Banzai! Part 28

Some one gave a low whistle, and the pioneers stopped work, and leaned on their spades. All the men listened intently, but no one could make out whence the strange sound came.

Suddenly some one spoke quite loudly and another voice replied. Up in the air--that's where it was! A black shadow swept across the sky. "An air-ship!" cried one of the men in the trench, and sure enough the whirring of the screw of a motor balloon could be distinctly heard.

Bang--bang--bang, went a few shots into the air.

"Stop the fire!" called a commanding voice from above.

"Stop! It is our own balloon!"

"No, it's a j.a.panese one!"

Bang--bang, it went again. From the rear came the deep ba.s.s of a big gun and close by sounded the sharp bang--bang--bang of a little balloon-gun in the second trench. There was a burst of flame up in the air, followed by a hail of metal splinters. "Cut that out. You're shooting at us!"

roared Captain Lange across to the battery.

"Stop firing!" came a quick order from there. A few cannon shots were heard coming from the rear.

Suddenly a bright light appeared up in the air and a white magnesium cl.u.s.ter descended slowly, lighting up all the trenches in a sudden blaze which made the pioneers look like ghosts peering over the black brink of the pits. Then the light went out, and the eyes trying in vain to pierce the darkness saw nothing but glittering fiery red circles. The j.a.panese batteries on the other side opened fire. The air-ship had entirely disappeared, and no one knew whether the uncanny night-bird had been friend or foe.

The a.s.sault on Hilgard was to be begun by the 28th and 32d Volunteers: General MacArthur had originally planned to have the attempt made at dawn on August 15th; but as one brigade of Wood's Division had not yet arrived, he postponed the attack for twenty-four hours, to the sixteenth of August, while the fifteenth was to be taken up with heavy firing on the enemy's position, which seemed to have been somewhat weakened. As soon, therefore, as day broke, the Americans opened fire, and all the time that almost sixty American guns were bombarding Hilgard and sending sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l over the town, and the white flakes of cotton from the bursting shrapnels hovered over the houses and almost obscured the view of the mountains and the sh.e.l.ls tore up the ground, sowing iron seed in the furrows, the 28th and 32d Volunteers lay in the trenches without firing a single shot.

The commander of the 16th Brigade, to which the two regiments belonged, was in the first trench during the morning, and, in company with Colonel Katterfeld, inspected the results of the bombardment through his telescope, which had been set up in the trench. A shrapnel had just destroyed the top of the copper church tower, which the j.a.panese were using as a lookout.

Although the American sh.e.l.ls had already created a great deal of havoc in Hilgard, the walls of the houses offered considerable resistance to the hail of bullets from the shrapnels. The brigadier-general therefore sent orders to the battery stationed behind and to the right of the trenches to sh.e.l.l the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard.

"Sh.e.l.l the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard!

Sh.e.l.l the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard--Sh.e.l.l--Hilgard," was the command which was pa.s.sed along from mouth to mouth through the trenches, until it reached the battery amid the roar of battle.

"--Sh.e.l.ls--we have no sh.e.l.ls--shrapnels--the battery has no sh.e.l.ls, only shrapnels--" came back the answer after a while.

"No sh.e.l.ls, I might have known it, only those everlasting shrapnels. How on earth can I shoot a town to pieces with shrapnel!" growled the brigadier-general, going into the protected stand where the telephone had been set up.

"Send two hundred sh.e.l.ls immediately by automobile from Union to the 8th Battery Volunteers stationed before Hilgard," ordered the general through the telephone-- "What, there aren't any sh.e.l.ls at Union? The last have been forwarded to Longworth's Division?-- But I must have at least a hundred; have them brought back at once from the right wing-- No automobile, either?" It was a wonder that the telephone didn't burst with righteous indignation at the vigorous curses the brigadier-general roared into it.

But unfortunately the statement made at Union, where the field railway built from Monida for the transport service terminated, was correct.

Just as in most European armies, the number of sh.e.l.ls provided was out of all proportion to the shrapnel, and the supply of sh.e.l.ls was consequently low at all times. Besides, most of the ammunition-motors had been put out of commission early in the game. The advantage of higher speed possessed by the automobiles was more than offset by their greater conspicuousness the moment they came within range of the enemy's guns. The clouds of dust which they threw up at once showed the enemy in which direction they were going, and as they were obliged to keep to the main road, the j.a.panese had only to make a target of the highway and do a little figuring to make short work of these modern vehicles. The great number of wrecked motor cars strewn along the road proved rather conclusively that the horse has not yet outlived its usefulness in modern warfare.

The officers, including the generals, had willingly dispensed with such a dangerous mode of locomotion after the first fatal experiences, for the staring fiery eyes of the motor betrayed its whereabouts by night, and the clouds of dust betrayed it by day. The moment an auto came puffing along, the enemy's shots began to fall to the right and left of it, and it was only natural, therefore, that the horse came into its own again, both because the rider was not bound to the main road and because he did not offer such a conspicuous target for the enemy's shots.

Towards noon the j.a.panese batteries entrenched before Hilgard began bombarding the 28th Regiment with shrapnel. Colonel Katterfeld therefore ordered half his men to seek protection under the stands.

The howling and crashing of the bursting shrapnel of course had its effect on those troops who were here under fire for the first time. But the shrapnel bullets rained on the wooden roofs without being able to penetrate them, and after half an hour this fact imbued the men in their retreats with a certain feeling of security. The enemy soon stopped this ineffective fire from his field-guns, however, and on the basis of careful observations made from a captive balloon behind Hilgard, the j.a.panese began using explosive sh.e.l.ls in place of the shrapnel.

The very first shots produced terrible devastation. The long planks were tossed about like matches in the smoke of the bursting Shimose sh.e.l.ls, and the slaughter when one of them landed right in the midst of the closely packed men in one of these subterranean mole-holes was absolutely indescribable. Back into the trenches, therefore! But the enemy had observed this change of position from his balloon, and the shots began to rain unceasingly into the trenches. And so perfect was the j.a.panese marksmanship that the position of the long line of trenches could easily be recognized by the parallel line of little white clouds of smoke up above them. There was nothing more to be concealed, and accordingly Colonel Katterfeld ordered his regiment to open fire on Hilgard and on the hostile artillery entrenched before the town.

Captain Lange lay with his nose pressed against the breastworks, carefully observing the effect of the fire through his field gla.s.ses.

Although this was not his first campaign, he had nevertheless had some trouble in ridding himself of that miserable feeling with which every novice has to contend, the feeling that every single hostile gun and cannon is pointed straight at him. But the moment the first men of his company fell and he was obliged to arrange for the removal of the wounded to the rear, his self-possession returned at once. It was his bounden duty, moreover, to set an example of cool-headed courage to his men, so he calmly and with some fuss lighted a cigarette, yet in spite of the apparent indifference with which he puffed at it, it moved up and down rather suspiciously between his lips.

A volunteer by the name of Singley, the war-correspondent of the _New York Herald_, worked with much greater equanimity, but then he had been through five battles before he gained permission to join the 7th Company for the purpose of making pencil sketches and taking photographs of the incidents of the battle.

He now arranged a regular rest for his kodak in the breastwork of the trench and stooped down behind the apparatus, which was directed towards the six j.a.panese guns to the left in front of the houses at Hilgard, the position of which could only be recognized by the clouds of smoke which ascended after each shot was fired. Just then he heard the order being pa.s.sed along to the 8th battery to give these guns a broadside of shrapnel, and as it would probably take a few minutes before this order could be carried out, Singley pulled out his note-book and glanced over the entries made during the last hour:

No. 843. j.a.panese sh.e.l.l bursts through a plank covering.

" 844. Trench manned afresh.

" 845. Captain Lange smoking while under fire.

" 846. j.a.panese shrapnels indicate the line of our trenches in the air.

Then he put his note-book down beside him and crept under his kodak again, carefully fixing the object-gla.s.s on the battery opposite. Now then! A streak of solid lightning flashed in front of the second gun, and a black funnel of smoke shot up. Click!

No. 847. Firing at the j.a.panese battery before Hilgard.

Singley exchanged the film for a new one, and then looked about for another subject for his camera. He took off his cap and peeped carefully over the edge of the trench. Could he be mistaken? He saw a little black speck making straight for the spot where he was. "A sh.e.l.l" rushed through his thoughts like a flash, and he threw himself flat on the bottom of the trench.

With a whirring noise the heavy sh.e.l.l struck the back wall of the trench. "An explosive sh.e.l.l!" shouted Captain Lange, "everybody down!"

The air shook with a tremendous detonation; sand and stones flew all around, and the suffocating powder-gas took everybody's breath away; but gradually the soldiers began to recognize one another through the dust and smoke, thankful at finding themselves uninjured.

"Captain!" called a weak voice from the bottom of the trench, "Captain Lange, I'm wounded." The captain bent down to a.s.sist the war-correspondent, who was almost buried under a pile of earth.

"Oh, my legs," groaned Singley. Two soldiers took hold of him and placed him with his back against the wall of earth. The lower part of both his thighs had been smashed by pieces from the sh.e.l.l. "Will you please do me a last service?" he asked of Captain Lange.

"Of course, Singley, what is it?"

"Please take my kodak!"

Singley himself arranged the exposure and handed the camera to the captain, saying: "There, it is set at one twentieth of a second. Now please take my picture-- Thank you, that's all right! And now you can have me removed to the hospital!"

Before the men came to fetch him, Singley managed to add to his list:

No. 848. Our war-correspondent, Singley, mortally wounded by a j.a.panese sh.e.l.l. Hail Columbia!

Then he closed his book and put it in his breast pocket. Five minutes later two ambulance men carried him off to have his wounds attended to, and in the evening he was conveyed to the hospital.

A week later Captain Lange's snapshot of the war-correspondent was paraded in the _New York Herald_ as the dramatic close of Singley's journalistic career. In his way he, too, had been a hero. He died in the hospital at Salubria.

He could claim the credit of having made the war plain to those at home.

Or was that not the war after all? Were the black shadows on the photographic plate anything more than what is left of a flower after the botanist has pressed the faded semblance of its former self between the leaves of his collection? Certainly not much more.

No, that is not war. Just a bursting--silently bursting sh.e.l.l, the scattering of a company--that is not war.

Thousands of bursting sh.e.l.ls, the howls of the whizzing bullets, the constant nerve-racking crashing and roaring overhead, the deafening cracking of splitting iron everywhere--that is war. And accompanying it all the hopeless sensation that this will never, never stop, that it will go on like this forever, until one's thoughts are dulled by some terrible, cruel, incomprehensible, demoralizing force. Those bounding puffs of smoke everywhere on the ground, rifle shots which have been aimed too short and every one of which-- That abominable sharp singing as of a swarm of mosquitoes, buzz, buzz, like the buzzing of angry hornets continually knocking their heads against a window-pane. Bang!

That hit a stone. Bang! two inches nearer, then--"Aim carefully, fire slowly!" calls the lieutenant in a hoa.r.s.e, dry voice. You aim carefully and fire slowly and reload. Buzz-- And then you fume with a fierce uncontrollable rage because you must aim carefully and fire slowly. And the whole s.p.a.ce in front of the trenches is covered with infantry bullets glittering in the sunlight. Will it ever stop? Never! A day like that has a hundred hours--two hundred. And if you had been there all by yourself, you would never have dreamed of shooting over the edge of the trenches--you would most probably have been crouching down in the pit.

But as you happen not to be alone, this can't be done. Will the enemy's ammunition never give out? It's awful the way he keeps on shooting.

And that terrible thirst! Your throat is parched and your teeth feel blunt from grinding the grains of sand which fly into your face whenever an impudent little puff of smoke jumps up directly in front of you.

Sssst. The mosquitoes keep on singing, and the bees buzz perpetually.

Those dogs over there, those wretches, those-- Buzz, buzz, buzz--it never stops, never. Over there to the right somebody cracks a joke and several soldiers laugh. "Aim carefully, fire slowly!" sounds the warning voice of the lieutenant. And it's all done on an empty stomach--a perfectly empty stomach.