Chapter VI: St. Mihiel and Limey Sector (1)

The Major was waiting for us up the “road.” He informed us that the 156th Brigade was the alert brigade. We were not to pitch tents nor unroll packs, but lie on our arms ready to reinforce the front line division should occasion demand it. The barrage was due to start at 1 A. M.; at 5 A. M. the infantry was to go over the top.

I waded back with this gladsome news, and we lay in the mud and wet leaves and shivered and wished we could smoke, and waited for the show to start. Word had passed that there was a big French railroad gun about 30 yards away, and a pleasant time was anticipated by all.

At 1 A. M. the sullen jar of the usual cannonade was shattered by a tremendous crash. And that crash lasted solid for four hours. I shall not try to describe a real A-1 barrage to men who have been there.

The railroad gun came across according to plan too. Every five minutes her mighty roar and scream would announce the departure of a G. I. can towards Metz, and then would come the clanking of the cars as the recoil drove the train back along the track against the logs piled behind it. After an hour or so we got accustomed to the barrage and the glare that lit up the sky ahead; but as often as we drowsed off, the thunder of this mighty gun would shake the earth beneath us, and jar us into consciousness.

The night wore on, and the gray morning light crept into the woods; and still the thunder rolled unceasing. I watched the glow of my wrist watch hand creep to five o’clock. There was a slight lull as the artillery shifted to their rolling barrage schedule. Then she started up again with renewed fury. We knew the doughboys were off. The A. E. F. was starting its first show on its own. The overture was over, the fiery curtain raised, the act begun; and we were awaiting our cue.

Morning broke, cloudy, but little or no rain, and about 7 o’clock it quite cleared off. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could, and prayed for our kitchen.

I went wading through the mud along the road to look for it. There were several Marines about, belonging to the skeleton organization, left behind to act as a nucleus in case a whole outfit was wiped out. I passed a Marine lieutenant whose face looked familiar, and after a moment recognized “Happy” Mason. He had been a cadet at V. M. I. with me, and had helped me wind a red silk sash around my middle for many a dress parade. It was a far cry from the Blue Ridge to the Bois de la Rappe, and from dress parade to the St. Mihiel drive.

We had a glad reunion there in the mud, and he invited the “B” Co. officers to share his breakfast. Their rolling kitchen, or “galley” as they called it, was on hand, and they had hot coffee and peach turnovers!

Those Marines were regular guys. When they heard our transport wasn’t up yet, they turned to and fed as many of our men as they could, until their supply ran out. They had been through the mill before, at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. As one of them said “Better help the other fellow now. Tomorrow’s a hell of a way off here.”

The Marines have had an awful lot of joshing, of course, about their press agent stuff--“Ace high with the Satevepost,” and so on. But these were certainly a fine bunch, and gave us a lift when we needed it. Naturally, those of them who did the fighting did the least of the blowing about it afterward.

The sun came out to look at the battle after awhile, and we got warmed and partially dried. Also the kitchen arrived, and a hot dinner was in prospect.

About 11 A. M. bulletins began arriving from the front, and were read out to us. All objectives were being taken according to schedule, and the number of prisoners and guns captured mounted by leaps and bounds. We were not allowed out of the woods, but even from the trees on the outskirts one couldn’t see much except a great cloud of smoke and dust slowly rolling up the slope of a range of distant hills.

The wet exposure and irregular eating of half cooked food had already started to tell on us. Dysentery was appearing; nearly all the company suffered with constant diarrhoea from this time on.

The afternoon dragged on; still no call for the alert brigade. We were allowed to pitch pup tents, but no fires were allowed; the wood was too wet and smoky.

Night fell; we crawled into whatever shelter we had, and surreptitiously smoked, and talked, and listened to the rumble of the guns until we got to sleep.

At about 1:30 A. M. a battalion runner fell over my feet and lit on Lt. Dunn. After a few hasty remarks we stopped for breath, and were informed that the battalion was to form on the road right away. Stiff and sleepy, I stumbled out into the dank night, routed out Chiaradio, my staunch little runner and striker, and broke the glad news to Robbins and the company runners. The woods were soon in a bustle as we rolled packs, donned equipment, and filed out by platoons into the mud of the road.

By 2 A. M. the battalion was standing ankle deep in the slushy mud in column of squads, the Major at our head. Half an hour passed. Not a sound except an occasional “su-luck-slosh,” as someone shifted his heavy pack, or tried in vain to find a less liquid footing. The leaden minutes dragged by. Three o’clock; no move. Half past four--the company ahead moved off, and we sloshed along behind, but only to the edge of the wood. Dawn broke--another gray and misty dawn. Oh, that awful wait in that awful hole! It was quite light before, at 5 o’clock, we finally moved out, and, splashing and sliding over a muddy field, finally hit the road and were off toward the scene of action.

As we were stretching the kinks out of our legs on a fairly good road, we passed a U. S. Coast Artillery outfit; a 12-inch gun. Some of the crew came out to the roadside from the emplacement, and Capt. O’Brien recognized his old outfit, in which he had served as an enlisted man years before.

On we go toward the distant booming of the guns. We wind around hills, hike across a valley, over another long hill. Then the road runs along the bottom of a long, long valley. During the ten-minute rests we snatch a hasty breakfast from our reserve rations, with growls from those who don’t get in on the jam.

Now we begin to see traces of the battle--an overturned wagon, abandoned in the ditch; a train of ammunition trucks crossing the road ahead of us; a motor truck repair shop, hastily set up in a little cabin along the road, from which came a smell of hot coffee that tantalized our cold stomachs. Further on we passed a field hospital; great white tents pitched in a sheltered dell, with red crosses glaring on the tent flies.

At the next halt, a Ford ambulance came down the muddy road with a load of wounded. It stopped by us, and the driver went around behind to see to one of the occupants. The canvas curtain was pushed aside from the top, and a head lolled out--a face of ghastly yellow paste, surrounded by dirty light brown hair. The poor chap was evidently badly gassed. He retched violently time and again, spat out some blood, stared vacantly at us with glassy, miserable eyes. The driver put the head inside with a kindly “All right, buddy; nearly there now;” and the old Henry started off again with a jerk, and a groan from within.

As we resumed the march, a youngster from the 5th Division overtook us. He wore an M. P.’s brassard, and no equipment but a .45 and a canteen. We with our heavy packs and ammunition envied him. He was sleepy eyed and jaded, but still enthusiastic. Ever since the drive started he had been on the job escorting prisoners from front line division headquarters to the pens in the rear.

By 9 o’clock we had done twelve miles under our full pack, ammunition, and two days’ rations, with a breakfast of a little corned willy and hard bread and chlorinated water; the whole preceded by three hours’ standing in eight inches of liquid mud. We felt pretty well done in, for a fact. The auto riflemen were the worst off, having their heavy Chauchats and several big magazines of ammunition besides. One of them lightened his load by the ingenious means of “forgetting” his bag of magazines at a halt. When Lt. Schuyler discovered it, the culprit was promptly accommodated with a double dose to carry.

But this was the exception. As I shifted about, hiking first with one platoon and then another, I always found a set of determined grins, and a cheerful “Oh, we’re all right. How’s the rabble up ahead?”

We had been passing through the rear area of the former Allied sector. Now and again a trench system--trenches, barbed wire, emplacements, all complete--stretched away on either hand. Here and there were great stretches of barbed wire filling gullies and ravines.

At 10 o’clock we crossed a stone bridge and started up a long, long hill. At the top we found that we were on a ridge that had been the front line before the attack. Shell holes covered the whole place. To our left, the ground fell away in a long dip, and we saw the ground over which the first wave had attacked. The battle was now far away over the horizon.

For a couple of kilos we hiked along the road on top of the ridge. It had already been repaired roughly, and all sorts of traffic was passing over it. Once it had been bordered with trees, set at regular intervals, like most self respecting French roads. Now only a shattered, blasted stump stood here and there.

A few men began to straggle from the outfits ahead, but “B” Co. stuck to it gamely. On that day not a man fell out.

Now we drew near a large barbed wire enclosure filled with men. It was a P. W. pen, where prisoners were collected on their way to the rear. A couple of detachments of them were going in as we came by.

We turned off here to the left, toward the front. About a kilo down this road we hit a traffic jam--a regular one. This road was badly cut up, and poor road discipline soon did the rest. Some truck or ambulance had tried to pass another, and both had stalled. Others, arriving from both directions, instead of lining up behind on the right of the road, pressed up as far as they could go, until the road was so completely jammed that even we on foot could not get through. Belts of barbed wire that ran up to the road on either side prevented us from going around. So there we were.

It was a most cosmopolitan collection. French 75’s, Ford ambulances, a general’s Cadillac, rubbed shoulders with lumbering lorries, sturdy steel ammunition Quads, and limbers. A French transport wagon driver cracked his long whip and argued volubly with the chauffeur of a tank, who spat and regarded him contemplatively. Field kitchens, huddled in the jam, held the food that was so desperately needed up front.

At last a Colonel of Marines blew in from somewhere, and plunged into the mess. He got it thinned out enough for us to filter through on the outskirts. And then--Glory be--we turned off the road into an open space, with no barbed wire and comparatively few shell holes. Here we found part of the 312th Inf., and the battalion stacked arms and fell out.

We slipped off our packs, and fell to on monkey meat and hard bread with a will. The sun had come out, and we lay around and soon got warm and dry, and felt nearly human again.

All too soon we fell in, and set off again. We threaded our way across the jam--now nearly as bad as ever--and spent the afternoon drifting down a little valley at right angles to the road we had just left. Nobody seemed to know just where we were going, or why. We heard later that a jumbled order somewhere between Division and Brigade Hdqs. had caused us to spend this day in a wild goose chase.

The Colonel and Regt’l Hdq. had not been seen since the morning. We hiked a few hundred yards, waited awhile, then moved on a bit again. We passed, and were in turn passed by artillery, supply trains, infantry. We sweated and chafed under our burdens, and wondered what t’ell, but supposed it was all part of the game.

At last, about 6 P. M., we came to the head of the valley. There we spied the Colonel and his car, on a road up on the top of the hill. We climbed up to the road, pushing a stalled rolling kitchen ahead of us. We were urged to “Step out,” and showed our military discipline and Christian forbearance by not saying what we thought of this request. We got on a good road that led over the hill and up toward the front. Along this we hiked a little way, then turned off to the left, and up a lumber road that led straight up the hill into the woods. It was nearly dark; the road was so steep that I could never understand how six inches of liquid mud stayed on it. The climb up this road soon put our feet into their usual muddy and wet condition. We turned off into the woods, the Bois de Hoquemont, and were told that we would bivouac here for the night.

Our kitchens pulled up along the main road shortly, and the cooks, tired as they were, got to work at once. The rations consisted mostly of dehydrated vegetables. They say they are good if you can soak them for twenty-four hours. A stew and coffee were soon under way.

I toiled back up the hill and found a message to report at once to the regt’l commander. On a hunch, I had Schuyler get a detail out and bring up the chow right away. Sure enough, at the officers’ meeting we were ordered to make combat packs and be ready to move again in twenty minutes. We got our coffee and slum, though; and the half cooked stuff tasted pretty good at that.

Then we again donned our equipment, and plashed down the sloppy road on weary feet. The night was very dark, and the road, as usual, jammed with transport, our kitchens among others. As we threaded our way through, we got mixed up somehow with a company of Marines going in the same direction. Finally the jam thinned out, and we turned off on another road, though we had to sort out B company and the Marines almost man by man. And so we plodded on.

It is remarkable how much a man can do after he thinks he is all in. We picked ’em up and put ’em down for three hours. At last we drew near some woods. Our orders were to proceed to Bois d’Euvezin and bivouac, and show no lights. Well, we couldn’t see a map, and didn’t know where we were on one anyhow, so this wood looked pretty good. At any rate, we turned off the road and headed for it.

Easy enough for a staff officer to look at a map and say, “Bivouac in these woods.” Unfortunately, there was a 30 foot belt of wire fringing this particular one. Orders are orders, though, so we scrambled through somehow, and pushed in far enough to hide from any further marching orders that night. Then we flopped down, any place at all, and dropped off.

It seemed but a couple of minutes before the sun came prying through the leaves and under my eyelids. I rolled over, and saw Lt. Col. Budd, sitting up with his back against a tree, wrapped in his trench coat--no better off than we were. Right away my morale went up.

An American outfit is never so weary that it doesn’t furnish a few inquisitive souls. Already curiosity was driving the doughboys out of the woods, by two’s and three’s, to see what was around. Just over a knoll they found a little fragment of history. A German machine gun, cunningly camouflaged; across it the body of a big “Feldwebel,” or German top sergeant, with a bayonet wound through his body; a couple of yards away a dead Marine, riddled with machine gun bullets, still grasping his rifle with the bloody bayonet fixed.

At 9 A. M. the outfit was rounded up, and we were off again. As we plugged along the road in column of squads we thought with some disgust of the night marches we had made a hundred kilos behind the lines. Fortunately this hike was short. In an hour we entered another and larger wood, the Bois d’Euvezin sure enough, this time. Here we found the rest of the brigade, and bivouacked in the woods just off the road.

The woods were full of German dugouts, evacuated by the enemy only a day or so before. Most of these were preempted by various headquarters. We settled down to make the most of our rest. For a wonder the sun was out; and despite the mud under foot, we were soon fairly warm and dry--and oh, how hungry! It was well along in the afternoon before the water carts pulled in, though, and we got our hot slum and coffee.

The Y. M. C. A. kicked through with a canteen, and after some trouble in keeping the men from mobbing the place, crackers, chocolate and tobacco were sold.

That night our gas training blossomed forth again. The Boche dropped a couple of shells around and our over-anxious sentries promptly bawled “Gas!” The alarm would be taken up and spread through the brigade, and by the time things quieted down they were off again. We finally got some sleep by the primitive but effective expedient of promising to blow the head off the next guy that raised the cry.

Next day a great bunch of orders were dumped on me to read--all about the new censorship regulations. After wading through these, the officers were summoned to go up on a reconnoitering party to look over the sector which we were to take over that night.

We set out, and after a couple of hours’ stiff hiking arrived at a very elaborate system of dugouts, in the edge of a wood, the Bois St. Claude. Here was the Regt’l Hdq. of the 61st Infantry, 5th Division, which we were to relieve. About five hundred meters north lay the little village of Vieville-en-Haye. Descriptions of this charming hamlet are superfluous, as we all had plenty of opportunity to contemplate it thereafter.

It was early afternoon, and the Boche was behaving rather well; only occasionally slamming an .88 into the village in a perfunctory sort of way. From the northeast, however, came an intermittent crackle of rifle and machine gun firing, where the outposts were snarling and chattering away at each other.

We sat around for an hour while the regt’l hdq’s made their arrangements. I found out that the C. O. of the 61st was an old friend of my father’s--his father had been in my father’s company at V. M. I. in the Civil War.

At last the dope filtered down to the Co. Cmdrs., and we were given ten minutes to reconnoiter our positions. We then had to make haste back to the regiment, so that we could be ready to start again at dark. Packs were made, the platoons gathered together, and at 7:30 P. M. we filed out onto the road and were off on the last lap of our journey to the battle line.

Hardly were we clear of the woods when we halted, for some unknown reason. We sat and lay on the grass by the roadside, among shell holes, and listened to the drone of airplanes above us. It was an eerie, ominous sound; and though we were pretty sure the motors were not the deep voiced monsters of the enemy, still we were relieved when they drew off without dropping any H. E. into our midst.

In half an hour we started, this time in earnest. It was rough going, and blind work at best. We stumbled up a ravine, out onto a road, skirted a wood lined with artillery, and so drew near our position south of Vieville-en-Haye.

The 1st battalion was in support, the 2nd holding the front line, and the 3rd brigade reserve. I never did know where the battalion was that we were relieving. A and B Cos., however, were to hold the crest of a slight swell of the ground about 300 meters south of the village. Trenches there were none; but there were plenty of shell holes, and the company was posted so as to command the terrain in front with Chauchat and rifle fire; two or three men to a shell hole. The 4th platoon found a little stretch of trench which they improved for themselves. A Co. was on our left; C and D Cos. were posted about 700 meters to our right rear, behind Regt’l Hdq.

We had gotten pretty well settled, when just before dawn a battalion runner came up, with the cry that haunted me day and night, “Commanding Officer, B Co.” Hard on his heels came the Major. Two companies of the 2nd battalion had lost their way and were temporarily missing, and B Co. was to go up and hold the line of resistance at once.

So B Co. was routed out of its bivvies, and donned packs and ammunition, and set off in double file. I was to report to the C. O. of the 61st Inf. front line battalion at Vieville.

We hiked down to the road, and up to where the houses began; then through a spacious barn, climbing over a dead horse, and arriving finally at the northern outskirts of the town. Not finding the Bn. Hdq. I had the company take what cover they could in the road and barn while the Major and I strolled up to the top of the hill beyond to have a look ’round.

Near the top of this long hill were two German concrete pillboxes, nicely turfed over. We found one of these occupied as a first aid post; in the other we found a machine gun company hdq. Nobody knew any dope about where we were wanted, but they said that Bn. Hdq. was about a kilo away to the right.

Just then Heinie started his morning strafe of Vieville-en-Haye. Three or four whiz bangs came hurtling over our heads, and landed in the east end of the village, right where B Co. was lying. I saw no necessity of our doing a Casabianca, and hastily obtained permission from the Major to take B Co. back to its former position until we knew where to go. As I shuffled down the hill, hitting the dirt now and then when one landed close by, I chanced to look back just in time to see a shell hit the first aid pillbox and pivot it neatly around, so that the door faced us instead of the enemy. It didn’t take long to start B Co. toward our bivvies, very much disgusted with the morning’s work, but glad to stop playing target for a while. Fortunately, no one was hit.

The 2nd Battalion located its wandering sheep later in the day, so we were not called on for that errand again.

The regiment’s task was now to organize and strengthen our sector of the line. The main line of resistance, as indicated on the map, was being held and dug in by three Cos. of the 2nd Battalion, H Co. holding the outpost line about two kilos in advance.

Our kitchens were established in the woods behind Regt’l Hdq., and started work on the old standby, slum. The rough roads leading into these woods were all ankle deep in mud, and the ration detail wasn’t any bed of roses.

The day we spent in deepening our bivvies as best we could, though our intrenching tools made little impression on the hard and stony ground. Whoever salvaged a man-sized pick or shovel was lucky. While it was light, we kept down under cover as much as possible, for the German observation balloons were peeping sinisterly over the horizon, and we didn’t care about drawing attention to our position.

On Wednesday, September 18th, at about 1 P. M., A and B Cos. received orders to report to the Engineer Dump at 368.3-240.3, as a working party. Several enemy observation balloons were up, and it was a clear afternoon; but orders were orders, and off we filed.

At the dump we met an Engineer Lieutenant--very stout, very bullheaded and very incompetent. I asked where we were to work, and he replied he didn’t know--over there somewhere--pointing in the general direction of Germany. Having had enough of that sort of business in the morning, I told him to toddle right off and find out where he was to take us. He got quite huffy at this, but finally set out, and returned with some definite information. We drew picks and shovels, and hiked away after him; I being forced to hurt his importance again by refusing to march the company along in single file on the sky line.

Our task was to dig a communication trench, already taped out, from the point where the line of resistance entered the Bois Gerard back over the brow of the hill. The first platoon was in plain view of the enemy’s observation balloon, the other three were just behind the rise.

We posted sentinels, and set to work, absolutely out in the open, no cover save a few shell holes. For ten minutes we dug. Then it came. A whistle, scream and slam, just over the hill; another; then a fierce, deadly whir, right in our ears. We hit the dirt, and a second later Lt. Dunn called to me “Captain, there’s a man killed here and I don’t know how many wounded.”

For an instant of horror the company gazed at the spot. I sent Sgt. Hill to the first aid pillbox for stretchers, put the others to work again, and hastened up to see the situation. The shell had landed just between the 1st and 2nd platoons. Lt. Schuyler was already having the wounded carried into the edge of the woods near by, and had the rest of the 1st platoon take cover there. Poor O’Hara was lying dead right by the shell hole. It had burst nearly underneath him, and a fragment of shell had torn its way through his temple and right out through his steel helmet. His brains were oozing out through the hole.

Seeing that nothing could be done for him, I went over to the woods. Lester Farry, our mechanic, as fine a man as ever walked, was sitting up between Lt. Schuyler and Sgt. Reid, with a big hole in the side of his head. He never uttered a word of complaint; just sat still while they bandaged it; and the stretchers came up and took him off. He died in hospital six days later.

Curcio had a great hole in the upper part of his leg. Donohue had an ugly bit of shell in his back, and Bogucki, Fielding, and Hauber were wounded, but less seriously.

This was a nasty introduction to shell fire, because the whole company saw the thing happen. Their behaviour, however, was excellent. Doggedly the men continued at the work, and soon we had enough cover to at least be in while the shells burst near by.

Our gallant friend, the Engineer Lieutenant, had promptly vanished, and I never saw him again. I withdrew the first and second platoons behind the hill, and we kept on the job until 6 P. M., as ordered. At about 5:30, A Co. came along over the hill, and the Heinies sped them on their way with a few gas shells, which made them scamper.

As we turned in our shovels at the dump, every man mustered up a grin as he passed by; and though it had been one hell of a party, the old morale was still on deck.

On the top of the knoll where our position was, the Germans had had an anti-aircraft gun, gaudily camouflaged. Some cooks from an artillery outfit had found a lot of ammunition belonging to it, and, dragging it into Vieville, had amused themselves during the day by shooting Fritz’s own H. E. in his general direction. This apparently annoyed Fritz; and just as I got back to our bivvies at the tail of B Co., two ash cans--whoppers--arrived at the gun’s former position, right in the midst of A Co. Our comrades promptly departed to the woods until the next morning.

The cooks sent up a good chow--steaks and coffee--and we got to sleep in our holes as best we could.

The next day--Thursday, September 19th--was rainy. We dug our shelters a little deeper, and wished this war thing were over. I found a German translation of one of De Maupassant’s novels, which I read through, but for the life of me I can’t remember a bit of the story.

In the afternoon the chaplain, Lt. Cressman, came around, and O’Hara’s platoon was allowed to attend his burial service in the little cemetery in the edge of the Bois St. Claude, east of Vieville.

In the meantime I had been called to Btn. Hdq., where Mr. Morse, our faithful old “Y” man, had brought up some chocolate and cigarettes. He was supposed by the regulations of the “Y” to sell them, but he refused to take any money from the Co. Cmdrs. at first, intending to account for them out of his own small pay. When we understood this, we insisted on paying for the stuff out of the company funds. The news got out that the “Y” was charging for chocolate and tobacco, and caused some bitterness, under the circumstances. But thereafter Mr. Morse made some arrangement whereby the stuff was issued free.

As for Mr. Morse himself, I think we should here express something of our appreciation of his faithful and unselfish devotion to the men of the battalion. A man well past the prime of life, he shared our hardships, hiked with us--not sticking like grim death to a Ford as some of his confreres were prone to do--; slept in mud and rain with us. Right under shell fire he would come plugging on up with his little bag of smokes and chocolate. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, were only names to us. But the “Y,” which we cussed out so frequently, surely did us proud when they gave us Mr. Morse.

That night the 1st, 3rd and 4th platoons went out as separate working parties. Apparently the deaths of O’Hara and Farry had demonstrated even to our friends the Engineers that sporting about in sight of Hun balloons in the daytime was magnificent, but not war.

The Boche had the range, though, and shelled the area all night. The 1st platoon ran on an average schedule of dig two minutes and duck five. The 3rd was in no better case, and Barney O’Rourke got an ugly little piece of shell through his foot. He hobbled off between Hill and Weber, adjuring me as he left “Don’t let th’ byes get up too soon afther they bor-r-rst, sor-r-r.” And thereafter we didn’t.

Rifle bullets were cracking by over our heads now and then, and the rumor got about that snipers were concealed in the nearby woods. The whole sector had of course been in German hands five days before, and all sorts of tales were current about death traps found in dugouts, and lurking snipers, lying close in the daytime in cunning shelters, well provisioned, who came out at night to pot a few of us and eventually escape by underground passages.

Most of these tales I recognized as old friends originally met with in the Sat. Eve. Post. But digging was quite unpleasant enough as it was, and the source of the impression was not so important as the fact that it existed. So Osterweis, Woolley and I went forth to bag the franctireurs. We waded through a vast deal of mud, but couldn’t flush anything except a disgusted runner looking for Brigade Hdq.; so I sent the corporals back, and set out myself for the 4th platoon, which was stringing wire over on the left of the sector.

On the way I stumbled over the body of a 5th Division soldier. He had a red runner’s brassard on his arm, and was all ticketed for burial. His face seemed to be in shadow. There was a plug of chewing tobacco sticking out of his pocket and this seemed to be in the shadow too. Then I realized that his face had turned black--it was just the color of that plug of tobacco. The vicious shriek of a shell approached, and I hit the dirt. A bit of the shell hit the dead man by me, and he jumped as if alive. I got up and was on my way.

The majority of the 4th platoon had taken individual leases on shell holes; Sgt. Rogers and a few others were making valiant efforts to make some headway with the wire. The shelling quieted down after awhile, however, and we got down to business. Then I started back to see how the others were faring.

On the way I heard Capt. Fleischmann’s voice from the darkness; his men also were worried about the stray bullets overhead. As I came up, a couple of his sentinels thought they had spotted the snipers, and cracked down on some figures moving past a clump of bushes to their left. A few remarks in choice American made it clear that they were potting away at my 3rd platoon, which had decided that it was time to quit for the night. Privately I was heartily in sympathy with this view; but officially I had to lead the way back to the trench and set the boys to work again. Meanwhile the C. O. of the 4th platoon, laboring under a similar delusion, had taken his wiring party back to their bivvies. Sgt. Rogers, Slim Price and one or two others were still on deck, very much disgusted. So we had a good long trudge back, routed the lads out, and all hands returned to the hill.

At last 3 o’clock came, and we turned in tools and quit for the night. As Rogers, Hayden and I were crossing the belt of wire north of the Vieville road, four or five gas shells landed quite near by. We all got a pretty good snootful before we got our masks on; and Rogers, the Co. gas N. C. O., was so busy cussing the wire that he didn’t notice the gas soon enough, and got enough to put him in the hospital.

My shell hole looked pretty luxurious to me; Chiaradio had swiped a piece of corrugated iron for a roof, and it wasn’t as wet as it might have been. I was glad to crawl in between him and Robbins and go to sleep.

At about 9 A. M. Heinie set to work to blow us out. His range was fifty meters short, fortunately, and he shelled away on a line between us and Vieville with characteristic diligence and thoroughness. The flying fragments made promenading unhealthy. Lt. Schuyler came over to my bivvy with a rumor that the Austrians had quit. Two minutes after he left, a long jagged piece came whistling along and half buried itself just where he had been sitting, and six inches above my foot. Cheery-O used it to hang his mess kit on thereafter.

That night we only furnished two small working parties, and the rest of us had a cushy sleep.

On Friday, the 20th, the Co. Cmdrs. were assembled at Bn. Hdq., and were told that we were to relieve the 2nd Battalion on the night of the 21st. That afternoon we went up to reconnoiter the position we were to take over. The guides took us up past the Engineer dump, through the woods to the 2nd Bn. Hdq. Here we found Major Adee and his staff taking advantage of a quiet hour to have lunch above ground. They were using a couple of German dugouts as headquarters--very good ones, about 20 feet under ground and well timbered.

Major Adee seemed to have aged twenty years. His face was lined and haggard with care and responsibility. His runner had been killed at the entrance to the dugout that morning by a shell.

Fleischmann and I with two runners apiece, our officers and top sergeants, were furnished with a guide to take us to the outpost line. B and D Cos. were to relieve H Co.; A and C were to hold the line of resistance.

It was a long two kilos up to the outpost line, especially as we had to keep under cover of the woods all the way. We crossed and recrossed one of the little narrow gauge railways that the Germans had running everywhere. My right ankle, which I had broken the previous fall playing football at Camp Dix, had a touch of rheumatism, and the nagging pain from it made a background for all the rest of my time in the line. Even now when I think about the Limey sector, the old ankle comes through with a reminiscent twinge. I suppose each of you had some corresponding petty aggravation which worried you absurdly out of proportion to its intrinsic importance.

We toiled up the little wooded hill at the edge of the Bois Hanido, and passed a gun pit, the ground around strewn with German arms, equipment, and clothing, and several dead Germans lying about. Just on the other side of the hill was a German rest camp, with several bunk houses, a movie theatre, and a little open air Catholic chapel, with a wooden cross.

At the bottom of the hill we came to the narrow gauge railway again, followed it up a little way, and then turned down one of the straight paths that the Boche cut through the woods, barring all other approaches with barbed wire, and commanding these with machine guns. It was a good stunt, too, as we found out later. After you’ve struggled in barbed wire for a while you’ll take a chance on machine gun bullets to get on a path.

It was not far to H Co.’s headquarters. There we found Capt. Ressiguie, commanding the company--a most cool-headed, courageous and efficient officer. Lt. Col. Budd was also there, inspecting the outpost. The company headquarters was a shelter half stretched over a two foot ditch. Earlier in the afternoon, the left flank platoon had had a skirmish with an enemy machine gun patrol, losing two men killed and a couple wounded, including Lt. Stern. We made our reconnaissance and started back, arriving at our own Bn. Hdq. by nightfall. There we were issued battle maps of the sector and the relief order, which makes the arrangements down to the last detail on paper.

Two platoons went out as working parties that night, and got off with comparatively little shelling. The next morning Capt. Fleischmann and I were issued an assortment of pyrotechnic signals--rockets, Very lights, etc.,--with lengthy directions as to their use.

In the afternoon a division order postponed the relief for twenty-four hours. Working parties had been called off on account of the relief, and we all got a night off.

As soon as dusk fell on Sunday, September 22nd, the platoons were assembled under full equipment, and we started. The guides didn’t appear, and it was fortunate we had been up before. Several times I thought I had lost my way, and was leading the two companies into the German lines. Trying to keep in touch with the man ahead while blundering through those woods, laden down with rifle and equipment, tripping over logs, roots and barbed wire, slipping in the mud; occasional shells bursting to remind us that any noise would be disastrous, and, of course, a nice rain falling--I’ve been on lots of pleasanter walks.

At last we came to the old German rest camp, and I knew where we were. Soon we met Capt. Ressiguie, and the sgt. commanding his left platoon took us in tow.

The first and third platoons furnished the line of outguards, along the line 368.8-242.4: 368.3-242.8; the first platoon on the right. The second and fourth platoons were the support, and were to organize a strong point at the north of the little strip of woods at 368.1-242.5. Co. Hdq. was established at 368.6-242.4, just off the path through the woods.

Only a small part of our sector had been held by H Co., and we had to dig our own bivvies. Our intrenching tools made little headway in the rocky ground, laced with tree roots; and even those who found German picks and shovels made little better progress. The support was somewhat better off, as they had one or two good dugouts and gun pits.

By the time all the dispositions were made and inspected it was beginning to get light. There was plenty of German clothing and equipment lying around, and in ten minutes you could have collected enough souvenirs to satisfy even a Paris Q. M. sergeant. The heavy fleeceskin German coats came in especially handy, and the other stuff was good to line our bivvies, though it was soaking wet and smelt most damnably. Hun machine gun ammunition in long canvas belts was scattered around in abundance; and down in the corner of the field on our left was an abandoned field kitchen.

Raymond Harris and a couple of battalion runners were running a field telephone up from B. H. Q. to the Co. Hdq. We had crawled into our holes for some sleep, when about 1 P. M. a nasty, shrill little whir like a giant mosquito heralded the arrival of a small one-pounder shell about a hundred meters down the line. It was repeated rapidly, dropping shells right along that path which ran parallel to the outpost line at about twenty-five yard intervals. And to our dismay, we realized that the shells were coming from behind us.

Cheery-O had carefully cleaned and oiled his rifle and leaned it up against a sapling at the edge of our hole. The vicious whir came again directly at us, and, as our muscles grew taut against the shock of the explosion, the butt of the rifle suddenly vanished. A moment later Cheery-O scrambled out and returned with a rueful face, bearing his precious rifle, bent neatly at the breech into a right angle.

Just then one of the battalion runners came up, with a bleeding hand, saying that his mate had just been killed down the path. I took the two first aid men attached to the company and we went down and found Harris, my own runner, lying by the coil of telephone wire he had been laying, with a great hole in the side of his head--a horrible thing to look at.

I stopped only long enough to see a dressing applied and a stretcher brought, and then hastened down the path to D Cos. headquarters, where a phone had been installed. I found Fleischmann shooting off all the fireworks that would go off--about one in ten--and his first sergeant grinding the bell handle of the field phone like mad. To make things pleasanter, our artillery dropped a couple of shells neatly among our outguards. We sent back runners to B. H. Q., and the shells stopped.

We never found out who was responsible for that one-pounder. Our own was far in the rear, and the outfits on either side--the 90th Division on the right, the 312th Inf. on the left--disclaimed any knowledge of it. So headquarters solved the problem, as usual, by telling us we were green at this game and didn’t know what we were talking about.

It seemed so pitifully unnecessary about Harris. He was such a handsome, bright, intelligent and cheery little chap, a favorite with all the company; and we carried him off with half his face torn away, moaning and unconscious. I never dreamed he could live. But somehow they pulled him through and I have just had a card from him today, from Walter Reed Hospital, where he is yet.

The nearest first aid post was at Bn. Hdq., and we had to carry all our wounded back those two long kilometers through the woods, with only the rough dressings that we could apply on the spot. For our rations we had to go back another two kilos, to Rgt’l Hdq., making four kilos each way, nearly all the way through woods and under shell fire. The continual wetness, exposure and loss of sleep made us easy prey to dysentery, and this weakened us a great deal. Under these conditions, to have to carry a stretcher or a can of stew several kilos in the dark was--well, it was just hell. I think the ration parties had the worst job, though their loads were not so heavy as the stretcher bearers’ were. The latter were held up by sympathy for the poor devil on the stretcher. There isn’t much inspiration in a can of slum or a bag of bread.

Joe Levy had charge of the ration parties, and a thankless job it was. The Major arranged to have the chow brought as far as the line of resistance in a limber; but when shells were banging about--which was pretty generally the case--either the limber didn’t get up that far, or the chow was dumped down and abandoned. Worst of all, we only had enough thermos cans to carry one ration for the company; so the ration detail had to go back, get the chow, bring it up and distribute it, collect the cans, lug them back to the kitchens, and then return to the outpost line. It did seem absolutely inexcusable that this had to be done, all for lack of a few cans. It cost us several unnecessary losses in killed and wounded, and after all had done their turn at this detail, weakened from diarrhoea and exposure as we were, it made us very low physically.

The night of the 23rd passed comparatively quietly for the outpost line, though the line of resistance was well bucketed, and the ration party had a hard time. Shells landing near the kitchen transformed several thermos cans into sieves, and made the shortage worse than ever. Besides, Regt’l Hdq. decided that the kitchens were attracting enemy shell fire in their direction, and ordered them moved another kilo back, to the brigade reserve.

Our orders were to do no patrolling in front of the line of outguards, as this was to be done by the battalion scouts under Lt. Drake. I believe this was a mistake, and if I had it to do over again I should send out patrols every night. It makes all the difference in one’s confidence and peace of mind, and no information can equal that gained at first hand.

At about 3 P. M. on the 24th, as I was dozing in our bivvy, Lt. Col. Budd’s face peeped in. He and a Major from Division Hdq. were inspecting the outpost line. I was glad to see someone higher up than myself dodging shells. It might have been wrong in theory for him to be up there, but I surely appreciated it. I did the honors for our sector, asked for more thermos cans, and got a couple of cigars from the Lt. Colonel. He brought the news that the 90th Division on our right was pulling off a battalion raid that night, covered by a barrage, and to lie close.

About three times a day I would go down to chew the rag and swap dope with Capt. Fleischmann. It was funny that I nearly always met him on the way, coming over to do the same with me. The idea always struck us at the same moment. Somehow it seemed to help share the responsibility, and cheered us up a lot.

The barrage started about 11 P. M. The Boche replied with a counter barrage, and he had a very fair range on our outpost line. In five minutes the shells were ripping the tops off the trees all around, and the air grew acrid from the bursting lyddite. He was just about 50 meters too high, and it was his shorts that did the damage to us.

In about fifteen minutes, when the din was at its height, Cole, a runner from the 3rd platoon, came up, out of breath and shaken. A shell had hit directly on platoon hdq.; Lt. Merrill and Sgt. Hill were both wounded, and several men killed.

I left Sgt. Robbins in charge at Co. Hdq., and with Cole, Winemiller, Chiaradio and our two medical detachment men went out to see the situation.

We pushed through the thick underbrush to the shallow hole that Merrill was occupying. It was raining a little; the only light came from the flashes of the bursting shells and the guns on the horizon. Merrill and Hill had been lying in their bivvy, with the other platoon runner, Laurencell, sitting on their feet. A shell had hit Laurencell right at the shoulders, carrying all his head, neck and shoulders and arms away. His bleeding trunk and legs, an awful corpse, was lying across Hill and Merrill, who were both badly wounded in the feet and legs, and could not remove the body.

We took up poor Laurencell’s remains and laid them to one side, and then got Merrill on a stretcher, and Cheery-O and Cole carried him off. Sgt. Hill’s feet, however, were so mangled and mixed up with the bottom of the hole that our attempts to raise him out of it caused him intense agony. He said, “Captain, there’s a German razor in my coat pocket. Please cut my foot off, and then I can stand it.”

I couldn’t see, but I could feel with my hands that this was about the only way to extricate him. So I took the razor, and cut away his shoe and the mangled part of his foot, which was all mixed up with a German overcoat they had been lying on. Then we were able to lift him on to the stretcher; but he wouldn’t be carried away until we took all his cigarettes out of his pocket and gave them to him.

Then I went down toward the line of outguards. When I got out on the road by the German kitchen, I was challenged by Cpl. McGarrity. It did my heart good to hear his stern, cool voice coming out of that night of blackness and horror. He reported that several men in the outguards were killed and wounded, and that he and Corp. Welsh were arranging for the wounded. Sgt. Schelter had gone to Co. Hdq. for stretchers, and hadn’t been heard of since. We never saw him again. His body was found in the woods several hundred meters away several days later; he evidently lost his way, and while wandering about in search of Co. Hdq. was killed by shell fire.

Welsh and McGarrity took hold of the situation like veterans. I designated them first and second in command of the platoon, respectively, and told them they would be relieved before morning.

On returning to Co. Hdq. I found the wounded beginning to stream in. Nearly all were from the 3rd platoon; the 1st platoon, strangely, suffered very little. All the Co. runners and buglers were soon carrying stretchers, and I again left Sgt. Robbins in charge while I went over to the support to see to bringing up more stretcher bearers and relief for the 3rd platoon.

That walk across the fields to the support’s position was certainly a thriller. As I came out of the woods and started across the open, the shells were going just overhead and bursting in the field to my left, along a line about 50 meters away. After I doped this out it was easy enough to plan my route so as to avoid them.