+we were now on.
+
+A stick struck my legs from behind in the darkness. And then an
+apologetic voice said:
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir, just feeling along the road for shell holes.
+Ambulance right behind me, sir. Would you mind stepping to one side?
+Come on, Bill," to the driver of the ambulance, "it looks all clear
+through here."
+
+The automobile with the racing motor turned out to be a light ambulance
+of a popular Detroit make. Its speeding engine was pure camouflage for
+its slow progress. It bubbled and steamed at the radiator cap as it
+pushed along at almost a snail's pace.
+
+"All full?" Hartzell shouted into the darkness of the driver's seat.
+
+"To the brim," responded the driver. "Are you wounded?"
+
+"No, but I have a wounded man with me," said Hartzell. "He can sit
+beside you on the seat if you have room."
+
+"Get right in," said the driver, and Hartzell boosted me into the front
+seat. We pushed along slowly, Hartzell walking beside the car and the
+driver's assistant proceeding ahead of us, searching the dark road with
+his cane for new shell craters.
+
+Occasionally, when our wheels would strike in one of these, groans would
+come from the ambulance proper.
+
+"Take it easy," would come a voice through pain-pressed lips; "for
+Christ's sake, do you think you are driving a truck?"
+
+I heard the driver tell Hartzell that he had three men with bullet
+splintered legs in the ambulance. Every jolt of the car caused their
+broken bones to jolt and increased the pounding of their wearied nerves
+to an extremity of agony. The fourth occupant of the ambulance, he
+said, had been shot through the lungs.
+
+Some distance along, there came a knock on the wooden partition behind
+my back,--the partition that separates the driver's seat from the
+ambulance proper. The car stopped and the driver and Hartzell went to
+the rear door and opened it. The man with the shot through the lungs was
+half sitting up on his stretcher. He had one hand to his mouth and his
+lips, as revealed in the rays of the driver's flashlight, were red wet.
+
+"Quick--get me--to a doctor," the man said between gulps and gurgles.
+
+The driver considered. He knew we were ten miles from the closest doctor.
+Then he addressed himself to the other three stretcher-cases--the men
+with the torture-torn legs.
+
+"If I go fast, you guys are going to suffer the agonies of hell," he
+said, "and if I go slow this guy with the hemorrhage will croak before
+we get there. How do you want me to drive?"
+
+There was not a minute's silence. The three broken leg cases responded
+almost in unison.
+
+"Go as fast as you can," they said.
+
+And we did. With Hartzell riding the running board beside me and the
+crater finder clinging to the mud guards on the other side, we sped
+through the darkness regardless of the ruts and shell holes. The jolting
+was severe but never once did there come another complaint from the
+occupants of the ambulance.
+
+In this manner did we arrive in time at the first medical clearing
+station. I learned later that the life of the man with the hemorrhage
+was saved and he is alive to-day.
+
+The clearing station was located in an old church on the outskirts of a
+little village. Four times during this war the flow and ebb of battle
+had passed about this old edifice. Hartzell half carried me off the
+ambulance seat and into the church. As I felt my feet scrape on the
+flagstoned flooring underneath the Gothic entrance arch, I opened my
+right eye for a painful survey of the interior.
+
+The walls, grey with age, appeared yellow in the light of the candles
+and lanterns that were used for illumination. Blankets, and bits of
+canvas and carpet had been tacked over the apertures where once stained
+glass windows and huge oaken doors had been. These precautions were
+necessary to prevent the lights from shining outside the building and
+betraying our location to the hospital-loving eyes of German bombing
+'planes whose motors we could hear even at that minute, humming in the
+black sky above us.
+
+Our American wounded were lying on stretchers all over the floor. Near
+the door, where I entered, a number of pews had been pushed to one side
+and on these our walking wounded were seated. They were smoking
+cigarettes and talking and passing observations on every fresh case that
+came through the door. They all seemed to be looking at me.
+
+My appearance must have been sufficient to have shocked them. I was
+hatless and my hair was matted with blood. The red-stained bandage
+around my forehead and extending down over my left cheek did not hide
+the rest of my face, which was unwashed, and consequently red with fresh
+blood.
+
+On my left side I was completely bare from the shoulder to the waist
+with the exception of the strips of white-cloth about my arm and
+shoulder. My chest was splashed with red from the two body wounds. Such
+was my entrance. I must have looked somewhat grewsome because I
+happened to catch an involuntary shudder as it passed over the face of
+one of my observers among the walking wounded and I heard him remark to
+the man next to him:
+
+"My God, look what they're bringing in."
+
+Hartzell placed me on a stretcher on the floor and went for water, which
+I sorely needed. I heard some one stop beside my stretcher and bend over
+me, while a kindly voice said:
+
+"Would you like a cigarette, old man?"
+
+"Yes," I replied. He lighted one in his own lips and placed it in my
+mouth. I wanted to know my benefactor. I asked him for his name and
+organisation.
+
+"I am not a soldier," he said; "I am a non-combatant, the same as you.
+My name is Slater and I'm from the Y. M. C. A."
+
+That cigarette tasted mighty good. If you who read this are one of those
+whose contributions to the Y. M. C. A. made that distribution possible,
+I wish to herewith express to you my gratefulness and the gratefulness
+of the other men who enjoyed your generosity that night.
+
+In front of what had been the altar in the church, there had been
+erected a rudely constructed operation table. The table was surrounded
+with tall candelabrum of brass and gilded wood. These ornate accessories
+had been removed from the altar for the purpose of providing better
+light for the surgeons who busied themselves about the table in their
+long gowns of white--stained with red.
+
+I was placed on that table for an examination and I heard a peculiar
+conversation going on about me. One doctor said, "We haven't any more of
+it." Then another doctor said, "But I thought we had plenty." The first
+voice replied, "Yes, but we didn't expect so many wounded. We have used
+up all we had." Then the second voice said, "Well, we certainly need it
+now. I don't know what we're going to do without it."
+
+From their further conversation I learned that the subject under
+discussion was anti-tetanus serum--the all-important inoculation that
+prevents lockjaw and is also an antidote for the germs of gas gangrene.
+You may be sure I became more than mildly interested in the absence of
+this valuable boon, but there was nothing I could say that would help
+the case, so I remained quiet. In several minutes my composure was
+rewarded. I heard hurried footsteps across the flagstoned flooring and a
+minute later felt a steel needle penetrating my abdomen. Then a cheery
+voice said:
+
+"It's all right, now, we've got plenty of it. We've got just piles of
+it. The Red Cross just shot it out from Paris in limousines."
+
+After the injection Hartzell informed me that the doctors could do
+nothing for me at that place and that I was to be moved further to the
+rear. He said ambulances were scarce but he had found a place for me in
+a returning ammunition truck. I was carried out of the church and
+somewhere in the outer darkness was lifted up into the body of the truck
+and laid down on some straw in the bottom. There were some fifteen or
+twenty other men lying there beside me.
+
+The jolting in this springless vehicle was severe, but its severity was
+relieved in some of our cases by the quieting injections we had
+received. The effects of these narcotics had worn off in some of the men
+and they suffered the worse for it. One of them continually called out
+to the truck driver to go slower and make less jolting. To each request
+the driver responded that he was going as slow as he could. As the
+jolting continued the man with the complaining nerves finally yelled out
+a new request. He said:
+
+"Well, if you can't make it easier by going slow, then for God's sake
+throw her into high and go as fast as you can. Let's get it over as
+quick as we can."
+
+Lying on my back in the truck with a raincoat as a pillow, I began to
+wonder where we were bound for. I opened my eye once and looked up
+toward the roof of the leafy tunnel which covered the road. Soon we
+passed out from beneath the trees bordering the roadside and I could see
+the sky above. The moon was out and there were lots of stars. They gave
+one something to think about. After all, how insignificant was one
+little life.
+
+In this mood, something in the jolting of the camion brought to my mind
+the metre and words of George Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion
+Caravan," and I repeat it from memory:
+
+      "Winding down through sleeping town
+      Pale stars of early dawn;
+    Like ancient knight with squire by side,
+    Driver and helper now we ride--
+      The camion caravan.
+
+      "In between the rows of trees
+      Glare of the mid-day sun;
+    Creeping along the highway wide,
+    Slowly in long defile, we ride--
+      The camion caravan.
+
+      "Homeward to _remorque_ and rest,
+      Pale stars of early night;
+    Through stillness of the eventide,
+    Back through the winding town we ride--
+      The camion caravan."
+
+Sometime during the dark hours of the early morning we stopped in the
+courtyard of a hospital and I was taken into another examination room
+illuminated with painfully brilliant lights. I was placed on a table for
+an examination, which seemed rather hurried, and then the table was
+rolled away some distance down a corridor. I never understood that move
+until some weeks later when a Lieutenant medical officer told me that it
+was he who had examined me at that place.
+
+"You're looking pretty fit, now," he said, "but that night when I saw
+you I ticketed you for the dead pile. You didn't look like you could
+live till morning."
+
+His statement gave me some satisfaction. There is always joy in fooling
+the doctor.
+
+Hartzell, who still accompanied me, apparently rescued me from the "dead
+pile" and we started on another motor trip, this time on a stretcher in
+a large, easier-riding ambulance. In this I arrived shortly after dawn
+at the United States Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the
+outskirts of Paris.
+
+There were more hurried examinations and soon I was rolled down a
+corridor on a wheeled table, into an elevator that started upward. Then
+the wheeled table raced down another long corridor and I began to feel
+that my journeyings were endless. We stopped finally in a room where I
+distinctly caught the odour of ether. Some one began removing my boots
+and clothes. As that some one worked he talked to me.
+
+"I know you, Mr. Gibbons," he said. "I'm from Chicago also. I am
+Sergeant Stephen Hayes. I used to go to Hyde Park High School. We're
+going to fix you up right away."
+
+I learned from Hayes that I was lying in a room adjoining the operating
+chamber and was being prepared for the operating table. Some information
+concerning the extent of my injuries and the purpose of the operation
+would have been comforting and would have relieved the sensation of
+utter helpless childishness that I was experiencing.
+
+I knew I was about to go under the influence of the anesthetic and that
+something was going to be done to me. I had every confidence that
+whatever was done would be for the best but it was perfectly natural
+that I should be curious about it. Was the operation to be a serious one
+or a minor one? Would they have to remove my eye? Would they have to
+operate on my skull? How about the arm? Would there be an amputation?
+How about the other eye? Would I ever see again? It must be remembered
+that in spite of all the examinations I had not been informed and
+consequently had no knowledge concerning the extent of my injuries. The
+only information I had received had been included in vague remarks
+intended as soothing, such as "You're all right, old man." "You'll pull
+through fine." "You're coming along nicely." But all of it had seemed
+too professionally optimistic to satisfy me and my doubts still
+remained.
+
+They were relieved, however, by the pressure of a hand and the sound of
+a voice. In the words spoken and in the pressure of the hand, there was
+hardly anything different from similar hand pressures and similar spoken
+phrases that had come to me during the night, yet there was everything
+different. This voice and this hand carried supreme confidence. I could
+believe in both of them. I felt the hand pressure on my right shoulder
+and the mild kindly voice said:
+
+"Son, I am going to operate on you. I have examined you and you are all
+right. You are going to come through fine. Don't worry about anything."
+
+"Thank you, very much," I said, "I like your voice. It sounds like my
+father's. Will you tell me your name?"
+
+"I am Major Powers," the kindly voice said. "Now just take it easy, and
+I will talk to you again in a couple of hours when you feel better."
+
+The speaker, as I learned later, was Major Charles Powers, of Denver,
+Colorado, one of the best-known and best-loved surgeons in the West. A
+man far advanced in his profession and well advanced in his years, a man
+whose life has not been one of continual health, a man who, upon
+America's entry of the war, sacrificed the safety of the beneficial air
+rarity of his native Denver to answer the country's call, to go to
+France at great personal risk to his health--a risk only appreciated by
+those who know him well. It was Major Powers who operated upon the
+compound fracture in my skull that morning.
+
+My mental note-taking continued as the anesthetist worked over me with
+the ether. As I began breathing the fumes I remember that my senses were
+keenly making observations on every sensation I experienced. The thought
+even went through my mind that it would be rather an unusual thing to
+report completely the impressions of coma. This suggestion became a
+determination and I became keyed up to everything going on about me.
+
+The conversation of the young doctor who was administering the
+anesthetic interested me unusually. He was very busy and business-like
+and although I considered myself an important and most interested party
+in the entire proceedings, his conversation ignored me entirely. He not
+only did not talk to me, but he was not even talking about me. As he
+continued to apply the ether, he kept up a running fire of entirely
+extraneous remarks with some other person near the table. I did not
+appreciate then, as I do now, that I was only one of very, very many
+that he had anesthetised that morning and the night before, but at the
+time his seeming lack of all interest in me as me, piqued me
+considerably.
+
+"Are you feeling my pulse?" I said. I could not feel his hand on either
+of my wrists, but I asked the question principally to inject myself into
+the conversation in some way or other, preferably in some way that would
+call him to account, as I had by this time aroused within me a keen and
+healthy dislike for this busy little worker whom I could not see but who
+stood over me and carried on conversations with other people to my utter
+and complete exclusion. And all the time he was engaged in feeding me
+the fumes that I knew would soon steal away my senses.
+
+"Now, never you mind about your pulse," he replied somewhat peevishly.
+"I'm taking care of this." It seemed to me from the tone of his voice
+that he implied I was talking about something that was none of my
+business and I had the distinct conviction that if the proceedings were
+anybody's business, they certainly were mine.
+
+"You will pardon me for manifesting a mild interest in what you are
+doing to me," I said, "but you see I know that something is going to be
+done to my right eye and inasmuch as that is the only eye I've got on
+that side, I can't help being concerned."
+
+"Now, you just forget it and take deep breaths, and say, Charlie, did
+you see that case over in Ward 62? That was a wonderful case. The bullet
+hit the man in the head and they took the lead out of his stomach. He's
+got the bullet on the table beside him now. Talk about bullet
+eaters--believe me, those Marines sure are."
+
+I hurled myself back into the conversation.
+
+"I'll take deep breaths if you'll loosen the straps over my chest," I
+said, getting madder each minute. "How can I take a full breath when
+you've got my lungs strapped down?"
+
+"Well, how's that?" responded the conversational anesthetist, as he
+loosened one of the straps. "Now, take one breath of fresh air--one
+deep, long breath, now."
+
+I turned my head to one side to escape the fumes from the stifling towel
+over my face and made a frenzied gulp for fresh air. As I did so, one
+large drop of ether fell on the table right in front of my nose and the
+deep long breath I got had very little air in it. I felt I had been
+tricked.
+
+"You're pretty cute, old timer, aren't you?" I remarked to the
+anesthetist for the purpose of letting him know that I was on to his
+game, but either he didn't hear me, or he was too interested in telling
+Charlie about his hopes and ambitions to be sent to the front with a
+medical unit that worked under range of the guns. He returned to a
+consideration of me with the following remark:
+
+"All right, he's under now; where's the next one?"
+
+"The hell I am," I responded hastily, as visions of knives and saws and
+gimlets and brain chisels went through my mind. I had no intention or
+desire of being conscious when the carpenters and plumbers started to
+work on me.
+
+I was completely ignored and the table started moving. We rolled across
+the floor and there commenced a clicking under the back of my head, not
+unlike the sound made when the barber lowers or elevates the head-rest
+on his chair. The table rolled seemingly a long distance down a long
+corridor and then came to the top of a slanting runway.
+
+As I started riding the table down the runway I began to see that I was
+descending an inclined tube which seemed to be filled with yellow
+vapour. Some distance down, the table slowed up and we came to a stop in
+front of a circular bulkhead in the tunnel.
+
+There was a door in the centre of the bulkhead and in the centre of the
+door there was a small wicket window which opened and two grotesquely
+smiling eyes peered out at me. Those eyes inspected me from head to foot
+and then, apparently satisfied, they twinkled and the wicket closed with
+a snap. Then the door opened and out stepped a quaint and curious figure
+with gnarled limbs and arms and a peculiar misshapen head, completely
+covered with a short growth of black hair.
+
+I laughed outright, laughed hilariously. I recognised the man. The last
+time I had seen him was when he stepped out of a gas tank on the 18th
+floor of an office building in Chicago where I was reclining at the time
+in a dentist chair. He was the little gas demon who walked with me
+through the Elysian fields the last time I had a tooth pulled.
+
+"Well you poor little son-of-a-gun," I said, by way of greeting. "What
+are you doing way over here in France? I haven't seen you for almost
+two years, since that day back in Chicago."
+
+The gas demon rolled his head from one side to the other and smiled, but
+I can't remember what he said. My mental note-taking concluded about
+there because the next memory I have is of complete darkness, and lying
+on my back in a cramped position while a horse trampled on my left arm.
+
+"Back off of there," I shouted, but the animal's hoofs didn't move. The
+only effect my shouting had was to bring a soft hand into my right one,
+and a sweet voice close beside me.
+
+"You're all right, now," said the sweet voice, "just try to take a
+little nap and you'll feel better."
+
+Then I knew it was all over, that is, the operation was over, or
+something was over. Anyhow my mind was working and I was in a position
+where I wanted to know things again. I recall now, with a smile, that
+the first things that passed through my mind were the threadbare
+bromides so often quoted "Where am I?" I recall feeling the urge to say
+something at least original, so I enquired:
+
+"What place is this, and will you please tell me what day and time it
+is?"
+
+"This is the Military Base Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine just on the
+outskirts of Paris, and it is about eleven o'clock in the morning and
+to-day is Friday, June the seventh."
+
+Then I went back to sleep with an etherised taste in my mouth like a
+motorman's glove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+GROANS, LAUGHS AND SOBS IN THE HOSPITAL
+
+
+There were fourteen wounded American soldiers in my ward--all men from
+the ranks and representing almost as many nationalistic extractions.
+There was an Irishman, a Swede, an Italian, a Jew, a Pole, one man of
+German parentage, and one man of Russian extraction. All of them had
+been wounded at the front and all of them now had something nearer and
+dearer to them than any traditions that might have been handed down to
+them from a mother country--they had fought and bled and suffered for a
+new country, _their_ new country.
+
+Here in this ward was the new melting pot of America. Not the melting
+pot of our great American cities where nationalistic quarters still
+exist, but a greater fusion process from which these men had emerged
+with unquestionable Americanism. They are the real and the new
+Americans--born in the hell of battle.
+
+One night as we lay there, we heard an automobile racing through a
+street in this sleepy, warm little _faubourg_ of Paris. The motor was
+sounding on its siren a call that was familiar to all of us. It was the
+alarm of a night attack from the air. It meant that German planes had
+crossed the front line and were on their way with death and destruction
+for Paris.
+
+A nurse entered the room and drew the curtains of the tall windows to
+keep from our eyes the flash and the glitter of the shells that soon
+began to burst in the sky above us as the aerial defences located on the
+outer circle of the city began to erect a wall of bursting steel around
+the French capital. We could hear the guns barking close by and
+occasionally the louder boom that told us one of the German bombs had
+landed. Particles of shrapnel began falling in the garden beneath the
+windows of our ward and we could hear the rattle of the pieces on the
+slate roof of a pavilion there. It is most unpleasant, it goes without
+saying, to lie helpless on one's back and grapple with the realisation
+that directly over your head--right straight above your eyes and
+face--is an enemy airplane loaded with bombs. Many of us knew that those
+bombs contained, some of them, more than two hundred pounds of melilite
+and some of us had witnessed the terrific havoc they wrought when they
+landed on a building. All of us knew, as the world knows, the particular
+attraction that hospitals have for German bombs.
+
+The aerial bombardment subsided after some ten or fifteen minutes and
+soon we heard the motor racing back through the streets while a musician
+in the car sounded on a bugle the "prologue" or the signal that the raid
+was over. The invaders had been driven back. All of us in the ward tried
+to sleep. But nerves tingled from this more or less uncomfortable
+experience and wounds ached and burned. Sleep was almost out of the
+question, and in the darkened ward I soon noticed the red glow of
+cigarette after cigarette from bed to bed as the men sought to woo
+relief with tobacco smoke.
+
+We began to discuss a subject very near and very dear to all wounded
+men. That is, what they are going to do as soon as they get out of the
+hospital. It is known, of course, that the first consideration usually
+is, to return to the front, but in many instances in our ward, this was
+entirely out of the question.
+
+So it was with Dan Bailey who occupied a bed two beds on my right. His
+left leg was off above the knee. He lost it going over the top at
+Cantigny.
+
+"I know what I'm going to do when I get home," he said, "I am going to
+get a job as an instructor in a roller skating rink."
+
+In a bed on the other side of the ward was a young man with his right
+arm off. His name was Johnson and he had been a musician. In time of
+battle, musicians lay aside their trombones and cornets and go over the
+top with the men, only they carry stretchers instead of rifles. Johnson
+had done this. Something had exploded quite close to him and his entire
+recollection of the battle was that he had awakened being carried back
+on his own stretcher.
+
+"I know where I can sure get work," he said, glancing down at the stump
+of his lost arm. "I am going to sign up as a pitcher with the St. Louis
+Nationals."
+
+Days later when I looked on Johnson for the first time, I asked him if
+he wasn't Irish, and he said no. Then I asked him where he lost his arm
+and he replied, "At the yoint." And then I knew where he came from.
+
+But concerning after-the-war occupations, I endeavoured that night to
+contribute something in a similar vein to the general discussion, and I
+suggested the possibility that I might return to give lessons on the
+monocle.
+
+The prize prospect, however, was submitted by a man who occupied a bed
+far over in one corner of the room. He was the possessor of a
+polysyllabic name--a name sprinkled with k's, s's and z's, with a
+scarcity of vowels--a name that we could not pronounce, much less
+remember. On account of his size we called him "Big Boy." His was a
+peculiar story.
+
+He had been captured by three Germans who were marching him back to
+their line. In telling me the story Big Boy said, "Mr. Gibbons, I made
+up my mind as I walked back with them that I might just as well be dead
+as to spend the rest of the war studying German."
+
+So he had struck the man on the right and the one on the left and had
+downed both of them, but the German in back of him, got him with the
+bayonet. A nerve centre in his back was severed by the slash of the
+steel that extended almost from one shoulder to the other, and Big Boy
+had fallen to the ground, his arms and legs powerless. Then the German
+with the bayonet robbed him. Big Boy enumerated the loss to
+me,--fifty-three dollars and his girl's picture.
+
+Although paralysed and helpless, there was nothing down in the mouth
+about Big Boy--indeed, he provided most of the fun in the ward. He had
+an idea all of his own about what he was going to do after the war and
+he let us know about it that night.
+
+"All of you guys have told what you're going to do," he said, "now I'm
+going to tell you the truth. I'm going back to that little town of mine
+in Ohio and go down to the grocery store and sit there on a soap box on
+the porch.
+
+"Then I'm going to gather all the little boys in the neighbourhood round
+about me and then I'm going to outlie the G. A. R."
+
+There was one thing in that ward that nobody could lie about and that
+was the twitches of pain we suffered in the mornings when the old
+dressings of the day before were changed and new ones applied.
+
+The doctor and his woman assistant who had charge of the surgical
+dressings on that corridor would arrive in the ward shortly after
+breakfast. They would be wheeling in front of them a rubber-tired,
+white-enamelled vehicle on which were piled the jars of antiseptic
+gauze and trays of nickel-plated instruments, which both the doctor and
+his assistant would handle with rubber-gloved hands. In our ward that
+vehicle was known as the "Agony Cart," and every time it stopped at the
+foot of a bed you would be pretty sure to hear a groan or a stifled wail
+in a few minutes.
+
+We had various ways of expressing or suppressing the pain. You who have
+had a particularly vicious mustard plaster jerked off that tender spot
+in the back, right between the shoulders, have some small conception of
+the delicate sensation that accompanies the removal of old gauze from a
+healing wound.
+
+Some of the men would grit their teeth and grunt, others would put their
+wrists in their mouths and bite themselves during the operation. Some
+others would try to keep talking to the doctor or the nurse while the
+ordeal was in progress and others would just simply shout. There was
+little satisfaction to be gained from these expressions of pain because
+while one man was yelling the other thirteen in the ward were shouting
+with glee and chaffing him, and as soon as his wounds had been redressed
+he would join in the laughs at the expense of those who followed him.
+
+There was a Jewish boy in the ward and he had a particularly painful
+shell wound in his right leg. He was plucky about the painful treatment
+and used to say to the doctor, "Don't mind me yelling, doc. I can't help
+it, but you just keep right on."
+
+The Jew boy's cry of pain as near as I can reproduce it went something
+like this, "Oy! Oy!! Oy!!! YOY!!! Doctor!"
+
+The Jew boy's clear-toned enunciation of this Yiddish lullaby, as the
+rest of the ward called it, brought many a heartless, fiendish laugh
+from the occupants of the other beds. We almost lost one of our
+patients on account of that laugh. He nearly laughed himself to
+death--in fact.
+
+This near victim of uncontrollable risibilities was an Italian boy from
+the East Side of New York. A piece of shrapnel had penetrated one of his
+lungs and pleurisy had developed in the other one. It had become
+necessary to operate on one of the lungs and tape it down. The boy had
+to do his best to breathe with one lung that was affected by pleurisy.
+Every breath was like the stab of a knife and it was quite natural that
+the patient would be peevish and garrulous. The whole ward called him
+the "dying Wop." But his name was Frank.
+
+When the Jew boy would run the scale with his torture cry, the "dying
+Wop" would be forced to forget his laboured breathing and give vent to
+laughter. These almost fatal laughs sounded something like this:
+
+"He! Hee!! Hee!!! (on a rising inflection and then much softer) Oh, Oh,
+Oh! Stop him, stop him, stop him!" The "He-Hee's" were laughs, but the
+"Oh-oh's" were excruciating pain.
+
+Frank grew steadily worse and had to be removed from the ward. Weeks
+afterward I went back to see him and found him much thinner and
+considerably weaker. He occupied a bed on one of the pavilions in the
+garden. He was still breathing out of that one lung and between gasps he
+told me that six men had died in the bed next to him. Then he smiled up
+at me with a look in his eyes that seemed to say, "But they haven't
+croaked the 'dying Wop' yet."
+
+"This here--hospital stuff----" Frank told me slowly, and between gasps,
+"is the big fight after all. I know--I am fighting here--against
+death--and am going to win out, too.
+
+"I'm going to win out even though it is harder to fight--than
+fighting--the Germans--up front. We Italians licked Hell out of them--a
+million years ago. Old General Caesar did it and he used to bring them
+back to Rome and put 'em in white-wing suits on the streets."
+
+For all his quaint knowledge of Caesar's successes against the
+progenitors of Kulturland of to-day, Frank was all American. Here was a
+rough-cut young American from the streets of New York's Little Italy.
+Here was a man who had almost made the supreme sacrifice. Here was a man
+who, if he did escape death, faced long weakened years ahead. It
+occurred to me that I would like to know, that it would be interesting
+to know, in what opinion this wounded American soldier, the son of
+uneducated immigrant parents, would hold the Chief Executive of the
+United States, the man he would most likely personify as responsible for
+the events that led up to his being wounded on the battlefield.
+
+"Frank," I asked, "what do you think about the President of the United
+States?"
+
+He seemed to be considering for a minute, or maybe he was only waiting
+to gather sufficient breath to make an answer. He had been lying with
+his eyes directed steadfastly toward the ceiling. Now he turned his face
+slowly toward me. His eyes, sunken slightly in their sockets, shone
+feverishly. His pinched, hollow cheeks were still swarthy, but the
+background of the white pillow made them look wan. Slowly he moistened
+his lips, and then he said:
+
+"Say--say--that guy--that guy's--got hair--on his chest."
+
+That was the opinion of the "dying Wop."
+
+After Frank's removal from our ward, the rest of us frequently sent
+messages of cheer down to him. These messages were usually carried by a
+young American woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not
+strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing uniform on the same
+day that most of us arrived in that ward. She was one of the American
+women who brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She wrote
+letters for us to our mothers. She worked long hours, night and day, for
+us. In her absence, one day, the ward went into session and voted her
+its guardian angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Present"
+instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was and is my wife.
+
+As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife's duties to handle the
+matter of visitors, of which there were many. It seemed, during those
+early days in June, that every American woman in France dropped whatever
+war work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals to be of
+whatever service she could. And it was not easy work these women
+accomplished. There was very little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving
+picture nursing." Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan
+cleaning. They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to perform.
+Many of them worked themselves sick during the long hours of that rush
+period.
+
+Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy of some of the
+visitors produced humourous little incidents in our hospital life.
+Nearly all of the women entering our ward would stop at the foot of "Big
+Boy's" bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from the chart
+attached to the foot of the bed. Then they would mournfully shake their
+heads and slowly pronounce the words "Poor boy."
+
+And above all things in the world distasteful to Big Boy was that one
+expression "Poor boy" because as soon as the kindly intentioned women
+would leave the room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy"
+chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however, before leaving
+the ward the woman visitor would take from a cluster of flowers on her
+arm, one large red rose and this she would solemnly deposit on Big Boy's
+defenceless chest.
+
+Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would accept and
+interpret as one of deep, undying gratitude. The kindly-intentioned one
+surrounding herself with that benediction that is derived from a sacred
+duty well performed, would walk slowly from the room and as the door
+would close behind her, Big Boy's gruff drawling voice would sing out in
+a call for the orderly.
+
+"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would order.
+
+Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in the hospital. Big Boy
+liked to smoke, but, being paralysed, he required assistance. At regular
+intervals during the day the ward room door, which was close to Big
+Boy's bed, would open slowly and through the gap four or six inches wide
+the rest of the ward would get a glimpse of Dan standing in the opening
+with his arms piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging
+from the corner of his mouth.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEWS FROM THE STATES]
+
+[Illustration: SMILING WOUNDED AMERICAN SOLDIERS]
+
+With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert hand and arm
+through the opening in the door until it hovered above Big Boy's face.
+Then the hand would descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big
+Boy's mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion. Big Boy
+would lie back comfortably and puff away like a Mississippi steamboat
+for four or five minutes and then the door would open just a crack
+again, the mysterious hand and arm would reach in once more and the
+cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big Boy got his
+"smokes."
+
+If Big Boy's voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer voice that used
+to come from a man in the corner of the ward to the left of my bed.
+During the first four or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was
+most interested in all the voices I heard because I lay in total
+darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of my head to my upper
+lip, and I did not know whether or not I ever would see again. I would
+listen carefully to all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from
+doctors, nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from them I
+might learn whether or not there was a possibility of my regaining
+vision. But all of their remarks with regard to my condition were
+ambiguous and unsatisfactory. But from this I gained a listening habit
+and that was how I became particularly interested in the very gruff
+voice that came from the corner on my left.
+
+Other patients directing remarks into that corner would address them to
+a man whom they would call by name "Red Shannahan." I was quick to
+connect the gruff voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had lots
+of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my mind's eye a picture of
+a tall, husky, rough and ready, tough Irishman, with red hair--a man of
+whom it would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two or three
+German regiments before they got him. To find out more about this
+character, I called over to him one day.
+
+"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I'm here," came the reply, and I was immensely
+surprised because it was not the gruff voice at all. It was the mild,
+unchanged voice of a boy, a boy whose tones were still in the upper
+register. The reply seemed almost girlish in comparison with the
+gruffer tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner of
+this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be known by any such
+name as "Red Shannahan." I determined upon further investigation.
+
+"Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you became a United States
+soldier?" I asked.
+
+"Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, "I am from Baltimore. I
+drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, the canary bird and gold fish man."
+
+All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and gold fish tamer
+was that he had killed two Germans and captured three before they got
+him.
+
+Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there appeared one day a
+man I had not seen in many years. When I knew him last he had been a
+sport-loving fellow-student of mine at college and one of the fastest,
+hardest-fighting ends our 'Varsity football squad ever had. Knowing this
+disposition of the man, I was quite surprised to see on the sleeve of
+his khaki service uniform the red shield and insignia of the Knights of
+Columbus.
+
+I was well aware of the very valuable work done by this institution
+wherever American soldiers are in France, but I could not imagine this
+former college chum of mine being engaged in such work instead of being
+in the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib, do you remember
+that game with the Indians on Thanksgiving Day?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day."
+
+"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might as well call MacDougal
+inasmuch as that was not his name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me
+three years later."
+
+I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C. and I wondered what
+service he would perform in our ward in the name of his organisation. I
+soon found out. Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bedside
+of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off, who was lying in a bed
+on my right. MacDougal walked back and forth two or three times past the
+foot of Bailey's bed.
+
+"How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I walk all right?"
+
+"Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what's the matter with you?"
+
+MacDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping up and down and
+across the floor at the foot of Bailey's bed. Finishing these exercises
+breathlessly, he again addressed himself to the sufferer with one leg.
+
+"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all right?"
+
+"I don't see anything the matter with you," replied Bailey, "unless it
+is that you're in the wrong ward."
+
+Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey's bedside where the boy with one
+leg could watch him closely. MacDougal took his cane and struck his own
+right leg a resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of the blow
+that the leg he struck was wooden.
+
+In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the life of Dan Bailey new
+interest and new prospects. He proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of
+his life Dan Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump
+and skip and hop almost as well as people with two good legs. That was
+the service performed by the Knights of Columbus in our ward.
+
+There was one other organisation in that hospital that deserves mention.
+It was the most exclusive little clique and rather inclined towards
+snobbishness. I was a member of it. We used to look down on the
+ordinary wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either rightly or
+wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death comes mighty close when it
+nicks an eye out of your head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the
+no-eyed cases received attention in one certain ward, and it was to this
+ward after my release from the hospital that I used to go every day for
+fresh dressings for my wounds. Every time I entered the ward a
+delegation of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present me with a
+petition. In this petition I was asked and urged to betake myself to the
+hospital library, to probe the depths of the encyclopaedias and from
+their wordy innards tear out one name for the organisation of the
+one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said, and the
+insistence was that the name above all should be a "classy" name. So it
+came to pass that after much research and debate one name was accepted
+and from that time on we became known as the Cyclops Club.
+
+A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of the work in that ward.
+Hundreds of American soldiers for long years after the war will thank
+him for seeing. I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell.
+The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day when one of the
+doctor's assistants entered carrying several flat, hard wood cases, each
+of them about a yard square. The cases opened like a book and were laid
+flat on the table. Their interiors were lined with green velvet and
+there on the shallow receptacles in the green velvet were just dozens of
+eyes, gleaming unblinkingly up at us.
+
+A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclopians gathered around the
+table. There was a grand grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a
+handful. There was some difficulty reassorting the grabs. Of course, it
+happened, that fellows that really needed blue or grey ones, managed to
+get hold of black ones or brown ones, and some confusion existed while
+they traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades and sizes.
+
+One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition to having lost one
+eye, he had received about a pound and a half of assorted hardware in
+his back, and these flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been
+sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution of the glassware.
+He apparently became alarmed with the thought that he was going to be
+left out of consideration. I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he
+shouted clear across the ward:
+
+"Hey, Doc, pass the grapes."
+
+When it became possible for me to leave that hospital, I went to another
+one three blocks away. This was a remarkable institution that had been
+maintained by wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I was
+assigned to a room on the third floor--a room adjoining a sun parlour,
+overlooking a beautiful Old World garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges,
+trees and shrubbery.
+
+In early June, when that flood of American wounded had come back from
+the Marne, it had become necessary to erect hospital ward tents in the
+garden and there a number of our wounded were cared for. I used to
+notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from one of the
+small tents a small white cot on which there lay an American soldier.
+They would place the cot on the green grass where the sunlight, finding
+its way through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine down upon
+the form of this young--this very young--fighter from the U. S. A.
+
+He was just two months over seventeen years of age. He had deliberately
+and patriotically lied one year on his age in order that he might go to
+France and fight beneath our flag.
+
+He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate how badly. There
+were no bandages about his head, arms or body. There was nothing to
+suggest the severity of his injuries--nothing save his small round spot
+on the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away the
+hair--just a small round spot that marked the place where a piece of
+German hand-grenade had touched the skull.
+
+This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could not remember--all
+had slipped his mind save for the three or four lines of one little
+song, which was the sole remaining memory that bridged the gap of four
+thousand miles between him and his home across the sea.
+
+Over and over again he would sing it all day long as he lay there on the
+cot with the sunlight streaming all over him. His sweet boyish voice
+would come up through the leafy branches to the windows of my room.
+
+I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the window listening to
+him. Then I would notice that her shoulders would shake convulsively and
+she would walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the song the
+little fellow sang was this:
+
+    "Just try to picture me
+    Back home in Tennessee,
+    Right by my mother's knee
+    She thinks the world of me.
+    She will be there to meet me
+    With a hug and kiss she'll greet me,
+    When I get back, when I get back
+    To my home in Tennessee."
+
+American doctors and American nurses, both by their skill and care and
+tenderness, nursed that little fellow back to complete recovery, made
+him remember everything and shortly afterward, well and cured, he
+started back, safe and sound, to his home in Tennessee.
+
+Nothing I can ever say will overstate my estimation of the credit that
+is deserved by our American doctors and nurses for the great work they
+are doing. I am not alone in knowing this. I call to witness any
+Canadian, Englishman or Frenchman, that, if he is wounded, when in the
+ambulance, he usually voices one request, "Take me to an American
+hospital."
+
+I knew of one man who entered that United States Military Base Hospital
+near Paris, with one bullet through the shoulder, another through an
+arm, an eye shot out and a compound fracture of the skull, and those
+American doctors and nurses by their attention and skilfulness made it
+possible for him to step back into boots and breeches and walk out of
+the hospital in ten days.
+
+It so happens that I am somewhat familiar with the details in that case
+because I am the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"JULY 18TH"--THE TURN OF THE TIDE
+
+
+Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's reserves, by the speedy
+arrival of American forces, the fourth German offensive of 1918, the
+personally directed effort launched by the Crown Prince on May 27th, had
+been brought to a standstill.
+
+The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped by the Americans at
+Chateau-Thierry and in the Bois de Belleau. It would be an injustice not
+to record the great part played in that fighting by the French Army
+attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify as the French
+have gallantly done, that it was the timely arrival of American strength
+that swung the balance against the enemy. For the remainder of that
+month of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was considered
+local in its character.
+
+The German offensive had succeeded in pushing forward the enemy front
+until it formed a loop extending southward from the Aisne to the Valley
+of the Marne. This salient was called the Chateau-Thierry pocket. The
+line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to Chateau-Thierry,
+where it touched the Marne, thence eastward along both sides of the
+river to the vicinity of Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and
+extended northward to points beyond Rheims.
+
+Chateau-Thierry was thus the peak of the German push--the apex of the
+triangle pointing toward Paris. The enemy supplied its forces in this
+peak principally by the road that ran southward from Soissons and
+touched the Marne at Chateau-Thierry. To the west of this road and just
+south of the city of Soissons, is the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The
+enemy occupied the northern and eastern limits of the forest and the
+remainder of it was in the hands of the French.
+
+This forest has always been considered one of the sentinels of Paris. It
+was located on the right flank of the German salient. It was a menace to
+that flank, and offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied
+counter offensive from that direction. The Germans were not unmindful of
+this.
+
+The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets it would be
+possible for Marshal Foch to mobilise his much-feared reserves by taking
+advantage of the natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch
+reserve still remained a matter for enemy consideration in spite of the
+fact that the successive German offensive since March 21st had met with
+considerable success with regard to the acquisition of territory. The
+Germans, however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch had been
+forced to bring his reserves into the fight.
+
+The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy of the possible
+use of this reserve at any time and they knew that their lines in
+Villers-Cotterets Forest offered an ever present invitation for the
+sudden application of this reserve strength. Their lines at that point
+were necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied position and, as
+a consequence, the Germans guarded this weak spot by holding in reserve
+behind the line a number of divisions of the Prussian Guard.
+
+For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant observation of the
+French position. Their planes would fly over the forest every day taking
+photographs. They sought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch
+might be preparing to strike a blow from that place. They made careful
+note of the traffic along the roads through the forest. They maintained
+a careful watch to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were being
+concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to ascertain whether
+any additional hospital arrangements had been made by the French at that
+point. Any of these things would have indicated that the French were
+preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans found nothing to
+support their suspicions.
+
+Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum strength. A belief
+existed among the German High Command that an attack might be made on
+July 4th, out of consideration to American sentiment. When the attack
+did not develop on that day, they then thought that the French might
+possibly spring the blow on July 14th, in celebration of their own
+national fete day. And again they were disappointed in their surmises.
+
+This protracted delay of an impending blow worried the enemy. The
+Germans realised full well that they were fighting against time. Their
+faith in the capacity of their submarines to prevent American strength
+from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now knew that every day
+that passed meant just that many more American soldiers arriving in
+France, and the consequent strengthening of the Allied forces during a
+season when the Germans, through their repeated offensives, were
+suffering terrible losses and were consequently growing weaker.
+
+So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive had still failed to
+materialise, the German forces, by the necessity for time, moved to a
+sudden and faulty decision. They convinced themselves that they had
+overestimated the Allied strength. They accepted the belief that the
+reason Foch had not attacked was because he did not have sufficient
+strength to attack. With this, then, as a basis for their plans, they
+immediately launched another offensive, hoping that this might be the
+one in which they could deliver the final blow.
+
+This action began on Monday morning, July 15th, and extended from
+Chateau-Thierry eastward along the valley of the Maine, northward to
+Rheims and thence eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of
+French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element of surprise in
+the attack. On the morning of the previous day, this patrol successfully
+raided the enemy lines to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners
+from whom it was learned that the Germans intended striking on the
+following morning. The objectives of the offensive were the French
+cities of Epernay and Chalons. The accomplishment of this effort would
+have placed the Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought the
+German lines southward to positions straddling the Marne, down the
+valley of which they would thus be able to launch another offensive on a
+straight road to Paris.
+
+The Germans needed considerable strength for this new effort. To muster
+the shock divisions necessary for the attack, they had to weaken their
+lines elsewhere. The first reserves that they drew for this offensive
+were the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding in
+readiness in back of the weak spot in their line in the
+Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were hurriedly transported
+across the base of the V-shaped salient and thrown into the attack to
+the east and the southwest of Rheims.
+
+The Germans found the Allied line prepared to receive them. Their
+attacking waves were mowed down with terrific machine gun fire from
+French and American gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery
+barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly effect in the
+massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting was particularly vicious. It
+was destined to be the Germans' last action of a grand offensive nature
+in the entire war.
+
+On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was particularly strong
+in one sector where it encountered the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow
+Division of United States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more
+different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama and New York held
+the front line. Iowa and Ohio were close in support. In the support
+positions, sturdy youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota
+manned the American artillery.
+
+The French general commanding the sector had not considered it possible
+that this comparatively small American force could withstand the first
+onslaught of the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a withdrawal
+to high ground two or three miles southward, from which he hoped to be
+able to resist the enemy to greater advantage. But all day long, through
+the 15th and the 16th and the 17th of July, those American lines held,
+and the advancing waves of German storm troops melted before our guns.
+Anticipating a renewal of the attack on the next day, General Gouraud
+issued an order on the evening of July 17th. It read:
+
+"_To the French and American Soldiers of the Army._
+
+  "We may be attacked from one moment to another. You all feel that a
+  defensive battle was never engaged in under more favourable
+  conditions. We are warned, and we are on our guard. We have
+  received strong reinforcements of infantry and artillery. You will
+  fight on ground, which, by your assiduous labour, you have
+  transformed into a formidable fortress, into a fortress which is
+  invincible if the passages are well guarded.
+
+  "The bombardment will be terrible. You will endure it without
+  weakness. The attack in a cloud of dust and gas will be fierce but
+  your positions and your armament are formidable.
+
+  "The strong and brave hearts of free men beat in your breast. None
+  will look behind, none will give way. Every man will have but one
+  thought--'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they have had
+  enough.' And therefore your General tells you it will be a glorious
+  day."
+
+And so the line held, although the French General had in preparation the
+plans for withdrawal. When, at the end of the third day, the American
+line still occupied the same position, the French General found that his
+labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been for nothing. He is
+reported to have thrown his hands up in the air and remarked, "There
+doesn't seem to be anything to do but to let the war be fought out where
+the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight it."
+
+There was one humorous incident worthy of record in that fighting. Great
+rivalry existed between the New York regiment and the Alabama regiment,
+both of which happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the New
+Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred for the German but, in
+addition to that, each of them was possessed with a mutual dislike for
+the other. There had been frequent clashes of a more or less
+sportsmanlike and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.
+
+On the second day of the fighting, the Germans had sent over low-flying
+airplanes which skimmed the tops of our trenches and sprayed them with
+machine gun fire. A man from Alabama, who had grown up from childhood
+with a squirrel rifle under his arm, accomplished something that had
+never been done before in the war. From his position in a trench, he
+took careful aim with his rifle and brought down one of the German
+planes. It was the first time in the history of the Western Front that a
+rifleman on the ground had done this.
+
+When the colonel of the New York regiment heard this, he was wild with
+envy and let it be known that there would be trouble brewing unless his
+regiment at least equalled the feat. So, on the following day, an
+Irishman in the ranks stood up and brought one German plane down to the
+credit of the old Sixty-ninth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the southwest of Rheims, Germans, who succeeded in breaking through
+the lines at one place on the south banks of the Marne, encountered
+American reinforcements and were annihilated to the number of five
+thousand. At no place did the enemy meet with the success desired.
+
+The Germans had launched their attack at six o'clock on the morning of
+July 15th. At Vaux their demonstration was considered a feint, but along
+the Marne to the east of Chateau-Thierry, between Fossy and Mezy, the
+assaulting waves advanced with fury and determination. At one place,
+twenty-five thousand of the enemy crossed the river, and the small
+American forces in front of them at that place were forced to retire on
+Conde-en-Bire. In a counter attack, we succeeded in driving fifteen
+thousand of them back to the north bank, the remaining ten thousand
+representing casualties with the exception of fifteen hundred, who were
+captured.
+
+Further eastward, the Germans established bridgehead positions on the
+south bank of the river at Dormas. The enemy enjoyed a minor success in
+an attack on the line near Bligny to the southwest of Rheims, where
+Italian troops fought with remarkable valour. Everywhere else the lines
+held solid and upon the close of that first night, Marshal Foch said, "I
+am satisfied--_Je suis content_."
+
+At dawn the following day, the enemy's futile efforts were resumed along
+the river east of Chateau-Thierry. The Germans suffered appalling losses
+in their efforts to place pontoon bridges at Gland and at
+Mareuil-le-Port. St. Agnan and La Chapelle Monthodon fell into the hands
+of Americans on the same day.
+
+On the 17th, the enemy's endeavours to reach Festigny on both banks of
+the river came to naught, but to the southeast of Rheims, his assaulting
+waves reached the northern limits of Montagne Forest. The Germans were
+trying to pinch out the Rheims salient. This was the condition of the
+opposing lines on the night of July 17th,--the night that preceded the
+day on which the tide of victory turned for the Allies.
+
+Foch was now ready to strike. The Allied Commander-in-Chief had decided
+to deliver his blow on the right flank of the German salient. The line
+chosen for the Allied assault was located between a point south of
+Soissons and Chateau-Thierry. It represented a front of some twenty-five
+miles extending southward from the valley of the Aisne to the Marne.
+Villers-Cotterets Forest was the key position for the Allies.
+
+It was from out that forest that the full strength of the blow was to
+be delivered. To make the blow effective at that most vital point,
+Marshal Foch needed a strong and dependable assaulting force. He needed
+three divisions of the hardest fighting soldiers that he could get. He
+had a considerable army to select from. As Commander-in-Chief of all the
+Allied armies, he was in command of all of the British army, all of the
+French army, all of the American army, the Italian, the Belgian,--all of
+the military forces of the Allied nations of the world. Marshal Foch's
+command numbered eleven million bayonets.
+
+The Commander-in-Chief had all of these veteran fighting men from which
+he could select the three divisions necessary to deliver this blow upon
+which the civilisation of the world depended.
+
+The first division he chose was the Foreign Legion of the French army.
+In four years of bloody fighting, the Foreign Legion, composed of
+soldiers of fortune from every country in the world, had never been
+absent in an attack. It had lived up thoroughly to its reputation as the
+most fearless unit of shock troops in the French army.
+
+And then for the other two divisions that were needed, Marshal Foch
+selected, from all the eleven million men under his command, the First
+and the Second Regular United States Army Divisions. The Second Division
+included the immortal Brigade of United States Marines, that had covered
+themselves with glory in the Bois de Belleau.
+
+It was a great distinction for those two American divisions to have thus
+been selected to play such a vital part in the entire war. It was an
+honour that every officer and man in both divisions felt keenly.
+
+I have in my map case a torn and much folded little piece of paper. I
+received it that night of July 17th in Villers-Cotterets Forest. A
+similar piece of paper was received by every officer in those two
+American divisions. To me this piece of paper represents the order which
+resulted in victory for the Allied world. It reads:
+
+ _Headquarters Third Army Corps American Expeditionary Forces_,
+
+              _France, July 17, 1918_
+
+_Memorandum_:
+
+  The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces has been
+  created and consists of the 1st. and 2nd. Divisions, two divisions
+  that are known throughout France.
+
+  Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been deemed worthy to
+  be placed beside the best veteran French troops. See that you prove
+  worthy. Remember that in what is now coming you represent the whole
+  American nation.
+
+                                              R. L. BULLARD,
+                                                 Major General,
+                                           Commanding 3rd. Corps.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets Forest all day
+during the 17th, had seen nothing. The appearance of all the myriad
+roads that cross and recross the forest in all directions was normal.
+But that night things began to happen in the forest.
+
+For once at least, the elements were favourable to our cause. There was
+no moon. The night was very dark and under the trees the blackness
+seemed impenetrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although it
+turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of the forest held
+much of the moisture and offered some protection to the thousands of
+men who spent the night beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard
+it roll in France before. The sound drowned the occasional boom of
+distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes would be followed by
+blinding flashes of lightning as nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in
+the sombre sky and vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the
+forest.
+
+The immediate front was silent--comparatively silent if one considered
+the din of the belligerent elements. In the opposing front lines in the
+northern and eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen alike
+huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.
+
+Then, along every road leading through the forest to the north and to
+the east, streams of traffic began to pour. All of it was moving forward
+toward the front. No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every
+inch of available road space was vitally necessary for the forces in
+movement. The roads that usually accommodated one line of vehicles
+moving forward and one line moving to the rear, now represented two
+streams--solid streams--moving forward. In those streams were gun
+carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts and grunting tractors
+hauling large field pieces.
+
+In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of American
+infantry plodded forward through the mud and darkness. In the occasional
+flash of a light, I could see that they were equipped for heavy
+fighting. Many of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up,
+while beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown eager
+beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, in addition to their
+cumbersome packs, extra shoes and extra bandoliers of cartridges.
+
+From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and haversacks. Their
+waists were girded with loaded ammunition belts, with bayonet hanging at
+the left side. Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives.
+Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun parts slung
+across their backs as they leaned forward under their burdens and
+plunged wearily on into the mud and darkness, the thunder and lightning,
+the world destiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed
+with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled, narrow
+gauge carts loaded down with machine gun ammunition.
+
+Under the trees to either side of the road, there was more movement.
+American engineers struggled forward through the underbrush carrying, in
+addition to their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts,
+picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them marched the swarthy,
+undersized, bearded veterans of the Foreign Legion. Further still under
+the trees, French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across
+their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the giant trunks.
+
+At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters with steel plated
+sides splotched with green and brown and red paint. These were the
+French tanks that were to take part in the attack. They groaned and
+grunted on their grinding gears as they manoeuvred about for safer
+progress. In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended
+from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen
+directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the
+underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread
+of this modern Juggernaut.
+
+There was no confusion, no outward manifestations of excitement. There
+was no rattle of musketry, shouting of commands or waving of swords.
+Officers addressed their men in whispers. There was order and quiet save
+for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping of water from the wet
+leaves, punctuated now and then by the ear-splitting crashes that
+followed each nearby flash of lightning.
+
+Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty mobilisation in the
+dark. Everything was moving in one direction--forward--all with the same
+goal, all with the same urging, all with the same determination, all
+with the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their forms. It seemed
+to me that night in the damp darkness of Villers-Cotterets Forest that
+every tree gave birth to a man for France.
+
+All night long the gathering of that sinister synod continued. All night
+long those furtive forces moved through the forest. They passed by every
+road, by every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the
+whispered commands of the officers. I heard the sloshing of the mud
+under foot and the occasional muffled curse of some weary marcher who
+would slip to the ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all
+of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the morning, all hell
+would land on the German line, and these men from the trees would move
+forward with the fate of the world in their hands.
+
+There was some suspense. We knew that if the Germans had had the
+slightest advance knowledge about that mobilisation of Foch's reserves
+that night, they would have responded with a downpour of gas shells,
+which spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of the forest,
+might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men.
+
+But the enemy never knew. They never even suspected. And at the tick of
+4:35 A. M., the heavens seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot
+metal sailed over the forest, bound for the German line.
+
+That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentration of all the guns
+of all calibres of all the Allies that Foch could muster. It was a
+withering blast and where it landed in that edge of the forest occupied
+by the Germans, the quiet of the dripping black night was suddenly
+turned into a roaring inferno of death.
+
+Giant tree trunks were blown high into the air and splintered into
+match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing delayed action fuses, penetrated
+the ground to great depth before exploding and then, with the expansion
+of their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dugouts as if they were egg
+shells.
+
+Then young America--your sons and your brothers and your husbands,
+shoulder to shoulder with the French--went over the top to victory.
+
+The preliminary barrage moved forward crashing the forest down about it.
+Behind it went the tanks ambling awkwardly but irresistibly over all
+obstructions. Those Germans that had not been killed in the first
+terrific blast, came up out of their holes only to face French and
+American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began at once.
+
+Our assaulting waves moved forward, never hesitating, never faltering.
+Ahead of them were the tanks giving special attention to enemy machine
+gun nests that manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge those
+death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the Bois de Belleau. The
+tanks were there to take care of them. One of these would move toward a
+nest, flirt around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It
+would never be heard from thereafter.
+
+It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that swept the Germans in
+front of it early that morning. Aeroplanes had been assigned to hover
+over the advance and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging
+over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to locate the
+Divisional Headquarters to which they were supposed to make the reports.
+These dense clouds of vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the
+airmen, but with the rising sun the mists lifted.
+
+Being but a month out of the hospital and having spent a rather
+strenuous night, I was receiving medical attention at daybreak in front
+of a dressing station not far from the headquarters of Major General
+Harbord commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking up
+through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from the sky. Almost
+immediately I could hear the hum of its motors growing momentarily
+louder as it neared the earth. I thought the plane was out of control
+and expected to see it crash to the ground near me.
+
+Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened its wings and
+went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear seemed barely to skim the
+uppermost branches. The machine pursued a course immediately above one
+of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a metal cylinder that
+glistened in the rays of the morning sun. Attached to it was a long
+streamer of fluttering white material. It dropped easily to the ground
+nearby. I saw an American signalman, who had been following its descent,
+pick it up. He opened the metal container and extracted the message
+containing the first aerial observations of the advance of the American
+lines. It stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured and
+were bound for the rear.
+
+Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters moved forward on
+the jump. Long before noon General Harbord, close behind his advancing
+troops, opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of Verte
+Feuille, the first community centre that had been taken by our men that
+morning. Prisoners were coming back in droves.
+
+I encountered one column of disarmed Germans marching four abreast with
+the typical attitude of a "Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the
+prisoners carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters made
+from logs and blankets. A wounded American was on one litter and a
+wounded Frenchman on the other.
+
+A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate the shoulders of
+both of the wounded men so that they occupied positions half sitting and
+half reclining. Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily
+as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their captives, while
+behind them stretched a regal retinue of eight hundred more.
+
+As this column proceeded along one side of the road, the rest of the
+roadway was filled with men, guns and equipment all moving forward.
+Scottish troops in kilts swung by and returned the taunts which our men
+laughingly directed at their kilts and bare knees.
+
+Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding convoys of prisoners. They
+returned loaded with relics of the fighting. It was said that day that
+German prisoners had explained that in their opinion, the British were
+in the war because they hated Germany and that the French were in the
+war because the war was in France, but that Americans seemed to be
+fighting to collect souveniers.
+
+I saw one of these American souvenier collectors bound for the rear. In
+stature he was one of the shortest men I had ever seen in our uniform.
+He must have spent long years in the cavalry, because he was frightfully
+bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two enormous German prisoners
+who towered head and shoulders above him.
+
+He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all prisoners and things
+German. Germans were "foreigners." "Foreigners" spoke a foreign
+language. Therefore to make a German understand you, it was only
+necessary to speak with them in a foreign language. French was a foreign
+language so the bowlegged American guard made use of his limited
+knowledge.
+
+"Allay! Allay! Allay veet t'ell outer here," he urged his charges.
+
+He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that there was exposed a
+shock of black, blood-matted hair on his forehead. A white bandage ran
+around his forehead and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton
+gauze connected with another white bandage around his neck. There was a
+red stain on the white gauze over the right cheek.
+
+His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In one hand he carried a
+large chunk of the black German war bread--once the property of his two
+prisoners. With his disengaged hand he conveyed masses of the food to
+his lips which were circled with a fresco of crumbs.
+
+His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile--a smile of satisfaction
+that caused the corners of his mouth to turn upward toward his eyes. I
+also smiled when I made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with
+which he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from his right hip
+were five holsters containing as many German automatic pistols of the
+Lueger make, worth about $35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder
+by straps to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German field
+glasses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a better understanding of
+his contagious smile of property possession when I inquired his name and
+his rank. He replied:
+
+"Sergeant Harry Silverstein."
+
+Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profanity, I approached one
+of our men who was seated by the roadside. A bullet had left a red
+crease across his cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The
+hobnail sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was trying to fasten
+it back on with a combination of straps. His profane denunciations
+included the U. S. Quartermaster Department, French roads, barbed wire,
+hot weather and, occasionally, the Germans.
+
+"This sure is a hell of a mess," he said, "for a fellow to find himself
+in this fix just when I was beginning to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted
+in the army to come to France to kill Germans but I never thought for
+one minute they'd bring me over here and try to make me run 'em to
+death. What we need is greyhounds. And as usual the Q. M. fell down
+again. Why, there wasn't a lassoe in our whole company."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence Department was
+flooded. The divisional intelligence officer asked me to assist in the
+interrogation of the captives. I questioned some three hundred of them.
+
+An American sergeant who spoke excellent German, interrogated. I sat
+behind a small table in a field and the sergeant would call the
+prisoners forward one by one. In German he asked one captive what branch
+of the service he belonged to. The prisoner wishing to display his
+knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to some pride,
+replied in English.
+
+"I am of the storm troop," he said.
+
+"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do you know what we are?
+We are from Kansas. We are Cycloners."
+
+Another German student of English among the prisoners was represented in
+the person of a pompous German major, who, in spite of being a captive,
+maintained all the dignity of his rank. He stood proudly erect and held
+his head high. He wore a disgusted look on his face, as though the
+surroundings were painful. His uniform was well pressed, his linen was
+clean, his boots were well polished, he was clean shaven. There was not
+a speck of dust upon him and he did not look like a man who had gone
+through the hell of battle that morning. The American sergeant asked him
+in German to place the contents of his pockets on the table.
+
+"I understand English," he replied superciliously, with a strong accent,
+as he complied with the request. I noticed, however, that he neglected
+to divest himself of one certain thing that caught my interest. It was a
+leather thong that extended around his neck and disappeared between the
+first and second buttons of his tunic. Curiosity forced me to reach
+across the table and extract the hidden terminal of that thong. I found
+suspended on it the one thing in all the world that exactly fitted me
+and that I wanted. It was a one-eyed field glass. I thanked him.
+
+He told me that he had once been an interne in a hospital in New York
+but happening to be in Germany at the outbreak of the war, he had
+immediately entered the army and had risen to the rank of a major in the
+Medical Corps. I was anxious for his opinion, obvious as it might have
+seemed.
+
+"What do you think of the fighting capacity of the American soldier?" I
+asked him.
+
+"I do not know," he replied in the accented but dignified tones of a
+superior who painfully finds himself in the hands of one considered
+inferior. "I have never seen him fight. He is persuasive--yes.
+
+"I was in a dugout with forty German wounded in the cellar under the
+Beaurepaire Farm, when the terrible bombardment landed. I presume my
+gallant comrades defending the position died at their posts, because
+soon the barrage lifted and I walked across the cellar to the bottom of
+the stairs and looked up.
+
+"There in the little patch of white light on the level of the ground
+above me, I saw the first American soldier I have seen in the war. But
+he did not impress me much as a soldier. I did not like his carriage or
+his bearing.
+
+"He wore his helmet far back on his head. And he did not have his coat
+on. His collar was not buttoned; it was rolled back and his throat was
+bare. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. And he had a grenade in
+each hand.
+
+"Just then he looked down the stairs and saw me--saw me standing
+there--saw me, a major--and he shouted roughly, 'Come out of there, you
+big Dutch B----d, or I'll spill a basketful of these on you.'"
+
+All through that glorious day of the 18th, our lines swept forward
+victoriously. The First Division fought it out on the left, the Foreign
+Legion in the centre and the Second Division with the Marines pushed
+forward on the right. Village after village fell into our hands. We
+captured batteries of guns and thousands of prisoners.
+
+On through the night the Allied assault continued. Our men fought
+without water or food. All road space behind the lines was devoted to
+the forwarding of reserves, artillery and munitions. By the morning of
+the 19th, we had so far penetrated the enemy's lines that we had crossed
+the road running southward from Soissons to Chateau-Thierry, thereby
+disrupting the enemy's communications between his newly established base
+and the peak of his salient. Thus exposed to an enveloping movement that
+might have surrounded large numbers, there was nothing left for the
+Germans to do but to withdraw.
+
+The Allied army commander, who directed the Americans on that glorious
+day, was General Joseph Mangin. His opinion of the immortal part played
+on that day by those two American divisions may be seen in the following
+order which he caused to be published:
+
+_Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, and Soldiers of the American Army_:
+
+  Shoulder to shoulder with your French comrades, you threw yourselves
+  into the counter-offensive begun on July 18th. You ran to it as if
+  going to a feast. Your magnificent dash upset and surprised the
+  enemy, and your indomitable tenacity stopped counter attacks by his
+  fresh divisions. You have shown yourselves to be worthy sons of your
+  great country and have gained the admiration of your brothers in
+  arms.
+
+  Ninety-one cannon, 7,200 prisoners, immense booty, and ten
+  kilometres of reconquered territory are your share of the trophies
+  of this victory. Besides this, you have acquired a feeling of your
+  superiority over the barbarian enemy against whom the children of
+  liberty are fighting. To attack him is to vanquish him.
+
+  American comrades, I am grateful to you for the blood you generously
+  spilled on the soil of my country. I am proud of having commanded
+  you during such splendid days and to have fought with you for the
+  deliverance of the world.
+
+The Germans began backing off the Marne. From that day on, their
+movement to date has continued backward. It began July 18th. Two
+American Divisions played glorious parts in the crisis. It was their
+day. It was America's day. It was the turn of the tide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DAWN OF VICTORY
+
+
+The waited hour had come. The forced retreat of the German hordes had
+begun. Hard on their heels, the American lines started their northward
+push, backing the Boche off the Marne.
+
+On the morning of July 21st I rode into Chateau-Thierry with the first
+American soldiers to enter the town. The Germans had evacuated
+hurriedly. Chateau-Thierry was reoccupied jointly by our forces and
+those of the French.
+
+Here was the grave of German hopes. Insolent, imperialistic longings for
+the great prize, Paris, ended here. The dream of the Kultur conquest of
+the world had become a nightmare of horrible realisation that America
+was in the war. Pompously flaunted strategy crumpled at historic
+Chateau-Thierry.
+
+That day of the occupation, the wrecked city was comparatively quiet.
+Only an occasional German shell--a final parting spite shell--whined
+disconsolately overhead and landed in a cloud of dust and debris in some
+vacant ruin that had once been a home.
+
+For seven long weeks the enemy had been in occupation of that part of
+the city on the north bank of the river. Now the streets were littered
+with debris. Although the walls of most of the buildings seemed to be in
+good shape, the scene was one of utter devastation.
+
+The Germans had built barricades across the streets--particularly the
+streets that led down to the river--because it was those streets that
+were swept with the terrific fire of American machine guns. At the
+intersections of those streets the Germans under cover of night had
+taken up the cobblestones and built parapets to protect them from the
+hail of lead.
+
+Wrecked furniture was hip deep on the Rue Carnot. Along the north bank
+of the river on the Quai de la Poterne and the Promenade de la Levee,
+the invader had left his characteristic mark. Shop after shop had been
+looted of its contents and the fronts of the pretty sidewalk cafes along
+this business thoroughfare had been reduced to shells of their former
+selves.
+
+Not a single living being was in sight as we marched in. Some of the old
+townsfolk and some young children had remained but they were still under
+cover. Among these French people who had lived for seven weeks through
+the hell of battle that had raged about the town, was Madame de Prey,
+who was eighty-seven years old. To her, home meant more than life. She
+had spent the time in her cellar, caring for German wounded.
+
+The town had been systematically pillaged. The German soldiers had
+looted from the shops much material which they had made up into packages
+to be mailed back to home folks in the Fatherland. The church, strangely
+enough, was picked out as a depository for their larcenies. Nothing from
+the robes of the priests down to the copper faucet of a water pipe had
+escaped their greed.
+
+The advancing Americans did not linger in the town--save for small
+squads of engineers that busied themselves with the removal of the
+street obstructions and the supply organisations that perfected
+communication for the advancing lines. These Americans were Yankees
+all--they comprised the 26th U. S. Division, representing the National
+Guard of New England.
+
+Our lines kept pushing to the north. The Germans continued their
+withdrawal and the Allied necessity was to keep contact with them. This,
+the Yankee Division succeeded in doing. The first obstacle encountered
+to the north of Chateau-Thierry was the stand that the Germans made at
+the town of Epieds.
+
+On July 23rd, our infantry had proceeded up a ravine that paralleled the
+road into Epieds. German machine guns placed on the hills about the
+village, swept them with a terrible fire. Our men succeeded in reaching
+the village, but the Germans responded with such a terrific downpour of
+shell that our weakened ranks were forced to withdraw and the Germans
+re-entered the town.
+
+On the following day we renewed the attack with the advantage of
+positions which we had won during the night in the Bois de Trugny and
+the Bois de Chatelet. We advanced from three sides and forced the
+Germans to evacuate. Trugny, the small village on the edge of the woods,
+was the scene of more bloody fighting which resulted in our favour.
+
+Further north of Epieds, the Germans having entrenched themselves along
+the roadway, had fortified the same with a number of machine guns which
+commanded the flat terrain in such a way as to make a frontal attack by
+infantry waves most costly. The security of the Germans in this position
+received a severe shock when ten light automobiles, each one mounting
+one or two machine guns, started up the road toward the enemy, firing as
+they sped. It was something new. The Germans wanted to surrender, but
+the speed of the cars obviated such a possibility. So the enemy fled
+before our gasoline cavalry.
+
+The Germans were withdrawing across the river Ourcq, whose valley is
+parallel to that of the Marne and just to the north. The enemy's
+intentions of making a stand here were frustrated by violent attacks,
+which succeeded in carrying our forces into positions on the north side
+of the Ourcq. These engagements straightened out the Allied line from
+the Ourcq on the west to Fere-en-Tardenois on the east, which had been
+taken the same day by French and American troops.
+
+By this time the German withdrawal was becoming speedier. Such strong
+pressure was maintained by our men against the enemy's rear guards that
+hundreds of tons of German ammunition had to be abandoned and fell into
+our hands. Still the retreat bore no evidences of a rout.
+
+The enemy retired in orderly fashion. He bitterly contested every foot
+of ground he was forced to give. The American troops engaged in those
+actions had to fight hard for every advance. The German backed out of
+the Marne salient as a Western "bad man" would back out of a saloon with
+an automatic pistol in each hand.
+
+Those charges that our men made across the muddy flats of the Ourcq
+deserve a place in the martial history of America. They faced a
+veritable hell of machine gun fire. They went through barrages of
+shrapnel and high explosive shell. They invaded small forests that the
+enemy had flooded with poison gas. No specific objectives were assigned.
+The principal order was "Up and at 'em" and this was reinforced by every
+man's determination to keep the enemy on the run now that they had been
+started.
+
+Even the enemy's advantage of high positions north of the river failed
+to hold back the men from New York, from Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Illinois,
+Minnesota and Indiana, who had relieved the hard fighting Yankees. These
+new American organisations went up against fresh German divisions that
+had been left behind with orders to hold at all cost. But nothing the
+enemy could do could prevent our crossing of the Ourcq.
+
+On July 30th the fighting had become most intense in character. The fact
+that the town of Sergy was captured, lost and recaptured nine times
+within twenty-four hours, is some criterion of the bitterness of the
+struggle. This performance of our men can be better understood when it
+is stated that the enemy opposing them there consisted of two fresh
+divisions of the Kaiser's finest--his Prussian Guard.
+
+After that engagement with our forces, the Fourth Prussian Guard
+Division went into an enforced retirement. When our men captured Sergy
+the last time, they did so in sufficient strength to withhold it against
+repeated fierce counter attacks by a Bavarian Guard division that had
+replaced the wearied Prussians.
+
+But before the crack Guard Division was withdrawn from the line, it had
+suffered terrible losses at our hands. Several prisoners captured said
+that their company had gone into the fight one hundred and fifty strong
+and only seven had survived. That seven were captured by our men in hand
+to hand fighting.
+
+While our engineer forces repaired the roads and constructed bridges in
+the wake of our advancing lines, the enemy brought to that part of the
+front new squadrons of air fighters which were sent over our lines for
+the purpose of observation and interference with communications. They
+continually bombed our supply depots and ammunition dumps.
+
+After the crossing of the Ourcq the American advance reached the next
+German line of resistance, which rested on two terminal strongholds. One
+was in the Foret de Nesles and the other was in the Bois de Meuniere.
+
+The fighting about these two strong points was particularly fierce. In
+the Bois de Meuniere and around the town of Cierges, the German
+resistance was most determined. About three hundred Jaegers held Hill
+200, which was located in the centre of Cierges Forest, just to the
+south of the village of the same name. They were well provided with
+machine guns and ammunition. They were under explicit orders to hold and
+they did.
+
+Our men finally captured the position at the point of the bayonet. Most
+of its defenders fought to the death. The capture of the hill was the
+signal for a renewal of our attacks against the seemingly impregnable
+Meuniere woods. Six times our advancing waves reached the German
+positions in the southern edge of the woods and six times we were driven
+back.
+
+There were some American Indians in the ranks of our units attacking
+there--there were lumber jacks and farmer boys and bookkeepers, and they
+made heroic rushes against terrific barriers of hidden machine guns. But
+after a day of gallant fighting they had been unable to progress.
+
+Our efforts had by no means been exhausted. The following night our
+artillery concentrated on the southern end of the woods and literally
+turned it into an inferno with high explosive shells. Early in the
+morning we moved to the attack again. Two of the Kaiser's most reputable
+divisions, the 200th Jaegers and the 216th Reserve, occupied the wood.
+The fighting in the wood was fierce and bloody, but it was more to the
+liking of our men than the rushes across fire-swept fields. Our men
+went to work with the bayonet. And for six hours they literally carved
+their way through four kilometres of the forest. Before ten o'clock the
+next morning, our lines lay to the north of the woods.
+
+In consolidating the gains in the woods, our men surrounded in a small
+clearing some three hundred of the enemy who refused to surrender.
+American squads advanced with the bayonet from all sides. The Germans
+were fighting for their lives. Only three remained to accept the
+ignominy of capture.
+
+Our forward progress continued and by August 4th the Germans were
+withdrawing across the Vesle River. The immediate objective that
+presented itself to the Americans was the important German supply depot
+at Fismes. It was in and around Fismes that some of the bloodiest
+fighting in the second battle of the Marne took place. The capture of
+Fismes was the crowning achievement of one American division that so
+distinguished itself as to be made the subject of a special report to
+the French General Headquarters by the French army in which the
+Americans fought. In part, the report read:
+
+  "On Aug. 4th the infantry combats were localized with terrible fury.
+  The outskirts of Fismes were solidly held by the Germans, where their
+  advance groups were difficult to take. The Americans stormed them and
+  reduced them with light mortars and thirty-sevens. They succeeded,
+  though not without loss, and at the end of the day, thanks to this
+  slow but sure tenacity, they were within one kilometre of Fismes and
+  masters of Villes, Savoye and Chezelle Farm. All night long rains
+  hindered their movements and rendered their following day's task more
+  arduous. On their right the French had, by similar stages, conquered
+  a series of woods and swamps of Meuniere Woods, to the east of St.
+  Gilles, and were on the plateau of Bonne Maison Farm. To the left
+  another American unit had been able to advance upon the Vesle to the
+  east of St. Thiebault.
+
+  "On Aug. 5th the artillery prepared for the attack on Fismes by a
+  bombardment, well regulated, and the final assault was launched. The
+  Americans penetrated into the village and then began the mean task of
+  clearing the last point of resistance. That evening this task was
+  almost completed. We held all the northern part of the village as far
+  as Rheims road, and patrols were sent into the northern end of the
+  village. Some even succeeded in crossing the Vesle, but were satisfied
+  with making a reconnaissance, as the Germans still occupied the right
+  bank of the river in great strength. All that was left to be
+  accomplished was to complete the mopping up of Fismes and the
+  strengthening of our positions to withstand an enemy counter attack.
+
+  "Such was the advance of one American division, which pushed the enemy
+  forward from Roncheres on July 30th a distance of eighteen kilometres
+  and crowned its successful advance with the capture of Fismes on Aug.
+  5th."
+
+The German line on the Vesle river fell shortly after the capture of
+Fismes. The enemy was forced to fall back to his next natural line of
+defence on the Aisne. Between the Vesle and the Aisne, the Americans
+assisted the French in the application of such persistent pressure that
+the enemy's stubborn resistance was overcome and in many places he was
+forced to withdraw before he had time to destroy his depots of supply.
+
+On August 9th, General Degoutte, commanding the Sixth French Army,
+issued the following order:
+
+  "Before the great offensive of July 18th, the American troops, forming
+  part of the 6th French Army, distinguished themselves by clearing the
+  'Brigade de Marine' Woods and the village of Vaux of the enemy and
+  arresting his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy.
+
+  "Since then they have taken the most glorious part in the second
+  battle of the Marne, rivalling the French troops in ardour and valour.
+
+  "During twenty days of constant fighting they have freed numerous
+  French villages and made, across a difficult country, an advance of
+  forty kilometres, which has brought them to the Vesle.
+
+  "Their glorious marches are marked by names which will shine in future
+  in the military history of the United States: Torcy, Belleau, Plateau
+  d'Etrepilly, Epieds, Le Charmel, l'Ourcq, Seringeset Nesles, Sergy, La
+  Vesle and Fismes.
+
+  "These young divisions, who saw fire for the first time, have shown
+  themselves worthy of the old war traditions of the regular army. They
+  have had the same burning desire to fight the Boche, the same
+  discipline which sees that the order given by their commander is
+  always executed, whatever the difficulties to be overcome and the
+  sacrifices to be suffered.
+
+  "The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy and the skill
+  of the commanders, to the bravery of the soldiers.
+
+  "I am proud to have commanded such troops."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the month of August and up to the first days of September, the
+Americans participated in the important operations to the north of
+Soissons, where on August 29th they played a big part in the capture of
+the Juvigny Plateau.
+
+In this fighting, which was marked by the desperate resistance of the
+enemy, the Americans were incorporated in the 10th French Army under the
+command of General Mangin. Violent counter attacks by German shock
+divisions failed to stem the persistent advances of our forces.
+
+A large hill to the north of Juvigny constituted a key and supporting
+position for the enemy. In spite of the large number of machine guns
+concealed on its slopes, the Americans succeeded in establishing a line
+between the hill and the town. At the same time the American line
+extended itself around the other side of the hill. With the consummation
+of this enveloping movement, the hill was taken by assault.
+
+On Labor Day, September 2nd, after bitterly engaging four German
+divisions for five days, the Americans advanced their lines to
+Terny-Sorny and the road running between Soissons and St. Quentin. This
+achievement, which was accomplished by driving the Germans back a depth
+of four miles on a two mile front, gave our forces a good position on
+the important plateau running to the north of the Aisne.
+
+Our observation stations now commanded a view across the valley toward
+the famous Chemin des Dames which at one time had been a part of the
+Hindenburg line. Before the invasion of the German hordes, France
+possessed no fairer countryside than the valley of the Aisne. But the
+Germans, retreating, left behind them only wreckage and ashes and ruin.
+The valley spread out before our lines was scarred with the shattered
+remains of what had once been peaceful farming communities. To the
+northwest there could be seen the spires above the city of Laon.
+
+The American units which took part in this bitter fighting that had
+continued without a day's cessation since July 18th, were mentioned
+specifically in an order issued on August 27th by General Pershing. The
+order read:
+
+  "It fills me with pride to record in general orders a tribute to the
+  service achievements of the First and Third Corps, comprising the
+  First, Second, Third, Fourth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth,
+  Thirty-second and Forty-second Divisions of the American Expeditionary
+  Forces.
+
+  "You came to the battlefield at a crucial hour for the Allied cause.
+  For almost four years the most formidable army the world has yet seen
+  had pressed its invasion of France and stood threatening its capital.
+  At no time has that army been more powerful and menacing than when, on
+  July 15th, it struck again to destroy in one great battle the brave
+  men opposed to it and to enforce its brutal will upon the world and
+  civilisation.
+
+  "Three days later in conjunction with our Allies you counter-attacked.
+  The Allied armies gained a brilliant victory that marks the turning
+  point of the war. You did more than to give the Allies the support to
+  which, as a nation, our faith was pledged. You proved that our
+  altruism, our pacific spirit, and our sense of justice have not
+  blunted our virility or our courage.
+
+  "You have shown that American initiative and energy are as fit for the
+  tasks of war as for the pursuits of peace. You have justly won
+  unstinted praise from our Allies and the eternal gratitude of our
+  countrymen.
+
+  "We have paid for our successes with the lives of many of our brave
+  comrades. We shall cherish their memory always and claim for our
+  history and literature their bravery, achievement and sacrifice.
+
+  "This order will be read to all organisations at the first assembly
+  formations following its receipt.
+
+                                                 "PERSHING."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+August 10th marked a milestone in the military effort of the United
+States. On that day the organisation was completed of the First American
+Field Army. I have tried to show in this record how we began the
+organisation of our forces overseas. Our first troops to reach France
+were associated in small units with the French. Soon our regiments began
+to reach the front under French Division Commanders. Then with the
+formation of American divisions, we went into the line under French
+corps commanders. Later still, American corps operated under French Army
+Commanders. Finally, our forces augmented by additional divisions and
+corps were organised into the First American Field Army.
+
+Through these various stages of development, our forces had grown until
+on August 10th they had reached the stage where they became practically
+as independent an organisation as the British armies under Field Marshal
+Sir Douglas Haig and the French armies under General Petain. From now on
+the American Army was to be on a par with the French Army and the
+British Army, all three of them under the sole direction of the Allied
+Generalissimo, Marshal Ferdinand Foch.
+
+The personnel of this, the greatest single army that ever fought beneath
+the Stars and Stripes, is reproduced in the appendix. It might not be
+amiss to point out that an American division numbers thirty thousand
+men and that an American corps consists of six divisions and auxiliary
+troops, such as air squadrons, tank sections, and heavy artillery, which
+bring the strength of an American army corps to between 225,000 and
+250,000 men. By the 1st of September, the United States of America had
+five such army corps in the field, martialling a strength of about one
+and one-half million bayonets. General Pershing was in command of this
+group of armies which comprised the First American Field Army.
+
+It was from these forces that General Pershing selected the strong units
+which he personally commanded in the first major operation of the First
+American Field Army as an independent unit in France. That operation was
+the beginning of the Pershing push toward the Rhine--it was the Battle
+of St. Mihiel.
+
+It was a great achievement. It signalised the full development of our
+forces from small emergency units that had reached the front less than a
+year before, to the now powerful group of armies, fighting under their
+own flag, their own generals, and their own staffs.
+
+The important material results of the Battle of St. Mihiel are most
+susceptible to civilian as well as military comprehension. The St.
+Mihiel salient had long constituted a pet threat of the enemy. The
+Germans called it a dagger pointed at the heart of eastern France. For
+three years the enemy occupying it had successfully resisted all efforts
+of the Allies to oust them.
+
+The salient was shaped like a triangle. The apex of the triangle--the
+point of the dagger--thrusting southward, rested on the town of St.
+Mihiel, on the river Meuse. The western flank of the triangle extended
+northward from St. Mihiel to points beyond Verdun. The eastern flank of
+the triangle extended in a northeasterly direction toward
+Pont-a-Mousson. It was the strongest position held by the Germans in
+Lorraine--if not on the entire front.
+
+The geographical formation of the salient was an invitation for the
+application of a pincers operation. The point of leverage of the
+opposing jaws of the pincers was, most naturally, the apex of the
+triangle at St. Mihiel.
+
+One claw of the pincers--a claw some eight miles thick, bit into the
+east side of the salient near Pont-a-Mousson on the west bank of the
+Moselle River. The other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick
+and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the vicinity of the
+little town of Haudiomont, on the heights of the Meuse and just a little
+distance to the east of the Meuse River.
+
+The distance across that part of the salient through which the pincer's
+claws were biting was about thirty miles, and the area which would be
+included in the bite would be almost a hundred and seventy-five square
+miles. This, indeed, was a major operation.
+
+The battle began at one o'clock on the morning of September 12th, when
+the concentrated ordnance of the heaviest American artillery in France
+opened a preparatory fire of unprecedented intensity.
+
+At five o'clock in the dim dawn of that September morning, our infantry
+waves leaped from their trenches and moved forward to the assault. The
+claw of the pincers on the eastern flank of the salient began to bite
+in.
+
+One hour later the claw of the pincers on the western flank of the
+salient began to move forward.
+
+On the east, our men went forward on the run over ground that we had
+looked upon with envious eyes from the day that the first American
+troops reached the front. Before noon we had taken the villages of
+Lahayville, St. Baussant, Vilcey and the Bois de Mortmare and we were
+still advancing. By nightfall, our lines were still on the move beyond
+Essey and we were holding the important town of Thiaucourt and claimed
+Villers sur Penny for our own.
+
+The seemingly impregnable fortress of Mont Sec had been surrounded, our
+tanks had cleared the way through Pannes, we had taken Nonsard and the
+towns of Woinville and Buxieres had fallen into our hands.
+
+On the west side of the salient the day had gone equally well for us.
+The western claw of the pincers had pushed due east through the towns of
+Spada and Lavigneville. Our men had swept on in the night through
+Chaillon, we had taken St. Remy and had cleared the Foret de Montagne.
+By midnight their advanced patrols had reached the western part of the
+town of Vigneulles. In the meantime, our forces on the eastern side of
+the salient were pushing westward toward this same town of Vigneulles.
+At three o'clock in the morning the forces from the east were occupying
+the eastern part of the town. The pincers had closed; the St. Mihiel
+salient had been pinched off.
+
+Our forces actually met at nine o'clock on the morning of September
+13th. The junction was made at the town of Heudicourt to the south of
+Vigneulles. We had pocketed all of the German forces to the south of
+that town. Our centre had moved forward at nine o'clock the night before
+and occupied St. Mihiel on the heels of the retreating Germans. But the
+withdrawal was too late. Large numbers of them found themselves
+completely surrounded in the forests between St. Mihiel on the south and
+Heudicourt on the north.
+
+We closed in during the afternoon and started to open the prize
+package. Located in the area, encircled by our troops, was the Bois de
+Versel, the Bois de Gaumont and the Bois de Woeuvre. Each one of these
+little forests gave up its quota of prisoners, while much material and
+rich booty of war fell into our hands.
+
+The principal avenue that had been opened for the Germans to make a
+possible withdrawal led through Vigneulles and before our pincers had
+completely closed, the fleeing enemy had poured out through that gap at
+the rate of several thousand an hour. The roads were blocked for miles
+with their transportation, and when the American artillery turned its
+attention to these thoroughfares, crowded with confused Germans, the
+slaughter was terrific. For days after the battle our sanitation squads
+were busy at their grewsome work.
+
+In conception and execution the entire operation had been perfect.
+Confusion had been visited upon the method-loving enemy from the
+beginning. By reason of the disruption of their intercommunications,
+faulty liaison had resulted and division had called to division in vain
+for assistance, not knowing at the time that all of them were in equally
+desperate straits. The enemy fought hard but to no purpose.
+
+One entire regiment with its commander and his staff was captured. With
+both flanks exposed, it had suddenly been confronted by Americans on
+four sides. The surrender was so complete that the German commander
+requested that his roll should be called in order to ascertain the
+extent of his losses. When this was done, every one was accounted for
+except one officer and one private.
+
+As his command was so embarrassingly complete, the German commander
+asked permission to march it off in whatever direction desired by his
+captors. The request was granted, and there followed the somewhat
+amusing spectacle of an entire German regiment, without arms, marching
+off the battlefield under their own officers. The captured regiment was
+escorted to the rear by mounted American guards, who smilingly and
+leisurely rode their horses cowboy fashion as they herded their captives
+back to the pens.
+
+Tons upon tons of ammunition fell into our hands in the woods. At one
+place twenty-two railroad cars loaded with large calibre ammunition had
+to be abandoned when an American shell had torn up the track to the
+north of them. But if the Germans had been unable to take with them
+their equipment, they had succeeded in driving ahead of them on the
+retreat almost all of the French male civilians between sixteen and
+forty-five years that had been used as German slaves for more than four
+years.
+
+The Americans were welcomed as deliverers by those French civilians that
+remained in the town. They were found to be almost entirely ignorant of
+the most commonly known historical events of the war. Secretary of War
+Baker and Generals Pershing and Petain visited the town of St. Mihiel a
+few hours after it was captured. They were honoured with a spontaneous
+demonstration by the girls and aged women, who crowded about them to
+express thanks and pay homage for deliverance.
+
+One of our bands began to play the "Marseillaise" and the old French
+civilians who, under German domination, had not heard the national
+anthem for four long years, broke down and wept. The mayor of the town
+told how the Germans had robbed it of millions of francs. First they had
+demanded and received one million five hundred thousand francs and later
+they collected five hundred thousand more in three instalments. In
+addition to these robberies, they had taken by "requisition" all the
+furniture and mattresses and civilian comforts that they could find.
+They took what they wanted and usually destroyed the rest. They had
+stripped the towns of all metal utensils, bells, statues, and water
+pipes.
+
+The St. Mihiel salient thus went out of existence. The entire point in
+the blade of the dagger that had been thrust at the heart of France had
+been bitten off. Verdun with its rows upon rows of sacred dead was now
+liberated from the threat of envelopment from the right. The Allies were
+in possession of the dominating heights of the Meuse. The railroads
+connecting Commercy with Vigneulles, Thiaucourt and St. Mihiel were in
+our hands. Our lines had advanced close to that key of victory, the
+Briey iron basin to the north, and the German fortress of Metz lay under
+American guns.
+
+The battle only lasted twenty-seven hours. In that space of time, a
+German force estimated at one hundred thousand had been vanquished, if
+not literally cut to pieces, American soldiers had wrested a hundred and
+fifty square miles of territory away from the Germans, captured fifteen
+thousand officers and men and hundreds of guns. General Pershing on
+September 14th made the following report:
+
+  "The dash and vigour of our troops, and of the valiant French
+  divisions which fought shoulder to shoulder with them, is shown by the
+  fact that the forces attacking on both faces of the salient effected a
+  junction and secured the result desired within twenty-seven hours.
+
+  "Besides liberating more than 150 square miles of territory and taking
+  15,000 prisoners, we have captured a mass of material. Over 100 guns
+  of all calibres and hundreds of machine guns and trench mortars have
+  been taken.
+
+  "In spite of the fact that the enemy during his retreat burned large
+  stores, a partial examination of the battlefield shows that great
+  quantities of ammunition, telegraph material, railroad material,
+  rolling stock, clothing, and equipment have been abandoned. Further
+  evidence of the haste with which the enemy retreated is found in the
+  uninjured bridges which he left behind.
+
+  "French pursuit, bombing and reconnaissance units, and British and
+  Italian bombing units divided with our own air service the control of
+  the air, and contributed materially to the successes of the operation."
+
+And while this great battle was in progress, the Allied lines were
+advancing everywhere. In Flanders, in Picardy, on the Marne, in
+Champagne, in Lorraine, in Alsace, and in the Balkans the frontier of
+freedom was moving forward.
+
+Surely the tide had turned. And surely it had been America's God-given
+opportunity to play the big part she did play. The German was now on the
+run. Suspicious whisperings of peace began to be heard in neutral
+countries. They had a decided German accent. Germany saw defeat staring
+her in the face and now, having failed to win in the field, she sought
+to win by a bluff at the peace table.
+
+The mailed fist having failed, Germany now resorted to cunning. The
+mailed fist was now an open palm that itched to press in brotherhood the
+hands of the Allies. But it was the same fist that struck down the peace
+of the world in 1914. It was the same Germany that had ravished and
+outraged Belgium. It was the same Germany that had tried to murder
+France. It was the same Germany that had covered America with her net of
+spies and had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and Japan.
+It was the same Germany that had ruthlessly destroyed the lives of women
+and children, American citizens, non-combatants, riding the free seas
+under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. It was the same Germany
+that had drugged Russia with her corrupting propaganda and had throttled
+the voice of Russian democracy. This Germany, this unrepentant
+Germany--this unpunished Germany, launched her drive for peace.
+
+Germany was willing to make any concessions to bring about negotiations
+that would save her from a defeat in the field. There was one thing,
+however, that Germany wanted to save from the ruin she had brought down
+upon herself. That thing was the German army and its strong auxiliary,
+the German navy. Neither one of them had been destroyed. The army was in
+general retreat and the navy was locked up in the Baltic, but both of
+them remained in existence as menaces to the future peace of the world.
+With these two forces of might, Germany could have given up her booty of
+war, offered reparation for her transgressions and drawn back behind the
+Rhine to await the coming of another _Der Tag_ when she could send them
+once more crashing across friendly borders and cruising the seven seas
+on missions of piracy.
+
+Germany was in the position of a bully, who without provocation and
+without warning had struck down from behind a man who had not been
+prepared to defend himself. The victim's movements had been impeded by a
+heavy overcoat. He had been utterly and entirely unprepared for the
+onslaught. The bully had struck him with a club and had robbed him.
+
+The unprepared man had tried to free himself from the overcoat of
+pacifism that he had worn so long in safety and in kindliness to his
+fellows. The bully, taking advantage of his handicap, had beaten him
+brutally. At last the unprepared man had freed himself from the
+overcoat and then stood ready not only to defend himself, but to
+administer deserved punishment. Then the bully had said:
+
+"Now, wait just a minute. Let's talk this thing over and see if we can't
+settle it before I get hurt."
+
+The bully's pockets bulge with the loot he has taken from the man. The
+victim's face and head are swollen and bloody and yet the bully invites
+him to sit down to a table to discuss the hold-up, the assault, and the
+terms of which the loot and the loot only will be returned. The bully
+takes it for granted that he is to go unpunished and, more important
+still, is to retain the club that he might decide to use again.
+
+The rule of common sense that deals with individuals should be the same
+rule that applies to the affairs of nations. No municipal law anywhere
+in the world gives countenance to a compromise with a criminal.
+International law could be no less moral than municipal law. Prussian
+militarism made the world unsafe for Democracy, and for that reason, on
+April 6th, 1917, the United States entered the war.
+
+We wanted a decent world in which to live. And the existence of the
+Prussian army and its conscienceless masters was incompatible with the
+free and peaceful life of the world. We entered the war for an ideal.
+That ideal was in the balance when Germany made her 1918 drive for
+peace.
+
+Our army in France knew that if peace came with an unwhipped Prussian
+army in existence, the world would be just as unsafe for Democracy as it
+had ever been. Our army in France wanted no compromise that would leave
+Germany in possession of the instruments that had made possible her
+crimes against the world. Every man that had shed blood, every man that
+had paid the final price, every woman that had shed tears, every
+cherished ideal of our one hundred and forty years of national life,
+would have been sacrificed in vain, if we had condoned Germany's high
+crimes against civilisation and had made a compromise with the criminal.
+
+Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, spokesman of the Allied
+world, sounded the true American note when, in his reply to the
+insincere German peace proposals, he referred the German Government to
+Marshal Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies. War by the sword
+was to bring peace by the sword.
+
+And as I write these lines in the last days of October, 1918,
+unconditional surrender is the song of the dove of peace perched on our
+bayonets as we march into the dawn of victory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+PERSONNEL OF THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE
+
+
+                           =1ST ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Hunter Liggett, commanding.
+
+1st and 2nd Division, Regular Army; 26th, (New England), 32d, (Michigan
+and Wisconsin), 41st, (Washington, Oregon, North and South Dakota,
+Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota), and 42d
+(_Rainbow_, troops from twenty-six States) Divisions, National Guard.
+
+1ST DIVISION--Major Gen. Charles P. Summerall, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Campbell King, Chief of Staff; Major H. K. Loughry, Adjutant General.
+
+1ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major John L. Hines; 16th and 18th Regiments; 2d
+Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+2D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. Beaumont B. Buck; 26th and 28th
+Regiments; 3d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+1ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced); 5th,
+6th, and 7th Regiments; 1st Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--1st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--2nd Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--1st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+2ND DIVISION (U. S. M. C.)--Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune, commanding;
+Brig. Gen. Preston Brown, Chief of Staff.
+
+3RD BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Hanson E. Ely; 9th and 23rd Regiments;
+5th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+4TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY (MARINES)--Brig. Gen. John E. Le Jeune; 5th and
+6th Regiments; 6th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+2D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig Gen. A. J. Bowley; 12th, 15th, and
+17th Regiments; 2d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--2d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--1st Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--2d Division Headquarters Troops; 4th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+26TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Clarence R. Edwards, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Cassius M. Dowell, Chief of Staff; Major Charles A. Stevens, Adjutant
+General.
+
+51ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Shelton; 101st and 102d
+Regiments; 102d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+52D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. C. H. Cole; 103d and 104th Regiments;
+103d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+51ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. D. E. Aultman; 101st Trench
+Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--101st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--101st Field Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--26th Headquarters Troop; 101st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+32ND DIVISION--Major Gen. W. G. Haan, commanding; Lieut. Col. Allen L.
+Briggs, Chief of Staff; Major John H. Howard, Adjutant General.
+
+63D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. William D. Connor; 125th and 126th
+Regiments; 120th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+64TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. E. B. Winans; 127th and 128th
+Regiments; 121st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+57TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. G. LeRoy Irwin; 119th, 120th
+and 121st Regiments; 107th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--107th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--107th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--32d Headquarters Troops; 119th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+41ST DIVISION (_Sunset_)--Major. Gen. Robert Alexander, commanding;
+Colonel Harry H. Tebbetts, Chief of Staff; Major Herbert H. White,
+Adjutant General.
+
+81ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Wilson B. Burt; 161st and 162nd
+Regiments; 147th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+82D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward Vollrath; 163rd and 164th
+Regiments; 148th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+66TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+146th, 147th, and 148th Regiments; 116th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--116th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--116th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--41st Division Headquarters Troop; 146th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+42D DIVISION (_Rainbow_)--Major Gen. C. T. Menoher, commanding; (Chief
+of Staff not announced); Major Walter E. Powers, Adjutant General.
+
+83D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. M. Lenihan; 165th and 166th Regiments;
+150th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+84TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. R. A. Brown; 167th and 168th
+Regiments; 151st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+67TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. G. C. Gatley; 149th, 150th and
+151st Regiments; 117th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--117th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--117th Field Signal Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--42d Division Headquarters Troop; 149th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =2ND ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Robert Lee Bullard, Commanding.
+
+4th Division, Regular Army; 28th, (Pennsylvania,) 30th, (Tennessee,
+North and South Carolina, and District of Columbia), and 36th (Missouri
+and Kansas) Divisions, National Guard; 77th (New York) and 82d (Georgia,
+Alabama, and Florida) Divisions, National Army.
+
+4TH DIVISION--Major Gen. George H. Cameron, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+Christian A. Bach, Chief of Staff; Major Jesse D. Elliott, Adjutant
+General.
+
+7TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. B. A. Poore; 39th and 47th Regiments;
+11th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+8TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. E. E. Booth; 58th and 59th Regiments;
+12th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+4TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. E. B. Babbitt; 13th, 16th and
+77th Regiments; 4th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--4th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS---8th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--4th Division Headquarters Troop; 10th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+28TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. H. Muir, commanding; (Chief of Staff not
+announced); Lieut. Col. David J. Davis, Adjutant General.
+
+55TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. T. W. Darrah; 109th and 110th
+Regiments; 108th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+56TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. William Weigel; 111th and 112th
+Regiments; 109th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+53RD BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. W. G. Price, 107th, 108th,
+and 109th Regiments; 103rd Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--103d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--103d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--28th Division Headquarters Troop; 107th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+30TH DIVISION (_Wild Cat_)--Major Gen. Edward M. Lewis, commanding;
+Lieut. Col. Robert B. McBride, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Francis B.
+Hinkle, Adjutant General.
+
+59TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Tyson; 117th and 118th
+Regiments; 114th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+60TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Samuel L. Faison; 119th and 120th
+Regiments; 115th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+55TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+113th, 114th and 115th Regiments; 105th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--105th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--165th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--30th Division Headquarters Troop; 113th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+35TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Peter E. Traub, commanding; Colonel Robert
+McCleave, Chief of Staff; Major J. M. Hobson, Adjutant General.
+
+69TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Nathaniel McClure; 137th and 138th
+Regiments; 129th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+70TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Charles I. Martin; 139th and 140th
+Regiments; 130th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+60TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. L. G. Berry; 128th, 129th, and
+130th Regiments; 110th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--110th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--35th Division Headquarters Troop; 128th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+77TH DIVISION (Upton)--Major Gen. George B. Duncan, commanding; (Chief
+of Staff not announced); Major W. N. Haskell, Adjutant General.
+
+153D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward Wittenmeyer; 205th and 306th
+Regiments; 305th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+154TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson; 307th and 308th
+Regiments; 306th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+152D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Reeves; 304th, 305th
+and 306th Regiments; 302d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--302d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--302d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--77th Division Headquarters Troop; 304th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+82D DIVISION--Major Gen. W. P. Burnham, commanding; Lieut. Col. Royden
+E. Beebe, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. John R. Thomas, Adjutant General.
+
+163D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Marcus D. Cronin; 325th and 326th
+Regiments; 320th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+164TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Julian R. Lindsay; 327th and 328th
+Regiments; 321st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+157TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Charles D. Rhodes; 319th,
+320th and 321st Regiments; 307th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--307th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--307th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--319th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+                           =3D ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. William M. Wright, commanding.
+
+3d and 5th Divisions, Regular Army; 27th (New York) and 33d (Illinois)
+Divisions, National Guard; 78th (Delaware and New York) and 80th (New
+Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia)
+Divisions, National Army.
+
+
+3D DIVISION--Major Gen. Joseph T. Dickman, commanding; Colonel Robert H.
+Kelton, Chief of Staff; Captain Frank L. Purndon, Adjutant General.
+
+5TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. F. W. Sladen; 4th and 7th Regiments;
+8th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+8TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 30th and 38th
+Regiments; 9th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+3D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. W. M. Cruikshank; 10th, 76th and
+18th Regiments; 3d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--6th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--5th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--3d Division Headquarters Troop; 7th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+5TH DIVISION--Major Gen. John E. McMahon, commanding; Colonel Ralph E.
+Ingram, Chief of Staff; Major David P. Wood, Adjutant General.
+
+9TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. J. C. Castner; 60th and 61st
+Regiments; 14th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+10TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Major Gen. W. H. Gordon; 6th and 11th Regiments;
+15th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+5TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler; 19th, 20th,
+and 21st Regiments; 5th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--7th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--9th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--5th Division Headquarters Troop; 13th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+27TH DIVISION (New York)--Major Gen. J. F. O'Ryan, commanding; Lieut.
+Col. Stanley H. Ford, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Frank W. Ward,
+Adjutant General.
+
+53D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Alfred W. Bjornstad; 105th and 106th
+Regiments; 105th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+54TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Palmer E. Pierce; 107th and 108th
+Regiments; 106th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+52ND BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. George A. Wingate; 104th,
+105th and 106th Regiments; 102d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--102d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--102d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--27th Division Headquarters Troop; 104th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+33D DIVISION--Major Gen. George Bell, Jr., commanding; Colonel William
+K. Naylot, Chief of Staff; (Adjutant General not announced).
+
+65TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Edward L. King; 129th and 130th
+Regiments; 123d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+66TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Paul A. Wolff; 131st and 132nd
+Regiments; 124th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+58TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. James A. Shipton; 122d, 123d
+and 124th Regiments; 108th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--108th Battalion.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--108th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--33d Division Headquarters Troop; 112th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+78TH DIVISION--Major Gen. James H. McRae, commanding; Lieut. Col. Harry
+N. Cootes, Chief of Staff; Major William T. MacMill, Adjutant General.
+
+155TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Mark L. Hersey; 309th and 310th
+Regiments; 308th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+156TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. James T. Dean; 311th and 312th
+Regiments; 309th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+153D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Clint C. Hearn; 307th, 308th
+and 309th Regiments; 303d Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--303d Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--303d Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--78th Division Headquarters Troop; 307th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+80TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Adelbert Cronkhite, commanding; Lieut. Col.
+William H. Waldron, Chief of Staff; Major Steven C. Clark, Adjutant
+General.
+
+159TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Jamerson, 317th and 318th
+Regiments; 314th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+160TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Lloyd M. Bratt; 319th and 320th
+Regiments; 315th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+155TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Gordon G. Heiner; 313th,
+314th and 315th Regiments; 305th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--305th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--305th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--80th Division Headquarters Troop; 313th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =4TH ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. George W. Read, commanding.
+
+83d (Ohio and Pennsylvania), 89th (Kansas, Missouri South Dakota,
+Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona), 90th (Texas and Oklahoma),
+and 92d (negro troops) Divisions, National Army; 37th (Ohio) and 29th
+(New Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and District of Columbia)
+Divisions, National Guard.
+
+
+29TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. G. Morton, commanding; Colonel George S.
+Goodale, Chief of Staff; Major James A. Ulio, Adjutant General.
+
+57TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Charles W. Barber; 113th and 114th
+Regiments; 111th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+58TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. H. H. Bandholtz; 115th and 116th
+Regiments; 112th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+54TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced) 110th,
+111th and 112th Regiments; 104th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--104th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--104th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--29th Division Headquarters Troop; 110th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+37TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. S. Farnsworth, commanding; Lieut. Col. Dana
+T. Merrill, Chief of Staff; Major Edward W. Wildrick, Adjutant General.
+
+73RD BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. C. F. Zimmerman; 145th and 146th
+Regiments; 135th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+74TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. P. Jackson; 147th and 148th
+Regiments; 136th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+62D BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced); 134th,
+135th and 136th Regiments; 112th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--112th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--112th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--37th Division Headquarters Troop; 134th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+83RD DIVISION--Major Gen. E. F. Glenn, commanding; Lieut. Col. C. A.
+Trott, Chief of Staff; Major James L. Cochran, Adjutant General.
+
+165TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Ora E. Hunt; 329th and 330th
+Regiments; 323d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+166TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Malin Craig; 331st and 332d
+Regiments; 324th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+158TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Adrian S. Fleming; 322d,
+323d, and 324th Regiments; 308th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--308th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--308th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--83d Division Headquarters Troop; 322d Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+89TH DIVISION--Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn, commanding; (Acting) Colonel C.
+E. Kilbourne, Chief of Staff; Major Jerome G. Pillow, Adjutant General.
+
+177TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frank L. Winn; 353rd and 354th
+Regiments; 341st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+178TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Hanson; 355th and 356th
+Regiments; 342d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+164TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Edward T. Donnelly; 340th,
+341st and 342d Regiments; 314th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--314th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--314th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--89th Division Headquarters Troop; 340th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+90TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding; Colonel John J.
+Kingman, Chief of Staff; Major Wyatt P. Selkirk, Adjutant General.
+
+179TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John T. O'Neill; 357th and 358th
+Regiments; 344th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+180TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. H. Johnston; 359th and 360th
+Regiments; 345th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+165TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Francis C. Marshall; 343d,
+344th, and 345th Regiments; 315th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--315th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--315th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--90th Division Headquarters Troop; 349th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+92ND DIVISION--Major Gen. C. C. Ballou, commanding; Lieut. Col. Allen J.
+Greer, Chief of Staff; Major Sherburne Whipple, Adjutant General.
+
+183D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Malvern H. Barnum, 365th and 366th
+Regiments; 350th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+184TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. A. Hay; 367th and 368th
+Regiments; 351st Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+167TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+349th, 350th and 351st Regiments; 317th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--317th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--317th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--92d Division Headquarters Troop; 349th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                           =5TH ARMY CORPS=
+
+Major Gen. Omar Bundy, commanding.
+
+6th Division, Regular Army; 36th (Texas and Oklahoma) Division, National
+Guard; 75th (New England), 79th (Pennsylvania, Maryland and District of
+Columbia), 85th (Michigan and Wisconsin), and 91st (Washington, Oregon,
+Alaska, California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and Utah),
+Divisions, National Army.
+
+
+6TH DIVISION--Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, commanding; Colonel James M.
+Pickering, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Robert S. Knox, Adjutant General.
+
+11TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. W. R. Dashiell; 51st and 52d
+Regiments; 17th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+12TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. J. B. Erwin; 53d and 54th Regiments;
+18th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+6TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. E. A. Millar; 3rd, 11th, and
+78th Regiments; 6th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--318th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--6th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--6th Division, Headquarters Troop; 16th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+36TH DIVISION--Major Gen. W. R. Smith, commanding; Colonel E. J.
+Williams, Chief of Staff; Major William R. Scott, Adjutant General.
+
+71ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Henry Hutchings; 141st and 142d
+Regiments; 132d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+72D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John A. Hulen; 143d and 144th
+Regiments; 133d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+61ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. John A. Stevens; 131st, 132d
+and 133d Regiments, 111th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--111th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--111th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--36th Division Headquarters Troop; 131st Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+76TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Harry F. Hodges, commanding; (Chief of Staff
+not announced); Major George M. Peek, Adjutant General.
+
+151ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frank M. Albright; 301st and 302d
+Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+152D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. F. D. Evans; 303d and 304th
+Regiments; 303d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+151ST BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Major Gen. William S. McNair; 301st,
+302d, and 303d Regiments; 301st Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--301st Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--301st Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--76th Division Headquarters Troop; 301st Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+79TH DIVISION--Major Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn, commanding; Colonel Tenny
+Ross, Chief of Staff; Major Charles B. Moore, Adjutant General.
+
+157TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. William L. Nicholson; 313th and
+314th Regiments; 311th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+158TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 315th and
+316th Regiments; 312th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+154TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Andrew Hero, Jr., 310th,
+311th and 312th Regiments; 304th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--304th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--304th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--79th Division Headquarters Troop; 310th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+85TH DIVISION--Major Gen. C. W. Kennedy, commanding; Colonel Edgar T.
+Collins, Chief of Staff; Lieut. Col. Clarence Lininger, Adjutant
+General.
+
+169TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Thomas B. Dugan; 337th and 338th
+Regiments; 329th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+170TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 339th and
+340th Regiments; 330th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+160TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Guy M. Preston; 328th, 329th
+and 330th Regiments; 310th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--310th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--310th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--85th Division Headquarters Troop; 328th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+91ST DIVISION--Brig. Gen. F. H. Foltz, commanding; Colonel Herbert J.
+Brees, Chief of Staff; Major Frederick W. Manley, Adjutant General.
+
+181ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. John B. McDonald; 361st and 362d
+Regiments; 347th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+182D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Frederick S. Foltz; 363d and 364th
+Regiments; 348th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+166TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Edward Burr; 346th, 347th and
+348th Regiments; 316th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--316th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--316th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--91st Division Headquarters Troop; 346th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+                        =UNASSIGNED TO CORPS=
+
+81ST DIVISION--Major Gen. C. J. Bailey, commanding; Colonel Charles D.
+Roberts, Chief of Staff; Major Arthur E. Ahrends, Adjutant General.
+
+161ST BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George W. McIver; 321st and 322nd
+Regiments; 317th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+162D BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. Monroe McFarland; 323d and 324th
+Regiments; 318th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+156TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--Brig. Gen. Andrew Moses; 316th, 317th
+and 318th Regiments; 306th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--306th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--306th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--81st Division Headquarters Troop; 316th Machine Gun
+Battalion.
+
+
+93RD DIVISION--(Commander not announced); Major Lee S. Tillotson,
+Adjutant General.
+
+185TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--(Commanding officer not announced); 369th and
+370th Regiments; 333d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+186TH BRIGADE, INFANTRY--Brig. Gen. George H. Harries; 371st and 372d
+Regiments; 334th Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+168TH BRIGADE, FIELD ARTILLERY--(Commanding officer not announced);
+332d, 333d and 334th Regiments; 318th Trench Mortar Battery.
+
+ENGINEER TROOPS--318th Regiment.
+
+SIGNAL TROOPS--318th Battalion.
+
+DIVISION UNITS--332d Machine Gun Battalion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcribers Notes
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
+
+3. Obvious punctuation errors and omissions in original text have been
+   repaired.
+
+4. Text spelling was common at the time of its publication.
+
+5. ILLUSTRATIONS TEXT - Spelling, accent and hypenation corrections have
+   been made to conform with text.
+
+6. pg. xi (M. FLOYS GIBBONS) appears in the original text of the letter
+   and has been corrected to M. FLOYD GIBBONS.
+
+7. pg. xvii - Table of Contents - Chapter XVIII, pg. 328; the chapter
+   correctly starts on Pg. 338 - this was corrected.
+
+8. The word manoeuvre uses an oe ligatgure in the original text, and
+   has be here represented as oe.
+
+9. All possibly dialectic-phonetic phrases have been retained, including
+   the following;
+
+   pg. 31 - "stear" (steer), (we can stear with an oar), quote
+   pg. 91 - "Sourkraut" (Sauerkraut), (German as Sourkraut), remembrance
+   pg. 276 - "dimonds" (diamonds), (filled wid dimonds), quote
+   pg. 370 - "Lueger" (Luger), (of the Lueger make), remembrance
+
+10. 21 Spelling corrections: (x) shows no. of times word was already
+    correctly spelled in text.
+
+   pg. xv - "citatation" to "citation" (he received a citation)
+   pg. 38 - "tatooed" to "tattooed" (tattooed arms of the)
+   pg. 50 - "Harboard" to "Harbord" (4) (Brigadier General Harbord)
+   pg. 73 - "practise" to "practice" (9), (began to practice)
+   pg. 99 - "surpised" to "surprised" (I was not surprised)
+   pg. 107 - "dicharge" to "discharge" (signal for the discharge)
+   pg. 139 - "aves-vous" to "avez-vous" (3) (Aves-vous de chevaux?)
+   pg. 143 - "Nicholas" to "Nicolas" (2) (Saint-Nicolas-du-Port)
+   pg. 157 - "milimetre" to "millimetre" (2), (battery of 150 millimetre)
+   pg. 208 - "Ukelele" to "Ukulele" (tending the Ukulele crop)
+   pg. 222 - "perigrinations" to "peregrinations" (trace the
+             peregrinations)
+   pg. 248 - "harrassed" to "harassed" (harassed the road intersections)
+   pg. 315 - "ricochetted" to "ricocheted" (had ricocheted upward)
+   pg. 346 - "desposit" to "deposit" (would solemnly deposit)
+   pg. 349 - "McDougal" to "MacDougal" (7), (MacDougal then began)
+   pg. 365 - "turrent" to "turret" (the tank's turret)
+   pg. 367 - "blow" to "blown" (trunks were blown high)
+   pg. 376 - "barracades" to "barricades" (built barracades across)
+   pg. 382 - "distingushed" to "distinguished" (that so distinguished
+             itself)
+   pg. 383 - "reconnaisance" to "reconnaissance" (2), (making a
+             reconnaissance).
+   pg. 391 - "knowng" to "knowing" (knowing at the time)
+
+
+11. 17 hyphenation, Capitalization or diacritical accent corrections made
+    as follows:
+
+   pg. xi - "ARMEES" to "ARMEES" (2) (DES ARMEES DU NORD) - Fr.
+   pg. 24 - "victrola" to "Victrola" ( a cabinet Victrola) - Trademark
+   pg. 88 - "coryphees" to "coryphees" (male coryphees who hold) - Fr.
+   pg. 88 - "under-sized" to "undersized" (2), (toughest set of
+            undersized)
+   pg. 111 - "zigzagging" to "zig-zagging" (3) (through zig-zagging
+             avenues)
+   pg. 183 - "hand grenades" to "hand-grenades" (2), (post with
+             hand-grenades)
+   pg. 194 - "counter-battery" to "counter battery" (3) (casual counter
+             battery work)
+   pg. 232 - "debris" to "debris" (4) (person in the debris)
+   pg. 251 - "debris" to "debris (4) (the debris ceased falling)
+   pg. 269 - "tricolour" to "tri-colour" (2) (of the French tri-colour)
+   pg. 274 - "Americains" to "Americains" (les bons Americains) - Fr.
+   pg. 307 - "Chatel" to "Chatel" (La Voie du Chatel) - Fr.
+   pg. 367 - "dug-outs" to "dugouts" (10), (crushed the enemy dugouts)
+   pg. 370 - "t'-ell" to "t'ell" (Allay veet t'ell outer here), as on pg.
+             275.
+   pg. 373 - "dug-out" to "dugout" (24), (in a dugout with)
+   pg. 383 - "Thibault" to "Thiebault" (9) (east of St. Thiebault)
+   pg. 385 - "country-side" to "countryside" (5), (no fairer countryside)
+
+
+12. List of same word variations appearing in this text which have been
+    retained.
+
+   "cooperation" (1) and "co-operation" (1)
+   "dockside" (1) and "dock-side" (1)
+   "farmhouse" (1) and "farm-house" (1)
+   "heartbroken" (1) and "heart-break" (1)
+   "manpower" (1) and "man-power" (1)
+   "midday" (1) and "mid-day" (1)
+   "old-timer" (1), "old-timers" (2), "old timer" (3)
+   "well kept" (1) and "well-kept" (1)
+
+
+13. Printers error correction;
+
+   pg 394: - two lines of text were exchanged as follows:
+
+   original text;
+
+                                 "It was the same Germany
+   many that had covered America with her net of spies and
+   that had tried to murder France. It was the same Ger-
+   had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"
+
+   as corrected;
+
+                                  "It was the same Germany
+   that had tried to murder France. It was the same Germany
+   that had covered America with her net of spies and
+   had sought to bring war to our borders with Mexico and"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of "And they thought we wouldn't fight", by
+Floyd Gibbons
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOULDN'T FIGHT ***
+
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