The Fight for the Argonne Part 3

When this tree was pointed out to us we understood how difficult had been the task. The limbs had been shot off, but the great trunk was unhurt. About forty feet from the ground the limbs branched and there a nest had been built for the machine gun, which commanded the forest trail and the surrounding country.

On the morning of the third day of the "big push" five "Y" men started with heavy packs of supplies to find our brave lads of the 37th who were somewhere in the line. We were given as guides two privates who were returning to the front for more prisoners. They had brought in many prisoners that morning. I was interested and drew one of them into conversation.

"How many prisoners did you have?"

"A bunch of fifty. We captured so many that first day it was hard to get them all back quickly to the retention camps."

"I suppose they were all disarmed."

"O yes, all weapons were taken from them and they were searched for secret messages or information which would be valuable to our army."

"Were they allowed to keep any of their belongings?"

"Only the clothes they wore and their caps. Sometimes they would also keep their gas masks and canteens."

We were on a forest trail. The mud from recent rains covered our leggings and our heavy hobnail shoes. We came to a crossroads in the heart of the Forest. Our wounded on stretchers were everywhere. I can see now the bandaged eyes of the ga.s.sed patients, the armless sleeve or the bared breast with the b.l.o.o.d.y dressings. I can see the silent forms of those who would never fight again.

But my heart thrills as the white armband with its red cross comes out sharp and distinct in the picture. Our doctors and surgeons were the miracle-workers of that awful field of slaughter. And the ambulance men were the angels of mercy to thousands whose life blood was wasting fast away.

The "Y" man with his pack always received a sincere welcome. There was a smile of grat.i.tude as a piece of chocolate was placed in the mouth of one whose hands were useless, or a cigarette and a light given to another whose whole frame was aquiver from the shock of battle. There were the eager requests of the Red-Cross men for extra supplies for the boys whom they would see when Mr. Y-Man was not with them.

"A dead Hun is the only good Hun"--this was a war definition, and true at least while the battle was on. Everywhere through the Forest were Boche made "good" by American bullets. Near a dead German officer was a group of our boys looking over the "treasures" which his pockets held. There was also a photo of a French officer. Evidently, the Hun had earlier in the war killed the Frenchman and taken his picture for a souvenir. Was it poetic justice that the Hun should fall victim to a Yank bullet, and that the photo of his captive, together with his own, should be taken by his American slayer and given as souvenirs to a Y.M.C.A. secretary?

I was one of a score of "Y" men who followed Farnsworth's division into action, establishing hot chocolate stations and carrying on our backs great packs of chocolate, cigarettes, and tobacco which we gave away to the boys on the battlefield. There we met the wounded who, having received first aid, were being carried on stretchers back to the field dressing stations, where the army surgeons were working feverishly under trees or in protected valleys. From here continuous lines of stretcher-bearers with their precious burdens moved back to the field hospitals.

On the edge of the Forest near Montfaucon and about three miles back of the line was the nearest field hospital in an elaborate system of German dugouts. The location was well concealed on a hill thickly covered by forest trees and a dense tangle of underbrush. Much time had been spent by the Boche soldiers in making it not only secure but attractive. Rustic fences protected the wooden walks leading to the main entrance. A maze of paths as in a garden, connected the various entrances (doorways). Long flights of wooden steps led down fifteen, twenty, and even thirty feet underground. The deepest cave was connected by a tunnel with the railway system that had branches everywhere through the Forest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH OFFICER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN OFFICER]

When we found the head surgeon we told him we had chocolate for his patients. He took us to one of the wards where thirty men were crowded into four small rooms. The odor of death was in the air. The labored breathing of unconscious men cast a gloom that was hard to shake off.

"How do you stay here and keep sane?" I asked the doctor in charge.

For five days and nights he had scarcely slept, and all he had to eat was what he prepared for himself on a little stove in the six-by-ten room that served for office and living quarters of himself and his a.s.sistant. "The boys are wonderful," he said, "and one forgets himself in trying to save them."

As we went from cot to cot with a piece of chocolate for each, gripping the hands of some and looking into the eyes of others too far gone even to speak, we knew he had spoken the truth. No complaint escaped their lips. The light of a great new dawn kindled in the eyes of many, and their smile of grat.i.tude for the kindness done them made the small service rendered a sacrament sacred on the field of battle.

Returning one evening after a wonderful but terrible day with the boys on the front, we worked our way along a ridge where our 75's were belching fire into the ranks of the enemy. We were giving out the last of our supplies to the crews who were manning these guns. I stopped to speak to an infantry major who was directing the movements of his men by telephone and messenger from a former German dugout where he had taken up temporary headquarters. When I came up he was standing by a gun looking out over the battlefield and watching the stretcher bearers returning from the "line." He had tried in vain to get more artillery sent forward to support his men who were being mowed down by the merciless fire from the Boche machine guns and cannon. At first his voice choked with emotion, and then revenge took possession of him as he cursed the Hun for bringing upon the world such slaughter. It seemed as if his great heart would burst as he realized the suffering and the sacrifice of _his boys_ whom he had ordered to _hold_ at any cost. His voice choked as he cried, "My G.o.d, but they are punishing my boys."

As we walked on in a driving rainstorm and through mud and underbrush and wormed our way amid wire entanglements, we came upon a field kitchen and were invited to supper. We gladly accepted and sat down in the rain to potatoes and meat, bread, b.u.t.ter, and coffee, with a dessert of pancakes and syrup. It was a meal fit for a king, and no food ever tasted quite so sweet. It was about fifteen miles to our hut, and darkness had overtaken us. While we were eating, an empty ammunition cart drawn by four horses came along, and the sergeant in charge offered us a ride. The offer was gladly accepted because we had no guide, and for two hours we b.u.mped over the rough forest trail.

On the way we overtook many of our wounded, who after receiving first aid had attempted to walk back to the camps in the rear. Wherever we found them we gave them a lift to the nearest rest camp or ambulance station. Some whom we were privileged to help seemed completely exhausted and unable to drag any farther.

When at last the forest trail opened into the highway the going was faster. When within three miles of Avoncourt we were stopped by a tieup in traffic. After a few minutes' wait, seeing that there was no sign of advancing, we decided to walk on. For two solid miles the road was blocked, the rains having made the roads almost impa.s.sable. We worked our way in and out past ammunition wagons, Red Cross ambulances, officers' cars, and army trucks. Just before midnight we reached our huts at Avoncourt, where hot chocolate was being served to never-ending lines of tin-helmeted, khaki-clad wearers of the gas mask.

Through this town, now leveled to the ground by four years of intermittent bombardment, we groped our way to a temporary "Y" supply hut, where we hoped to spend the night. Upon opening the door we discovered that every available foot of s.p.a.ce on the bare ground floor was occupied by "Y" men rolled up in their blankets. They were so exhausted from their long hikes to the front, or their continuous serving at the chocolate canteen, that they could sleep anywhere. We quickly decided to continue our tramp another eight miles to the base headquarters, which we reached at three in the morning drenched and exhausted and literally covered with mud. After three hours of good refreshing sleep we were up again and ready to serve our boys--the invincibles.

CHAPTER IV

HOLDING THE LINE

"On to Berlin," was the cry of the whole Yank army. And the boys were impatient of every delay that kept them from their goal. They all felt like the colored private from Alabama who was asked to join a French cla.s.s: "No, I don' want to study French. I want to study German."

After the hisses had died down some one asked, "Why is it you want to study German rather than French?"

"I'se goin' to Berlin."

Then the hisses gave way to cheers.

It was that same spirit which caused Corporal Cole, of the Marines, to say: "The marines do not know such a word as 'retreat.'" That was the spirit which brought the curt reply from Col. Whittlesey when the Huns asked his "Lost Battalion" to surrender.

The American army was a victorious army. It had never been defeated.

It had faith in its ideals. Those ideals were neither selfish nor arrogant. It wore no boastful "Gott mit uns" on its belt. It desired only the opportunity of striking low that nation which dared to dictate terms to the Almighty as well as to men. It braved three thousand miles of submarine peril to meet such an enemy.

Even an invincible army has to breathe and eat and sleep. They can hold their breath long enough to adjust a gas mask, but the mask tells us that even in gas they must be enabled to breathe. In the heat of the chase when the Hun is the hare, they can forget for a time that they are hungry, but the field kitchen testifies to the fact that hunger undermines courage and that an efficient army must be a well-fed army.

To see men curled up in muddy sh.e.l.l-holes with the sky for canopy, peacefully sleeping, while cannon are booming on every side and sh.e.l.ls whining overhead, is sufficient evidence that sleep is not a myth invented by the G.o.ds of Rest.

While the spirit of the boys was willing to go right through to Berlin, their flesh a.s.serted its weakness. Their first dash over the top was invincible, and we were told that in ten hours they swept forward to their goal sixty hours ahead of schedule. There they dug in and for four days _held the line_ in the face of a murderous and desperate German fire.

During those four awful days I saw no sign of "yellow," but everywhere relentless courage.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Y-Man, don't you want to see a fellow that has three holes through him and still going strong?"

"You don't really mean it, do you? Show him to me. I want to look into the eyes of such a man." They led me over to a bunch of soldiers who had just come out of the line and there in the center of an admiring crowd was my man, happy as a lark. His three wounds--one in the left breast, one in the thigh, and a scalp wound--had been dressed, and while these wounds had glorified him in the eyes of his comrades, _he_ was ready to _forget_ them.

Even though a hundred sh.e.l.ls exploding near by miss you, and you become convinced that Fritz does not really have your name and address, yet each explosion registers its shock on the nerve centers.

If this be long-continued, the nerves give way and you find yourself a sh.e.l.l-shock patient, tagged and on your way to one of the quiet back areas where you can forget the war and get a grip upon yourself again.

Holding the line in open warfare costs a heavy toll in human life, but here again our boys showed their invincible spirit. Not once did I see a Yankee that showed any eagerness to get away from the line. The mortally wounded accepted the sacrifice they had been called upon to make without bemoaning fate, and remained cheerful to the end. Of course when a man was "_facing West_" he longed for the loved faces and the heaven of home. We who had our own "little heaven" back in the homeland knew and instinctively read those sacred thoughts and prayers and gave just the hand-pressure of deep sympathy.

To have _spoken_ of home at such a time would have been to tear the heart already breaking, with a deep anguish that would interfere with their possibility of recovery. So the cheery word of hope and faith was given, and any final message quietly taken and faithfully and sacredly fulfilled.

The wounded men whom we met coming out of the line who were not "facing West" were with one accord hopeful of speedy recovery, not that they might "save their own skin" and get back home alive, but that they might get back into the fight and help to put forever out of commission that devilish military machine that had threatened the democratic freedom of the world.

Then again there were the boys who had miraculously escaped being wounded, and after days in the very bowels of h.e.l.l, which no pen can picture and no tongue recite, had been released from the line and were working their way back to the food kitchens, the water carts, and the rest of the camps. One such doughboy, I met near Montfaucon, about midway between the front line and an artillery ridge where our 75's were coughing sh.e.l.ls in rapid succession upon the entrenched foe. His water canteen had long been empty and the nourishment of his hard tack and "corn willie"[2] forgotten. His lips were parched with thirst and bleeding from cracks, the result of long-continued gun fire. His body was wearied by the heavy strain, his cheeks were gaunt from hunger and his eyes circled for want of rest. His whole bearing was of one who had pa.s.sed through suffering untold, and yet there was no word of bitterness or complaint. His grat.i.tude for a sup of water from my canteen was richer to me than the plaudits of mult.i.tudes, and the fine courage with which he worked his painful way back to rest and refreshment caused my heart to yearn after him with a tenderness which he can never know.

Where a division is merely holding the line, there being no aggressive action on either side, except night-raiding parties, men can stand it for a longer period. Under such circ.u.mstances a company would stay in the front line for ten days, part being on guard while the others were sleeping. At the end of the ten days they would be relieved by a fresh company and return to a rest camp in the rear. The boys hardly considered it _rest_, as there was constant drilling, besides camp duties and activities of many kinds.

Out in No Man's Land we had our "listening" and "observation" posts.

These posts are set as near the enemy line as possible. It is very hazardous work, and requires steady nerves and clear heads. Each squad in a post remains for forty-eight hours, and each man of the squad is on actual guard for four hours at a time.

Where men are _on the line in aggressive warfare_, the action is so intense that they cannot stand up under long-continued fighting. In the Argonne fight our Ohio division was on the front line for five days after going "over the top." Then they were relieved by a fresh division, which took their places under cover of the night.