The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Last Million, by Ian Hay.

As for the American share, we have not heard too much, but what we have heard is enough to make us tingle. We hear of great work by the Regulars of the First, Second, and Third Divisions; by the Twenty-sixth—the Yankees of New England—and by the Forty-second Rainbow Division, from Yaphank. It is also reported that other American Divisions made no small impression upon Brother Boche—the Fourth, the Twenty-eighth; the Thirty-second, and the Seventy-seventh.

The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth, we understand, are somewhere with the British opposite the Hindenburg Line near Cambrai. Doubtless we shall hear something of them too, in due course. Great days, great days! But to what a fever of exasperation are we aroused, who are not there ourselves!

CHAPTER TWELVE
CHASING MONOTONY

At present the authorities are engaged in impressing upon us the truth of the maxim which says that you must not run before you can walk. Our immediate duty is to show that we can stand the test of ordinary trench warfare.

First, such every-day nuisances as the German sniper. And here we have a pleasant little success to record.

When we took over these trenches, snipers were numerous and vigilant. If you raised your head above the parapet, one of two things happened. Either you heard a sound like the crack of a whip-lash close to your ear; or you did not. If you did, you were lucky. If you did not, you were buried at dusk.

There is one piece of slightly rising ground in the enemy’s line which commands an oblique view of a stretch of our front trenches. For a week we have been pestered by a sniper concealed somewhere along this eminence, about three hundred yards away, on our right front. We have scrutinized its whole expanse with periscopes and through loopholes, but there is no sign of trench or emplacement where the sniper might be concealed.

Yesterday that untutored but resourceful fire-eater, Eddie Gillette, turned his attention to the matter, the urgency of which had been impressed upon him by the fact that a sniper’s bullet, travelling sidewise down the trench, had chipped a groove in Eddie’s own “tin derby” that very morning, Eddie’s head being inside at the time.

In a field behind the support line there grows, or rather, rots, a crop of derelict and much-bombarded turnips. Last night Eddie, after a conference with his officer, Boone Cruttenden, and the top machine-gun sergeant, disappeared for an hour into the hinterland, and brought back with him an armful of selected esculents. The largest of these he proceeded this morning to spear upon a flat lath of wood. Upon the top of this eminence he perched his own steel helmet, at a jaunty angle. Attended by a respectfully interested cohort of disciples, or rubbernecks, he next selected a suitable spot in the front-line trench, and with the help of a length of rope and a little ingenuity succeeded in lashing the turnip-laden lath to the revetment of the parapet in such a fashion as to make it possible to slide the lath up and down.

It was a still, sunny, September morning, and the whole line was quiet, except for an occasional rifle-shot, and the intermittent boom of artillery beyond the next hill-crest to the south. Eddie’s preliminary adjustments were barely completed when Boone Cruttenden arrived, carrying a periscope and attended by the machine-gun sergeant.

“Yes, sir,” replied Eddie, ignoring the cynical smiles of Joe McCarthy, who was present in the capacity of dramatic critic.

The inventor cautiously slid the lath up in its groove, until the helmet-crowned turnip stood some six inches above the parapet, offering a goodly mark against the sky. Then crouching down, he waited. The spectators, with remarkable unanimity, followed his example.

A bullet shaved the top sandbag and buried itself with a vicious thud in the back wall of the trench.

“Lower the turnip a couple of minutes first,” advised Boone. “A real man wouldn’t keep his head up there all the time—unless it was a bone one!”

“The big idea,” replied Eddie, “is first of all to let that Dutchman over there drill a hole in this turnip. Then, if we peek through the hole, we shall be looking along the track of the bullet—at this range it would travel on a pretty-nigh flat line—and we shall see the exact place the bullet started from, which is what we are after. In case we don’t get the exact location, we will put up another turnip some other place in the trench, and get a cross-bearing from that. That’s the big idea, boys!”

“And who,” enquired the grating voice of Mr. Joe McCarthy, “is the poor fish who’s gonna put his bean up above the parapet and peek through the hole?”

Eddie Gillette forbore to reply, but resumed his operations with added dignity, sliding his turnip-head once more into the enemy’s view. There was another crack, and the steel helmet oscillated sharply.

“Right through the nose!” announced Eddie, with ghoulish satisfaction. “Now, Captain—quick!”

Already Boone Cruttenden, crouching low, was applying his periscope to the hole in the back of the turnip. The machine-gun sergeant, stationed at a tiny observation loophole in a steel plate close by, waited eagerly for instructions.

Boone, with his magnifying periscope, took a rapid observation of the constricted field of view afforded by the narrow tunnel through the turnip; then another, over the open parapet this time; then another, through the turnip again. He spoke rapidly.

“Well, lay a machine gun to cover the ground about five yards to the right of that. Call the range three-fifty. I guess he is somewhere around there. I can’t see any loophole or anything, but maybe he is lying right out in the open, covered in grass, or—”

Crack! The conscientious artist over the way was growing restive at his own want of success. This time he chipped the top of the steel helmet.

“That will do,” said Boone. “Lower away that turnip, Gillette, and we’ll take a second bearing farther along.”

Mr. Gillette collected his paraphernalia with the solemn dignity of an acolyte taking part in a mystery. But he unbent to human level for a moment.

“You see,” he observed caustically, “we don’t require no poor fish here, Joe McCarthy!”

In due course a second turnip was hoisted and perforated, a second bearing taken, and another machine gun laid. The machine-gun teams took station; the first cartridges were fed into the chambers.

A third spot was selected, and a third turnip exposed. This time it wagged itself provokingly, and the sniper responded at once. It was a beautiful shot, but it was his last. Next moment two converging streams of machine-gun bullets were spattering his lair. What happened we shall never know, but we were never again troubled from that particular locality.

“We certainly got to hand it to you, Ed,” announced Joe McCarthy, in an unusual fit of self-abasement.

Next, artillery fire. The Boche bombards our trenches twice a day, and searches the back areas with shrapnel at night. He is not very persistent, and a little sharp retaliation from our gunners usually brings his performance to a conclusion. Still, it is unpleasant while it lasts.

To be shelled for the first time must fairly rank with the first cigarette, the first shave, and the first kiss as one of the unforgettable experiences of life. Opinions vary as to the best place to be during a bombardment—assuming that one has to be anywhere at all. Jim Nichols considers a shell-hole a good place.

“It is well known,” he points out, “that no two bullets ever hit the same spot. Nelson, or some other historical gink, once said that the safest place for a man to put his head during a sea-fight was a hole made in a ship’s side by a cannon-ball. Me for a shell-hole, every time!”

Boone Cruttenden thinks an ordinary trench dugout would be best. Else what are dugouts for?

“It depends on who made them,” replies the veteran Major Powers. “The German officer’s idea is all right. He turns on a squad of men, and they construct for him a combined club and restaurant somewhere near the centre of the earth. But even that is liable to have its exits blocked. Personally, if I were under bombardment, I should stay out in the trench. I am more likely to be hit, but less likely to be buried; and I don’t intend to go putting the cart before the horse at my funeral!”

All had an opportunity to test their theories—and their nerve—the first afternoon after taking over the trenches. Boone and Jim shared a dugout in the front line, sunk below the forward parapet, under the sandbags. Having contracted the British habit of afternoon tea, they were occupied towards five o’clock in brewing that beverage in a mess-tin, when suddenly, with a whizz and a rush, a German shell passed over the trench and burst amid a cloud of flying clods fifty yards beyond it.

“This is the afternoon bombardment that we were warned about,” said Jim, pouring out two cups of tea. “Now we shall know whether we are shell-shy or not!”

Boone took his aluminum teacup in his hand, and held it to his lips. Simultaneously another shell landed outside—fifty yards short of the parapet this time. The earth shook. Fragments of dirt and grit fell from the sandbag ceiling into the tea. Boone regarded the hand which was holding the teacup. He noted with secret satisfaction that though his heart was bumping slightly, the hand was as steady as a rock.

“That is what is known as ‘bracketing,’ I guess,” said Nichols. “The next shell will strike an average between the ranges of the first two and get this happy home of ours just where the cork got the bottle.”

He was right—or nearly. Next moment, with a triumphant shriek, a shell landed fairly in the trench, fifteen yards to their right. They felt little concussion, for the trench was provided with stout earthen traverses, which limited the radius of the explosion and blanketed its force.

“The question before the House,” said Boone, “is whether we stay where we are or go away from here. Hallo, what’s that?”

A hoarse cry was passing down the trench from mouth to mouth—a cry which never fails to tug at a soldier’s heart, for he knows not what comrade may be involved:

Both officers scrambled out of their shelter. Three men, crouching inside the entrance to a neighbouring dugout, had been hit by fragments of shell—all in the legs. In due course the stretchers arrived, and the trio—our first actual casualties—were borne off upon that long and tortuous journey which starts in a communication-trench and ends possibly at Home. They were followed by the mingled chorus of sympathy and congratulation always accorded in these days to those who are taken, by those who are left.

More German shells arrived. The parapet was hit in two places, and burst sandbags flew in the air. But it was not “heavy stuff”—so the artillery officer remarked, busy in his forward observing-station with periscope and telephone—and the actual damage was slight.

“I am calling for retaliation now,” he explained to Boone and Jim. He gabbled a formula to the telephone orderly, who repeated it into a portable instrument before him. Presently the man looked up.

Four hissing streaks of sound passed over the trench from the rear. Next moment four heavy detonations shook the earth. A hundred pairs of eager eyes, peeping cautiously over the parapet, observed four fountains of earth and smoke spring up in No Man’s Land.

So the duel went on. It was a typical artillery fight, in that each side endeavoured to dissuade its opponent from further participation by bombarding, not one another, but one another’s friends in the trenches. The German fire did not slacken; if anything it increased. Probably Brother Boche was well aware that a fresh division had taken over the line, and desired to make a good first impression. But there were no more casualties.

“I’m tired of this. What about finishing our tea?” enquired Boone Cruttenden of Jim Nichols.

But no. As they rounded the traverse leading into their own particular bay, there came a roar and a bang—and their home was not. When the smoke cleared away they saw, instead of a rugged and workmanlike parapet, a jumbled heap of disintegrated sandbags and twisted timber-work.

“There!” he said. “Do you still hold that the best place during a bombardment is a dugout?”

“I’m stung, I admit,” said Boone. “But now you can test your theory. You can sit in the middle of that mess that the shell has made. It’s in full view of the enemy, but of course you’ll be safe!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM

We have been bombarded fairly regularly. We do not like it, but we can stand it, which is all that matters—as eels probably remark while being skinned. We are getting used, also, to the sight of sudden death and human blood. These things affect us less than we expected. It is all a matter of environment. If you were to see a man caught and cut in two between a street-car and a taxi-cab in your own home town, the spectacle would make you physically sick and might haunt you for weeks, because such incidents are not part of the recognized routine of home town life. But here, they are part of the day’s work: we are prepared for them: they are what we are in the War for. And, curiously and providentially, it seldom occurs to any of us to suspect that it may be his turn next. Thus all-wise Nature maintains our balance for us.

We have made another interesting discovery about Nature, and that is that habit can be stronger than instinct, and pride than either. The first law of Nature is said to be the instinct of self-preservation. Yet the average soldier, even in the inferno of modern warfare, gives less trouble to his leaders when under shell-fire than when his dinner does not come up to the usual standard, or he has run out of cigarettes.

Pride, again. This morning, two machine-gunners, namely, one Sam Gates and our old friend Miss Sissy Smithers, observed through their loophole a derelict German helmet lying amid the hedge of rusty barbed wire outside the trench. The passion for souvenirs is inborn in the human race, but most strongly developed in soldiers taking their first turn in the trenches.

Human nature is a curious thing. Sissy Smithers was reckoned a quiet youth. In civil life he earned a romantic but unheroic livelihood by selling ladies’ hosiery. But his friend’s perfectly casual and reasonable observation stung him to the roots of his being. His face flamed. Without a word he scrambled upon the firing-step, heaved himself over the parapet, walked quite deliberately to the barbed wire, and brought back the helmet. The helmet had a chip in it. The chip was made by a German sniper as Sissy lifted the helmet out of the wire.

The Boche employs other vehicles of frightfulness besides artillery. The Flying Pig, for example. This engaging animal is really an aerial mine, about six feet long. It appears suddenly high in the air above No Man’s Land, propelled thither by some invisible and inaudible agency behind the German line, and descends upon us in a series of amusing somersaults. Having reached its destination it explodes, with results disastrous to the landscape. A single Flying Pig can do more damage than a whole artillery bombardment. But it possesses one redeeming feature. You can see it coming. When you do, the correct procedure is to decide quickly where it is going to come down, and then go somewhere else. It is an exhilarating pastime, but attended by complications when played by a large number of persons in a narrow trench—especially when differences of opinion exist as to where the animal really intends to alight.

Then there is gas. But gas is more of a nuisance than a danger in these days, since we are all—even the horses—equipped with a special breathing apparatus, and carry the same night and day. Our newest mask, too, is a great advance on its predecessors. The chief trouble about gas-masks hitherto has been the formation of mist on the inside of the goggles. Now, by the happy inspiration of some nameless benefactor in the Service of Supply, the breathing tubes are so arranged that the filtered air, when it arrives, passes right over the inner surface of the eye-pieces, clearing the glass at every intake of breath.

Mustard gas is another story, because it attacks the skin—unless you happen to be a coloured gentleman, and then apparently you do not mind so much.

But our busy time is at night. Supplies come up; casualties go back. Trench repairs have to be executed in places inaccessible by daylight. Sandbags innumerable have to be filled and set in position.

“This yer War,” observes Joe McCarthy, bitterly, “will be finished when all the dirt in France has been shovelled into sandbags—by you an’ me! Then they’ll have to quit, or fall through!”

But the most thrilling experiences of trench warfare are trench raids. These are not necessarily elaborate affairs. Some of them are quite informal. Their objects are twofold—the first, to keep the enemy guessing, the second, to obtain information. The second is the most important. It is vitally necessary to know just where every one of your enemy’s Divisions is located. The simplest method of finding out is to send over armed deputations in the dead of night, with instructions to bring back a few assorted Germans. These, when they arrive, are interrogated, and their equipment and shoulder-straps are examined, for clues as to their identity. In this way it is usually possible to discover what Divisions are in station opposite, and how much front each holds. If a Division is spread out widely, you may be tolerably sure that the enemy has no serious designs upon your sector of the line. But if Divisions are “distributed in depth”—that is, with narrow fronts and long tails—the wise commander begins to accumulate ammunition and draft reserves into his back areas. Before the great German drive in March, against the attenuated British line at St. Quentin, Sir Douglas Haig was made aware, by this and other means, of the cheering intelligence that he had opposite to a comparatively short sector of his front sixty-four German Divisions—or six more Divisions than there were British Divisions in the whole of France and Belgium! That was a case in which nothing could be done except put up the best defence possible with the troops available, for equally overwhelming odds were being massed against the rest of the British line. But in normal cases, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Trench raids are intermittent affairs. Patrols, on the other hand, must be organized every night. These excursions are not necessarily belligerent. Their main object is to collect information, and to make sure that the enemy keeps to his own side of the street. If two patrols do meet, and feel constrained to “start something,” the one thing no one ever does is to pull a gun or throw a bomb. To do so would be to invite impartial participation in the game by the machine guns of both sides. It must be cold steel or nothing. As often as not, it is nothing. Two patrols may meet, and cut one another dead, like rival beauties on Fifth Avenue.

One night Boone Cruttenden found himself detailed for patrol duty, with a sergeant and four men. The party were to scale the parapet, pass through a gap in the wire, and make a tour of a certain section of No Man’s Land. The whole operation, which was by this time a familiar one, was expected to occupy about an hour. Orders were given to the trench garrison that there must be no firing during this period.

Just before midnight, in the soft September darkness, Boone led his followers over the sandbags. It was a quiet night—suspiciously quiet—and there was little to be heard save some impatient rips of machine-gun fire farther south, and the soft explosion of the Verey pistols on both sides. There are three impressions of nocturnal trench warfare which never fade from the memory of those who have served their apprenticeship therein—one, the endless vista of bursting star-shells sinking from the sky along that tortuous, dolorous way that calls itself No Man’s Land; two, the eternal plop-plop! of the Verey pistols; three, the mingled smell of fresh earth, decaying matter, and disinfectants.

Boone’s first objective was a deep shell-crater some fifteen yards outside the wire. He had discovered it two nights previously, and it had struck him as a useful location for an advanced patrolling base. He gathered his henchmen around him and addressed them in a low voice.

“Sergeant, you stay here with McCarthy. Gillette and Thompson, crawl along our own front in that direction”—he pointed south—“until you come to the row of willow stumps that runs across from our line to theirs. (It’s an old turnpike, really.) Examine our wire all the way along, and see if it has been monkeyed with. If you catch sight of an enemy patrol, Gillette will stay and watch while Thompson gets back here and reports to the sergeant. Gillette, you will not take any notice of them”—Eddie sighed brokenly—“unless they show signs of wanting to come too close to our trenches.” (Eddie’s spirits rose again.) “Then use your own judgment. Your best plan will probably be to get home by the shortest route and warn the officer in charge. But don’t start any trouble if you can help it, because I shall be over on the other side with Gogarty, and we want to get home too! In any case we must all be back in an hour, because the artillery have a date with the German back areas at two, and we don’t want to get mixed up in any retaliation that may be going. Gogarty, follow me up this dry ditch. It leads right to the German wire, and we may find a German sentry-post halfway across. So come quietly.”

The two little expeditions crept away, on routes at right angles to one another. We will follow Boone and Mr. James Gogarty, who has not hitherto been introduced to the reader.

Jimmy Gogarty was twenty years of age, of wizened appearance, and raucous voice. He looked and sounded exactly like what he was—a bell-hop. He had exchanged livery for uniform at the first breath of hostilities, and was now reckoned one of the smartest scouts in Boone’s Company. He was a New Yorker born and bred, and had fought his way steadily up the social ladder of Second Avenue by the exercise of five remarkably sharp wits and two unpleasantly hard fists. He was devoted to Boone Cruttenden.

The trenches were about two hundred yards apart. Progress along the ditch was not easy, for it was choked with undergrowth and refuse. Moreover, there were here and there unburied Germans whom it were wiser to avoid. Occasionally the ditch was intersected by other routes—old trenches, and the like. Here they Stopped, Looked, and Listened, as they had been warned to do all their lives at more peaceful cross-roads far away. But all was quiet. Too quiet, Boone thought. On his previous excursions he had usually been aware of much life—furtive, guttural, inquisitive life—all around him. But to-night No Man’s Land seemed a desert.

“I guess dat means de bums is goin’ to start somethin’,” observed Mr. Gogarty hoarsely. (He was regrettably tough in his speech. The thin veneer of hotel civilization had long been rubbed off him.)

“We are fairly close to their wire now,” whispered Boone. “I am going to get out of this drain and prospect along their front. You go straight ahead, and watch out in case they come crawling down the ditch. If they do, give a whistle—just one—to warn me, and then beat it for the Sergeant. Otherwise, expect me here in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes later the pair met in the appointed spot. Boone was covered with mud and panting heavily; Gogarty was quiescent, except that he was emitting a peculiar noise. If he had been a cat, you would have said he was purring.

“Two Dutchmen! Dey was in dis ditch—’bout thoity yards along. Keepin’ watch, I guess. Some watch!”

“Well, I ain’t one to blow, but—I’m here, and dey are not! You seen anything, Captain?”

“Yes; listen! There’s a German raiding-party, or something, mustering outside their wire. I saw them creeping into line, one by one, when the moon came out just now. They are coming across, and soon!”

“Either break it up with a five-minute trench-mortar bombardment, or creep forward and blow a few gaps with dynamite torpedoes. Now, I am going to wait here until they start moving. Then I shall get back, quick. Meanwhile”—Boone tugged at his field despatch-book—“I want you to take a note to Major Powers.”

Flat on his stomach, Boone was squirming deep into the rank undergrowth of the ditch.

“Hold this electric torch right down over the paper,” he said, “while I write. Keep a good look-out at the same time, and if you see any one, switch it off.”

For two minutes Boone scribbled frantically. The fighting blood of all the Cruttendens was coursing in his veins. He forgot the official form of address: he omitted certain prescribed formulæ—the date, the hour, his own geographical position but he overlooked nothing else. The despatch, when completed, read:

Dear Major, the Hun is going to raid you. So far as I can see it will be between the points A and B on attached sketch. I suggest you send out a m.-g. to shell-hole marked X, from which you can enfilade whole front in danger. Come to shell-hole yourself, or send some one, and I will come along and warn you as soon as I see them start.

“Take that to Major Powers right away,” he said. “As you pass through the shell-hole warn the Sergeant, and tell him to expect a machine gun there. But whatever you do, find the Major! Try Battalion Headquarters first—in the support-line. If he is not there, he’ll be in the firing-trench. But find him, whatever you do, and quick!”

“I’ll find him,” replied the retired bell-hop, confidently. “Why, I found people in the Biltmore before now!”

Ten minutes passed. Boone, tingling like an induction coil, watched the progress of the raiding-party. They were moving very methodically, keeping a beautiful line. Whenever a Verey light burst above them, or the moon asserted herself, they were flat on their faces in a moment; but during the next period of darkness they always seemed to cover another twenty yards. They were halfway across now, almost exactly opposite to Boone.

“I wonder where he is,” muttered Boone restlessly. “We ought to have a watch on the far end of this ditch. If they come creeping along it, as they ought to do—Gee whizz!”

From behind the German line came a chorus of sharp discharges; then a whirring and a humming over Boone’s head. Then the earth rocked beneath the tremendous detonation, and the skies were lit up with the flash of a barrage of German trench-mortar bombs, exploding along two hundred yards of American wire.

The barrage lasted just one minute. Directly after, three things happened, almost simultaneously. The line of raiders rose to its feet and dashed with a yell through the writhing remnants of the wire. The voice of a machine gun—nay, a pair of machine guns—broke into steady reverberation from the shell-crater, seventy yards to Boone’s right. Lastly, a rocket shot up from the American support-line.

“That’s for our artillery,” said Boone to himself. “They’ll be putting down a heavy barrage on No Man’s Land in a moment—right here. Good-night, nurse!”

He began to run swiftly back along the ditch, crouching low. In this posture he rounded a slight bend, and two steel helmets clashed together. Boone, standing up to massage his ringing head, realized that the faithful Gogarty had returned to duty.

“We got dem guys fixed this time!” announced the scout triumphantly. “Two Vickers guns in de shell-hole, to give ’em hell comin’ and goin’!”

It was true. Major Powers had done marvels in the twenty scant minutes at his disposal. He had decided to send two machine guns over to the shell-hole; for ammunition-belts sometimes jam, and it was essential that a continuous stream of bullets should be maintained along the wire during the fateful moment of attack. He had also warned the Artillery and Brigade Headquarters of impending events. Finally, he had withdrawn his trench garrison from the front line as a precaution against a trench-mortar bombardment, and had aligned them, with bayonets fixed, in the support-trench behind, with orders to dash forward to their original positions the moment the signal was given.

They were hasty preparations, but six weeks’ rehearsal could not have made their success more complete. It was just such an undertaking as suits the American soldier—without cohesion or direct leadership, and depending almost entirely upon quick grasp of the situation and spontaneous team-work. The German attacking party, plunging forward through the broken defences, came right into line with the Vickers guns, with the result that it found itself wading through a river of lead flowing at the rate of five hundred bullets per minute at a distance of eighteen inches from the ground. Many went down at once: the others stumbled on gallantly enough, and reached the American trench just in time to see a wave of yelling American soldiers break into it from the ground behind.

Some of the raiders leapt down into the trench, and were submerged at once. A few threw bombs, most of which were deftly caught and thrown back before they could explode. Others were engaged upon the parapet itself. The rest, making heavy weather in the wire and tortured by the stream of bullets, broke back, only to find that the second machine gun was maintaining a steady enfilade fire across their line of retreat.

At the height of the turmoil the sky far behind the American lines was suddenly illuminated by flashes. Next moment, with a rush and a roar, the American retaliatory barrage was tearing up No Man’s Land and the German fire-trenches beyond. The raiders were completely isolated.

For four minutes the tempest of shells raged. Then, with stunning suddenness, came silence, grim as death, broken only by a few hoarse cries and a little sympathetic uneasiness farther down the line. The raid was over. How it had fared the Germans over the way never knew, for not a single raider came back to tell them.

The dead and wounded enemy were disentangled from the wire, where most of them had fallen. American casualties, thanks to Boone’s warning and Major Powers’s dispositions, had been comparatively slight, though the bombs had taken a certain gruesome toll. Eddie Gillette, who with Al Thompson had returned from his tour of inspection just in time to take part in the defence of the trench, was suffering from abraded knuckles, due to an encounter with a set of Teutonic teeth. Otherwise, none of our particular friends had received a scratch, though Boone and Gogarty had escaped their own artillery barrage by four seconds.

An hour later the life of the line had reverted once more from Hell to Monotony. A working-party was out in front, repairing wire and replacing sandbags. Patrols were out again, in case the enemy should feel disposed to throw good money after bad. The artillery stood to, prepared to resume the argument if need be. But not a German gun cheeped all night. Possibly they were surprised about something.

Meanwhile a string of prisoners was filing back to Regimental Headquarters, down a communication-trench—or boyau, to employ the expressive phrase of its Gallic constructors—muddy, dishevelled, and sulky. German prisoners in these days are not usually sulky: most of them are frankly delighted to be counted out of the War. But this particular consignment were distinguished, under their grime, by a certain peculiar and awful air of outraged majesty.

On arrival at Headquarters the mystery was revealed. An American Staff Officer, an expert linguist, took charge of the party, and issued the usual orders.

“Sergeant, find out if there are any officers among them, and put them by themselves. Then search the others.”

He was answered—in tolerable English—by a lanky youth who stood at the end of the long line of prisoners.

It was a simple enough explanation, really. This was no common or vulgar raiding-party. It was a junior officers’ Instruction Class, sent over to gain a little experience and confidence in the delicate art of trench-raiding on this “quiet sector of the line.” It was a genuine and painful shock to them to find that the line was held by the Americans in force—the Americans, who, according to the Great General Staff at Headquarters, were still at home, chasing buffaloes down Broadway. Too bad!

But already these small diversions are swept into the limbo of the Things that do not Matter. Word has just come that our period of trench warfare is over, and that we are to proceed to the Argonne, to take part in the Great Offensive.

Evidently some one at the top has decided that this War has gone on long enough.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE

During the past fortnight we have been learning the difference between Warfare of Position and Warfare of Movement, and we are very, very tired. Moreover, the end of our labour is not yet. But we have made good. The Divisional General himself has informed us of the fact, in an official Order. So has the enemy, in an even more flattering fashion. He has fallen back—steadily and stubbornly—but back.

The fighting began more than a fortnight ago. But first of all we had to get to the scene of action. That involved endless marches, through undulating, heavily wooded, exhausting country. It is the fall of the year. Rain is abundant, roads are not too numerous, and these are packed from end to end with traffic so close that it is sometimes impossible for a vehicle to find turning-space in ten miles.

These roads, though well constructed and constantly reënforced, are none too good. They were never built to carry such traffic as this, and since the inevitable ditch on either side deprives them of lateral support, the effect of a constant stream of monstrously heavy vehicles upon the surface of one of them is that of a rolling-pin upon a strip of dough—it makes it wider. Not only wider, but thinner; for the edges of the road are squeezed out into the ditch, and the whole fabric loses cohesion. Almost anywhere, but in particular near the sides, a wheel is apt suddenly to find a soft spot and sink up to the axle, with consequent congestion and tumult.

It is a double tide of traffic. Both streams are made up of similar constituents, with certain necessary contrasts. There are bodies of infantry, either going up into action or else coming out. There is no mistaking the latter. Their uniforms are splashed, their faces are caked, and their eyes are red for lack of sleep. They are obviously “all in,” but they hobble manfully along, with the comfortable satisfaction of men who have left behind them a task well and truly performed. They exchange ironic greetings with the full-fed, boisterous bands of adventurers whom they encounter hastening in the opposite direction.

Ambulances, again. Those going forward are empty and trim: those returning are travel-stained and crowded. It is rumoured that the American Army has suffered over a hundred thousand casualties during the past few weeks. The fighting in the Argonne Forest has been terrific. Grandpré, through which we expect to pass, has been taken and lost half a dozen times. Each of the ambulances carries a full complement of stretcher-cases; and usually beside the driver sits a gaunt, miry statue with his arm in a sling, or a blood-soaked rag about his head. Occasionally, too, there occurs a civilian farm-wagon, containing a dozen or so less serious cases, with tickets tied to their buttons, on their way to an Evacuation Station. There are also women and children passengers; for the battle zone is extending daily, and it is needful, from sheer humanity, to remove the civil population to safer ground. On the box-seat of one of these wagons sits a small French boy. Perhaps he is eight years old. He is easily the proudest and happiest person in all this dolorous procession, for his right wrist is swathed in a slightly encrimsoned bandage, gloriously conspicuous.

Then there are motor wagons, also full. Those going up contain ammunition, barbed wire, galvanized iron sheeting, engineering material, or rations. Those returning are heaped with salvage of every kind—furniture, the property of the refugees; battlefield dèbris, and, wherever an available chink presents itself, men—footsore men, stragglers, or regular working-parties. The latter are usually coloured, and, with steel helmets balanced at every angle upon their woolly pates, smile upon the seething activity beneath them with the simple enjoyment of a child at its first circus.

These wagons—or camions—are of two types. There are big Thorneycroft lorries, holding three tons and made in England, and smaller vehicles of American design, known as “Quads.” These possess the unusual feature of a drive upon either axle; so that if your rear wheels slip backwards into a ditch or quagmire, your front wheels will continue to function and will extricate you in no time. Heaven knows how these contraptions are steered, but steered they are, and with remarkable skill.

Then there are guns—and more guns. These are mainly French seventy-fives and hundred-and-fifty-fives, with American gun teams. Those going up are workmanlike, but inconspicuous. They are newly painted with the usual red, green, and yellow splashes. The fishing-nets which will be spread above them when they get into action, intersticed with grass, leaves, and twigs, are at present neatly furled and lashed along the barrels. The gunners sprawl anywhere but upon their hard little iron seats. The guns coming out look different. All are plastered with mud; some are on the casualty list, and are being towed upon trolleys by fussy little traction engines.

Here and there in the procession wallow British tanks. These are either “Heavies,” weighing nearly thirty tons and carrying a crew of seven or eight, or “Whippets,” which only require three men and can move at the rate of twelve miles an hour.

The tank is the humourist of this unhumorous War. Its method of joining a close-packed procession of road traffic is characteristic. It appears suddenly out of a wood in a field beside the road, obliterates thirty yards of a hedge, squeezes a ditch flat, and insinuates itself sideways, with jolly abandon, into that part of the procession which happens to be passing at the moment—the whole in a manner reminiscent of that heavy-footed and determined individual who is accustomed by similar tactics to secure for himself a good place in the queue outside a movie pay-box. On the other hand, should you be ditched or disabled in any way, to your own discomfort and the congestion of traffic, a tank is always willing to swing good-humouredly out of the line, scramble across country for a field or so, lurch heavily into the roadway again, harness itself to a tow-rope, and extract you from your present predicament as easily and as suddenly as a mastodon might extract a cork from a bottle.

Certainly our march gave us a comprehensive view of the ingredients of modern warfare. American soldiers, white and black—mostly cheerful; French refugees—all sad. Guns, limbers, camions, carts, ambulances, tanks—all moving in an endless, tumultuous, profane stream. At cross-roads, traffic policeman struggling manfully with an impossible job. Automobiles everywhere—Cadillacs, Fords, and Dodges—all trying to make openings and steal a march upon the rest of Creation. Above us, the sky of France, weeping for her lost children. Around us, the undulating, rain-blurred hillsides of the Argonne Forest. Beneath our feet, Mud, Mud, Mud.

Day after day we tramped—through Toul, the northwest corner of the great rectangle of French soil which has been an American military colony since the summer of nineteen-seventeen; across the trench lines of the old days of stationary warfare, where Frenchmen faced the Boches for three long years. American troops have fought there too. Here, in what was once No Man’s Land, stand the ruins of Seicheprey, famed as having been the scene of the first clash between American and German troops. (It was a raid, and we lost our first prisoners there. Well, we have plenty of Germans now to barter for them, when the time comes—and then some!) Then on past Montfaucon, the Crown Prince’s headquarters at the Battle of Verdun, now an American stronghold; through miles and miles of devastated country, with here and there a little American graveyard (to which we pay due reverence), to Grandpré. This is a mere fragment of a village, clinging to the face of a rock looking south, and is shelled out of recognition. Then on, through the Bois des Loges, following the tide of victory northward, towards Mézières and Sedan. Somewhere to our right lies Verdun, garrisoned by American soldiers—all, that is, save the Citadel, a wondrous Gibraltar dug into the interior of a hill, containing miles of illuminated passageways; barracks, a bakery, an arsenal, a chapel, a theatre. Here the French maintain their own garrison—and maybe their own secrets. Secrets or no, it was that Citadel and that garrison which broke the back of the German assault in the critical days of nineteen-sixteen.

Somewhere on our left marches the Army of the French General Gouraud, keeping pace with our own in the great enveloping movement of which our attack forms the extreme right.

And there we were sent into the battle. It being our first, our impressions are somewhat confused. In theory, our own particular part in the enterprise was a simple one. A wood lay upon our front, and we were ordered to capture it. And we did so—all save the far edge. But at a price. When our barrage lifted in the early dawn, and we dashed forward to the assault which we had rehearsed so often, our consciousness was mainly of barbed wire and machine-gun bullets. These were in unholy alliance everywhere, and took grievous toll. Buck Stamper, the biggest man in the Battalion, was the first one to go down. He was shot in the legs, and another bullet passed through his heart as he struggled forward, crippled but game, on his hands and knees. But a hundred men had seen him die, and the gun which had knocked him out was in their hands three minutes later. Still, formations were broken up, communication with the rear was cut, and the brunt of the battle began to fall upon the individual. Now it is as an individual fighter that the American soldier excels. He has his faults. To-day attacks have to be carefully rehearsed; battles are fought on a strict time-table. The eager young fighter is too apt to jump off the mark before the signal is given, and overrun his objective when he reaches it. This gets him into trouble with his best friend, the Gunner; for under these circumstances the latter must either forbear to fire or else risk hitting his own Infantry. But it is a fault on the right side, and is soon corrected by painful experience. On the other hand, it develops in its owner that most priceless quality of the soldier, initiative. Some of the finest work in this War has been accomplished by small bodies of troops—particularly British and American—working forward under a young officer, or a sergeant, or very often under no leader at all, to the capture of some vital point long after they have lost touch with the directing force behind.

The upshot of it all was that after a week of hand-to-hand fighting and bloody murder we cleared the tenacious Hun right out of the wood—at this point more than a mile thick—leaving him possessed of nothing but the far edge. We are terribly exhausted, and our losses do not bear thinking of; but we have begged, before we are withdrawn, to be permitted to capture that far edge and consolidate the whole position. Our prayer has been granted. We attack to-morrow, refreshed by a lull of four days.

“And,” observed Colonel Graham to his assembled officers, “if we Americans on the right can do our part, and swing our horn of the line clear around through Metz and Sedan, we shall have the whole German Army in a pocket. And then—may the Lord have mercy on them, for we will not!”

Colonel Graham is a comparatively new arrival among us, but we are children in his sight when it comes to experience of actual fighting. Our own commander has gone home sick, and Colonel Graham reigns in his stead. He is a regular of the old school. Soldiering is the breath of his nostrils, and the Army is his father and mother. He has been over here more than twelve months, and has seen much service with our Allies farther north.

Behold him in his headquarters, lately the property of some German gentlemen compelled for business reasons to move farther east—thick-set, hard as nails, and twinkling humorously through his spectacles upon his battle-stained disciples. Most of our friends are present—but not all. Jim Nichols is there; so is Major Floyd, who has no particular call to be there at all, for we are within a few hundred yards of the German front line, and we are to attack at dawn. It is now nearly four o’clock in the morning.

Another transient visitor is present—a young officer of the Air Service, by name Harvey Blane. His present duty is to maintain connection between the forces on the ground and the forces of the air. He has come into the line to-night in order to inform the Colonel of the arrangements concluded between the Artillery and the aeroplanes for the protection of the Infantry in the coming attack. Aviators do not vary much as a class. They are all incredibly young; they are all endowed with the undefinable but clear-cut individuality which comes to earth-dwellers who have learned to maintain themselves in some other element—sailors possess it in similar degree—and they are all intensely reticent in the presence of laymen about their experiences in the air. Such an one was young Harvey Blane.

There was a full muster of officers in the crowded dugout, for the Colonel was outlining the morrow’s operations, and pencils were busy. But Major Powers, that wise and kindly Ulysses, was not there. He was lying in one of a cluster of newly made American graves at the back of the wood which he had helped to capture.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE ELEVENTH HOUR

“Now listen to what the Intelligence Report has to say about the enemy’s defensive arrangements.

“The road leading into the Wood on the west side is said to be furnished with tank traps. Well, we don’t have any tanks to-day, so we should worry about that. (By the way, boys, remind me to tell you a story afterwards about a tank.) All indications point to the fact that the enemy battalion occupying the north side of Lapin Wood—that’s where we are now—has received orders to hold the position to the last. Well, the last will come, we hope, about five-fifteen this morning. When dislodged, it is probable that the enemy will fall back nearly two kilometres, in order to occupy prepared positions on a newly constructed line south of the village of Ventreuil. That need not worry us, because we shall be relieved as soon as we fire him out of here.… Now for machine guns! Nine machine guns have been located between points A and B on the northern edge of Lapin Wood--that is delightful—distributed as follows—Company Officers, get these down on your maps.… Wire. H’m-m-m! Three lines interwoven in the trees on north side of wood, at distance of three metres. Well, wire is the business of the Trench Mortar folks. Trenches. Enemy’s fire-trenches are situated along northern edge of wood. We have noticed them! Elements of trenches are visible on open ground behind, at points.… Take this down, please.… Miscellaneous. Bois des Loups. Flashes have been observed in this wood. They certainly have! Careful observation of the angle of fall and sound-ranging reports lead to the conclusion that there are at least three batteries of Seventy-sevens there, together with two or three heavy mortars. Well, I guess our Artillery will take care of that.”

The Colonel looked up from the Report and wiped his spectacles, which had grown dim in the humid atmosphere of the dugout.

“Machine guns will be our chief snag, I guess,” he observed. “Talking of machine guns, just how badly was Boone Cruttenden hit last week?”

“Shrapnel in the right shoulder, sir,” replied Jim Nichols. “Not very serious, I believe.”

“He did a fine piece of work,” said the Colonel. “But I want the names of all concerned, for citation. How did Boone and his bunch manage to get into that machine-gun nest at all? I have had no time to go through the official report yet. Did he creep around behind and catch them napping, or what?”

“Partly that, sir. But what helped most was the action of a single enlisted man. We were lying in a belt of trees. A clearing lay between us and the German line, which was less than two hundred yards away. The machine-gun nest was on our left front, and commanded the clearing.”

“Boone and his party,” continued Jim, “had been gone about twenty minutes on their detour through the undergrowth which was to cut out this nest. We were lying along the edge of the clearing, ready to make a supporting bayonet rush if Boone got in among them. At what I thought was the right moment I passed the word down the line for the men to be ready. And then—and then—”

“And then, sir, the darndest thing you ever saw!” proclaimed Jim, breaking away from strict technicalities in his emotion. “One of my men jumped suddenly to his feet and charged out into the middle of the clearing. He had a little flag—our flag—on the end of his bayonet, and he acted like he was stark insane.”

“His name was Smithers. Miss Sissy Smithers, the boys called him. He was a sissy, in his ways, usually.”

“He stood there shouting to the enemy to come out and fight. He yelled,—‘I see you, you Dutchmen! You Squareheads! You Slobs! Look at me! Look at this li’l old Flag! Fire on that if you dare!’ Then he held his rifle up high, with the Stars and Stripes on the end of it.”

There ran a sudden thrill around the crowded table. The American venerates his Flag in a fashion hardly comprehended by the Englishman. Every nation must worship some totem. In the Englishman this impulse finds vent in loyalty to the Crown. We love the Union Jack, and we salute it upon state occasions. But we take off our hats to the King, and pray God to save him, because he stands for a tradition that goes right back a thousand years and more. The American pins everything—national honor, national tradition, personal loyalty, everything—to Old Glory.

“For a moment,” pursued Nichols, “the enemy did nothing. He was kind of paralyzed, I guess. Then the machine guns in that nest spoke up, and poor Smithers went down. Even then he was only hit in the legs. He sat up, and waved his flag again. Then they got him in the body, and he fell on his back. But he managed to keep his rifle erect for another fifteen seconds or so. He shouted, too, as he lay—calling them cowards, and daring them to come and take the Flag. By that time the guns were trained right on him, and—he passed out. But”—Nichols’s voice rose again exultantly—“they had been so busy trying to fix poor Sissy that they never thought to look around behind them; and right then Boone and his bunch jumped in on their necks, and the nest was out of business for keeps! We went across with the supporting party and helped them clean up. Turned their own machine guns on them too, until a German field battery got to work on us.”

“I suppose that was when you got most of your casualties?” said the Colonel.

“Yes, sir. Two men killed, besides Smithers, and Boone and seven others wounded. The men were all fine. After the shelling died down at dusk, and we were settling into our new positions, two or three Huns who knew a little English started to josh us; explained how they were coming over presently to turn us out, and beat us up, and show themselves a time generally. Finally one of our men, called McCarthy, pushed his head over the sandbags, and yelled: ‘Aw, what’s the use of pulling that stuff? Is this a War, or a Chautauqua?’ That fixed them. I guess McCarthy had stepped right outside their vocabulary!”

“Great boys, great boys!” chuckled the Colonel. “They were just the same on the Hindenburg Line.” He turned to Floyd. “Our idioms there puzzled some of our British friends, Major. But between us we got the goods on old man Hindenburg, I fancy.”

“I have heard rumours to that effect, Colonel,” replied Floyd. “The coöperation was pretty good, eh?”

“It was great,” said the Colonel. “French, British, or American, it did not seem to matter who was in command. We all kept touch, and we all made our objectives. And team-work! Here is a letter I received from an Australian commander under whom we worked for quite a while. He was a busy man, but he found time to write me this.”

The Colonel produced a frayed field-despatch from the breast pocket of his tunic, and read:

CHAPTER TWELVE CHASING MONOTONY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE ELEVENTH HOUR

CHAPTER TWELVE
CHASING MONOTONY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AN EXCURSION AND AN ALARUM

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE FOREST OF THE ARGONNE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE ELEVENTH HOUR