"Dear Sir: What are you doing for your country? What are you doing to help win the war? While our brave boys are in France facing the Kaiser's shell and gas, the alumni association has directed me as secretary to call upon all the old boys of the university and invite them to do their bit for Uncle Sam's fighting men. We ask your subscription to a fund which we are raising to send cigarettes to young students of the university who are now serving with the colours and who are so nobly maintaining the traditions of our Alma Mater. Please fill out the enclosed blank, stating your profession and present occupation. Fraternally yours, —— Secretary."

The Major was watching me with a smile as I concluded reading.

"Here's my answer," he said, reading from a notebook leaf:

"Your letter reached me to-night in a warm little village in France. With regard to my present profession, will inform you that I am an expert in ammunition trafficking and am at present occupied in exporting large quantities of shells to Germany over the air route. Please find enclosed check for fifty francs for cigarettes for youngsters who, as you say, are so nobly upholding the sacred traditions of our school. After all, we old boys should do something to help along the cause. Yours to best the Kaiser. ——, Major. —— Field Artillery, U. S. A. On front in France."

"I guess that ought to hold them," said the Major as he folded the letter and addressed an envelope. It rather seemed to me that it would but before I could finish the remark, the Major was back asleep in his blankets.

By daylight, I explored the town, noting the havoc wrought by the shells that had arrived in the night. I had thought in seeing refugees moving southward along the roads, that there was little variety of articles related to human existence that they failed to carry away with them. But one inspection of the abandoned abodes of the unfortunate peasants of Serevilliers was enough to convince me of the greater variety of things that had to be left behind. Old people have saving habits and the French peasants pride themselves upon never throwing anything away.

The cottage rooms were littered with the discarded clothing of all ages, discarded but saved. Old shoes and dresses, ceremonial high hats and frock coats, brought forth only for weddings or funerals, were mixed on the floor with children's toys, prayer books and broken china. Shutters and doors hung aslant by single hinges. In the village estaminet much mud had been tracked in by exploring feet and the red tiled floor was littered with straw and pewter measuring mugs, dear to the heart of the antiquary.

The ivory balls were gone from the dust covered billiard table, but the six American soldiers billeted in the cellar beneath had overcome this discrepancy. They enjoyed after dinner billiards just the same with three large wooden balls from a croquet court in the garden. A croquet ball is a romping substitute when it hits the green cushions.

That afternoon we laid more wire across fields to the next town to the north. Men who do this job are, in my opinion, the most daring in any organisation that depends for efficiency upon uninterrupted telephone communication. For them, there is no shelter when a deluge of shells pours upon a field across which their wire is laid. Without protection of any kind from the flying steel splinters, they must go to that spot to repair the cut wires and restore communication. During one of these shelling spells, I reached cover of the road side abri and prepared to await clearer weather.

In the distance, down the road, appeared a scudding cloud of dust. An occasional shell dropping close on either side of the road seemed to add speed to the apparition. As it drew closer, I could see that it was a motor cycle of the three wheeled bathtub variety. The rider on the cycle was bending close over his handle bars and apparently giving her all there was in her, but the bulky figure that filled to overflowing the side car, rode with his head well back.

At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub contraption bounced on its springs, bow and stern rising and falling like a small ship in a rough sea. Its nearer approach revealed that the giant torso apparent above its rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment which might have marked the wearer as either the master of a four in hand or a Mississippi steamboat of the antebellum type. The enormous shoulders, thus draped, were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as chin and double chin. The whole was topped by a huge fat cigar which sprouted upward from the elevated chin and at times gave forth clouds like the forward smoke-stack on the Robert E. Lee.

I was trying to decide in my mind whether the elevated chin posture of the passenger was the result of pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's apple, when the scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting bank in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I occupied. As the machine came to halt, the superior chin depressed itself ninety degrees, and brought into view the smiling features of that smile-making gentleman from Paducah—Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine, rider and passenger stopped for breath and I made bold to ask the intrepid humourist if he suffered from a too keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar.

"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an inordinate admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge Priest explained with reference to his former stiff-necked pose, "but George here," waving to the driver, "took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The jolt almost took my head off and the wind kept me from getting it back into position. George stuck his spurs into this here flying bootblack stand just about the time something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen stove half loaded with window weights and window panes. I think George made a record for this road. I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard."

When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached the next deserted town without incident. It was almost the vesper hour or what had been the allotted time for that rite in those parts when I entered the yard of the village church, located in an exposed position at a cross roads on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable whirr sounded above and I threw myself on the ground just as the high velocity, small calibre German shell registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof and wall met.

While steel splinters whistled through the air, an avalanche of slate tiles slid down the slanting surface of the roof, and fell in a clattering cascade on the graves in the yard below. I sought speedy shelter in the lee of a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the churchyard and one of them had landed on the final resting place of the family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble slab which had sealed the top of the sunken vault had been heaved aside and one wall was shattered, leaving open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy caskets lying in an orderly row.

Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, surmounted by now unpainted wooden crosses on which were inscribed in pencil the names of French soldiers with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior. In the soil at the head of each grave, an ordinary beer bottle had been planted neck downward, and through the glass one could see the paper scroll on which the name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved. While I wondered at this prosaic method of identification, an American soldier came around the corner of the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down on an old tombstone.

"Stick around if you want to hear something good," he said, "That is if that last shell didn't bust the organ. There's a French poilu who has come up here every afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and he plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is great. Reminds me of when I was an altar boy, back in St. Paul."

We waited and soon there came from the rickety old organ loft the soothing tones of an organ. The ancient pipes, sweetened by the benedictions of ages, poured forth melody to the touch of one whose playing was simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the graves as the rays of the dying sun brought to life new colouring in the leaded windows of stained glass behind which a soldier of France swayed at the ivory keyboard and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of death and destruction that might arrive through the air any minute.

My companion informed me that the poilu at the organ wore a uniform of horizon blue which marked him as casual to this village, whose French garrisons were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki worn by all French colonials in service. The sign of the golden crescent on their collar tabs identified them as children of Mahomet and one would have known as much anyway upon seeing the use to which the large crucifix standing in what was the market place had been put.

So as not to impede traffic through the place, it had become necessary to elevate the field telephone wires from the ground and send them across the road overhead. The crucifix in the centre of the place had presented itself as excellent support for this wire and the sons of the prophet had utilised it with no intention of disrespect. The uplifted right knee of the figure on the cross was insulated and wired. War, the moderniser and mocker of Christ, seemed to have devised new pain for the Teacher of Peace. The crucifixion had become the electrocution.

At the foot of the cross had been nailed a rudely made sign conveying to all who passed the French warning that this was an exposed crossing and should be negotiated rapidly. Fifty yards away another board bore the red letters R. A. S. and by following the direction indicated by arrows, one arrived at the cellar in which the American doctor had established a Relief Aid Station. The Medico had furnished his subterranean apartments with furniture removed from the house above.

"Might as well bring it down here and make the boys comfortable," he said, "as to leave it up there and let shells make kindling out of it. Funny thing about these cellars. Ones with western exposure—that is, with doors and ventilators opening on the side away from the enemy seem scarcest. That seems to have been enough to have revived all that talk about German architects having had something to do with the erection of those buildings before the war. You remember at one time it was said that a number of houses on the front had been found to have plaster walls on the side nearest the enemy and stone walls on the other side. There might be something to it, but I doubt it."

Across the street an American battalion headquarters had been established on the first floor and in the basement of the house, which appeared the most pretentious in the village. Telephone wires now entered the building through broken window panes, and within maps had been tacked to plaster walls and the furniture submitted to the hard usage demanded by war. An old man conspicuous by his civilian clothes wandered about the yard here and there, picking up some stray implement or nick-nack, hanging it up on a wall or placing it carefully aside.

"There's a tragedy," the battalion commander told me. "That man is mayor of this town. He was forced to flee with the rest of the civilians. He returned to-day to look over the ruins. This is his house we occupy. I explained that much of it is as we found it, but that we undoubtedly have broken some things. I could see that every broken chair and window and plate meant a heart throb to him, but he only looked up at me with his wrinkled old face and smiled as he said, 'It is all right, Monsieur. I understand. C'est la guerre.'"

The old man opened one of his barn doors, revealing a floor littered with straw and a fringe of hobnailed American boots. A night-working detail was asleep in blankets. A sleepy voice growled out something about closing the door again and the old man with a polite, "Pardonnez-moi, messieurs," swung the wooden portal softly shut. His home—his house—his barn—his straw—c'est la guerre.

An evening meal of "corn willy" served on some of the Mayor's remaining chinaware, was concluded by a final course of fresh spring onions. These came from the Mayor's own garden just outside the door. As the cook affirmed, it was no difficulty to gather them.

"Every night Germans drop shells in the garden," he said. "I don't even have to pull 'em. Just go out in the morning and pick 'em up off the ground."

I spent part of the night in gun pits along the road side, bordering the town. This particular battery of heavies was engaged on a night long programme of interdiction fire laid down with irregular intensity on cross roads and communication points in the enemy's back areas. Under screens of camouflage netting, these howitzers with mottled bores squatting frog-like on their carriages, intermittently vomited flame, red, green and orange. The detonations were ear-splitting and cannoneers relieved the recurring shocks by clapping their hands to the sides of their head and balancing on the toes each time the lanyard was pulled.

Infantry reserves were swinging along in the road directly in back of the guns. They were moving up to forward positions and they sang in an undertone as they moved in open order.

"Glor—ree—us, Glor—ree—us! One keg of beer for the four of us. Glory be to Mike there are no more of us, For four of us can drink it all alone."

Some of these marchers would come during an interval of silence to a position on the road not ten feet from a darkened, camouflaged howitzer just as it would shatter the air with a deafening crash. The suddenness and unexpectedness of the detonation would make the marchers start and jump involuntarily. Upon such occasions, the gun crews would laugh heartily and indulge in good natured raillery with the infantrymen.

"Whoa, Johnny Doughboy, don't you get frightened. We were just shipping a load of sauerkraut to the Kaiser," said one ear-hardened gunner. "Haven't you heard the orders against running your horses? Come down to a gallop and take it easy."

"Gwan, you leatherneck," returns an infantryman, "You smell like a livery stable. Better trade that pitchfork for a bayonet and come on up where there's some fighting."

"Don't worry about the fighting, little doughboy," came another voice from the dark gun pit. "This is a tray forte sector. If you don't get killed the first eight days, the orders is to shoot you for loafing. You're marching over what's called 'the road you don't come back on.'"

A train of ammunition trucks, timed to arrive at the moment when the road was unoccupied, put in appearance as the end of the infantry column passed, and the captain in charge urged the men on to speedy unloading and fumed over delays by reason of darkness. The men received big shells in their arms and carried them to the roadside dumps where they were piled in readiness for the guns. The road was in an exposed position and this active battery was liable to draw enemy fire at any time, so the ammunition train captain was anxious to get his charges away in a hurry.

His fears were not without foundation, because in the midst of the unloading, one German missile arrived in a nearby field and sprayed the roadway with steel just as every one flattened out on the ground. Five ammunition hustlers arose with minor cuts and one driver was swearing at the shell fragment which had gone through the radiator of his truck and liberated the water contents. The unloading was completed with all speed, and the ammunition train moved off, towing a disabled truck. With some of the gunners who had helped in unloading, I crawled into the chalk dugout to share sleeping quarters in the straw.

"What paper do you represent?" one man asked me as he sat in the straw, unwrapping his puttees. I told him.

"Do you want to know the most popular publication around this place?" he asked, and I replied affirmatively.

"It's called the Daily Woollen Undershirt," he said. "Haven't you seen everybody sitting along the roadside reading theirs and trying to keep up with things? Believe me, it's some reading-matter, too."

"Don't let him kid you," said the section chief, "I haven't had to read mine yet. The doctor fixed up the baths in town and yesterday he passed around those flea charms. Have you seen them?"

For our joint inspection there was passed the string necklace with two linen tabs soaked in aromatic oil of cedar, while the section chief gave an impromptu lecture on personal sanitation. It was concluded by a peremptory order from without for extinction of all lights. The candle stuck on the helmet top was snuffed and we lay down in darkness with the guns booming away on either side.

* * * * *

Our positions were located in a country almost as new to war as were the fields of Flanders in the fall of '14. A little over a month before it had all been peaceful farming land, far behind the belligerent lines. Upon our arrival, its sprouting fields of late wheat and oats were untended and bearing their first harvest of shell craters.

The abandoned villages now occupied by troops told once more the mute tales of the homeless. The villagers, old men, old women and children, had fled, driving before them their cows and farm animals even as they themselves had been driven back by the train of German shells. In their deserted cottages remained the fresh traces of their departure and the ruthless rupturing of home ties, generations old.

On every hand were evidences of the reborn war of semi-movement. One day I would see a battery of light guns swing into position by a roadside, see an observing officer mount by ladder to a tree top and direct the firing of numberless rounds into the rumbling east. By the next morning, they would have changed position, rumbled off to other parts, leaving beside the road only the marks of their cannon wheels and mounds of empty shell cases.

Between our infantry lines and those of the German, there was yet to grow the complete web of woven wire entanglements that marred the landscapes on the long established fronts. Still standing, silent sentinels over some of our front line positions were trees, church steeples, dwellings and barns that as yet had not been levelled to the ground. Dugouts had begun to show their entrances in the surface of the ground and cross roads had started to sprout with rudely constructed shelters. Fat sandbags were just taking the places of potted geraniums on the sills of first floor windows. War's toll was being exacted daily, but the country had yet to pay the full price. It was going through that process of degeneration toward the stripped and barren but it still held much of its erstwhile beauty.

Those days before Cantigny were marked by particularly heavy artillery fire. The ordnance duel was unrelenting and the daily exchange of shells reached an aggregate far in excess of anything that the First Division had ever experienced before.

Nightly the back areas of the front were shattered with shells. The German was much interested in preventing us from bringing up supplies and munition. We manifested the same interest toward him. American batteries firing at long range, harassed the road intersections behind the enemy's line and wooded places where relief troops might have been assembled under cover of darkness. The expenditure of shells was enormous but it continued practically twenty-four hours a day. German prisoners, shaking from the nervous effects of the pounding, certified to the untiring efforts of our gunners.

The small nameless village that we occupied almost opposite the German position in Cantigny seemed to receive particular attention from the enemy artillery. In retaliation, our guns almost levelled Cantigny and a nearby village which the enemy occupied. Every hour, under the rain of death, the work of digging was continued and the men doing it needed no urging from their officers. There was something sinister and emphatic about the whine of a "two ten German H. E." that inspired one with a desire to start for the antipodes by the shortest and most direct route.

The number of arrivals by way of the air in that particular village every day numbered high in the thousands. Under such conditions, no life-loving human could have failed to produce the last degree of utility out of a spade. The continual dropping of shells in the ruins and the unending fountains of chalk dust and dirt left little for the imagination, but one officer told me that it reminded him of living in a room where some one was eternally beating the carpet.

This taste of the war of semi-movement was appreciated by the American soldier. It had in it a dash of novelty, lacking in the position warfare to which he had become accustomed in the mud and marsh of the Moselle and the Meuse. For one thing, there were better and cleaner billets than had ever been encountered before by our men. Fresh, unthrashed oats and fragrant hay had been found in the hurriedly abandoned lofts back of the line and in the caves and cellars nearer the front.

In many places the men were sleeping on feather mattresses in old-fashioned wooden bedsteads that had been removed from jeopardy above ground to comparative safety below. Whole caves were furnished, and not badly furnished, by this salvage of furniture, much of which would have brought fancy prices in any collection of antiques.

Forced to a recognition solely of intrinsic values, our men made prompt utilisation of much of the material abandoned by the civilian population. Home in the field is where a soldier sleeps and after all, why not have it as comfortable as his surroundings will afford? Those caves and vegetable cellars, many with walls and vaulted ceilings of clean red brick or white blocks of chalk, constituted excellent shelters from shell splinters and even protected the men from direct hits by missiles of small calibre.

Beyond the villages, our riflemen found protection in quickly scraped holes in the ground. There were some trenches but they were not contiguous. "No Man's Land" was an area of uncertain boundary. Our gunners had quarters burrowed into the chalk not far from their gun pits. All communication and the bringing up of shells and food were conducted under cover of darkness. Under such conditions, we lived and waited for the order to go forward.

Our sector in that battle of the Somme was so situated that the opposing lines ran north and south. The enemy was between us and the rising sun. Behind our rear echelons was the main road between Amiens and Beauvais. Amiens, the objective of the German drive, was thirty-five kilometres away on our left, Beauvais was the same distance on our right and two hours by train from Paris.

We were eager for the fight. The graves of our dead dotted new fields in France. We were holding with the French on the Picardy line. We were between the Germans and the sea. We were before Cantigny.



CHAPTER XIII

THE RUSH OF THE RAIDERS—"ZERO AT 2 A. M."

While the First U. S. Division was executing in Picardy a small, planned operation which resulted in the capture of the German fortified positions in the town of Cantigny, other American divisions at other parts along the line were indulging in that most common of frontal diversions—the raid.

I was a party to one of these affairs on the Toul front. The 26th Division, composed of National Guard troops from New England, made the raid. On Memorial Day, I had seen those men of the Yankee Division decorating the graves of their dead in a little cemetery back of the line. By the dawning light of the next morning, I saw them come trooping back across No Man's Land after successfully decorating the enemy positions with German graves.

It was evening when we dismissed our motor in the ruined village of Hamondville and came into first contact with the American soldiers that had been selected for the raid. Their engineers were at work in the street connecting sections of long dynamite-loaded pipes which were to be used to blast an ingress through the enemy's wire. In interested circles about them were men who were to make the dash through the break even before the smoke cleared and the debris ceased falling. They were to be distinguished from the village garrison by the fact that the helmets worn by the raiders were covered with burlap and some of them had their faces blackened.

In the failing evening light, we walked on through several heaps of stone and rafters that had once been villages, and were stopped by a military policeman who inquired in broad Irish brogue for our passes. These meeting with his satisfaction, he advised us to avoid the road ahead with its dangerous twist, known as "Dead Man's Curve," for the reason that the enemy was at that minute placing his evening contribution of shells in that vicinity. Acting on the policeman's suggestion, we took a short cut across fields rich with shell holes. Old craters were grown over with the grass and mustard flowers with which this country abounds at this time of year. Newer punctures showed as wounds in the yellow soil and contained pools of evil-smelling water, green with scum.

Under the protection of a ridge, which at least screened us from direct enemy observation, we advanced toward the jagged skyline of a ruined village on the crest. The odour of open graves befouled the sheltered slope, indicating that enemy shells had penetrated its small protection and disturbed the final dugouts of the fallen.

Once in the village of Beaumont, we followed the winding duckboards and were led by small signs painted on wood to the colonel's headquarters. We descended the stone steps beneath a rickety looking ruin and entered.

"Guests for our party," was the Colonel's greeting. The command post had a long narrow interior which was well lighted but poorly ventilated, the walls and floor were of wood and a low beamed ceiling was supported by timbers. "Well, I think it will be a good show."

"We are sending over a little party of new boys just for practice and a 'look-see' in Hunland. We have two companies in this regiment which feel they've sorter been left out on most of the fun to date, so this affair has been arranged for them. We put the plans together last week and pushed the boys through three days of training for it back of the lines. They're fit as fiddlers to-night and it looks like there'll be no interruption to their pleasure.

"No one man in the world, be he correspondent or soldier, could see every angle of even so small a thing as a little raid like this," the Colonel explained. "What you can't see you have got to imagine. I'm suggesting that you stay right in here for the show. That telephone on my adjutant's desk is the web centre of all things occurring in this sector to-night and the closer you are to it, the more you can see and learn. Lieutenant Warren will take you up the road first and give you a look out of the observatory, so you'll know in what part of Germany our tourists are going to explore."

Darkness had fallen when we emerged, but there were sufficient stars out to show up the outline of the gaping walls on either side of our way. We passed a number of sentries and entered a black hole in the wall of a ruin. After stumbling over the uneven floor in a darkened passage for some minutes, we entered a small room where several officers were gathered around a table on which two burning candles were stuck in bottles. Our guide, stepping to one end of the room, pulled aside a blanket curtain and passed through a narrow doorway. We followed.

Up a narrow, steep, wooden stairway between two walls of solid masonry, not over two feet apart, we passed, and arrived on a none too stable wooded runway with a guide rail on either side. Looking up through the ragged remains of the wooden roof frame, now almost nude of tiles, we could see the starry sky. Proceeding along the runway, we arrived, somewhere in that cluster of ruins, in a darkened chamber whose interior blackness was relieved by a lighter slit, an opening facing the enemy.

Against the starry skyline, we could see the black outline of a flat tableland in the left distance which we knew to be that part of the heights of Meuse for whose commanding ridge there have been so many violent contests between the close-locked lines in the forest of Apremont. More to the centre of the picture, stood Mont Sec, detached from the range and pushing its summit up through the lowland mist like the dorsal fin of a porpoise in a calm sea. On the right the lowland extended to indistinct distances, where it blended with the horizon.

In all that expanse of quiet night, there was not a single flicker of light, and at that time not a sound to indicate that unmentionable numbers of our men were facing one another in parallel ditches across the silent moor.

"See that clump of trees way out there?" said the lieutenant, directing our vision with his arm. "Now then, hold your hand at arm's length in front of you, straight along a line from your eyes along the left edge of your hand to that clump of trees. Now then, look right along the right edge of your hand and you will be looking at Richecourt. The Boche hold it. We go in on the right of that to-night."

We looked as per instructions and saw nothing. As far as we were concerned Richecourt was a daylight view, but these owls of the lookout knew its location as well as they knew the streets of their native towns back in New England. We returned to the colonel's command post, where cots were provided, and we turned in for a few hours' sleep on the promise of being called in time.

It was 2 A. M. when we were summoned to command post for the colonel's explanation of the night's plans. The regimental commander, smoking a long pipe with a curved stem, sat in front of a map on which he conducted the exposition.

"Here," he said, placing his finger on a section of the line marking the American trenches, "is the point of departure. That's the jumping off place. These X marks running between the lines is the enemy wire, and here, and here, and here are where we blow it up. We reach the German trenches at these points and clean up. Then the men follow the enemy communicating trenches, penetrate three hundred metres to the east edge of Richecourt, and return.

"Zero hour is 2:30. It's now 2:10. Our raiders have left their trenches already. They are out in No Man's Land now. The engineers are with them carrying explosives for the wire. There are stretcher bearers in the party to bring back our wounded and also signal men right behind them with wire and one telephone. The reports from that wire are relayed here and we will also be kept informed by runners. The whole party has thirty minutes in which to crawl forward and place explosives under the wire. They will have things in readiness by 2:30 and then the show begins."

Five minutes before the hour, I stepped out of the dugout and looked at the silent sky toward the front. Not even a star shell disturbed the blue black starlight. The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all this was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash and crash. There is always that minute of uncertainty before the raiding hour when the tensity of the situation becomes almost painful. Has the enemy happened to become aware of the plans? Have our men been deprived of the needed element of surprise? But for the thousands of metres behind us, we know that in black battery pits anxious crews are standing beside their loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the jerk of the lanyard.

Suddenly the earth trembles. Through the dugout window facing back from the lines, I see the night sky burst livid with light. A second later and the crash reaches our ears. It is deafening. Now we hear the whine of shells as they burn the air overhead. The telephone bell rings.

"Yes, this is Boston," the Adjutant speaks into the receiver. We listen breathlessly. Has something gone wrong at the last minute?

"Right, I have it," said the Adjutant, hanging up the receiver and turning to the Colonel; "X-4 reports barrage dropped on schedule."

"Good," said the Colonel. "Gentlemen, here's what's happening. Our shells are this minute falling all along the German front line, in front of the part selected for the raid and on both flanks. Now then, this section of the enemy's position is confined in a box barrage which is pounding in his front and is placing a curtain of fire on his left and his right and another in his rear. Any German within the confines of that box trying to get out will have a damn hard time and so will any who try to come through it to help him."

"Boston talking," the Adjutant is making answer over the telephone. He repeats the message. "233, all the wire blown up, right."

"Fine," says the Colonel. "Now they are advancing and right in front of them is another rolling barrage of shells which is creeping forward on the German lines at the same pace our men are walking. They are walking in extended order behind it. At the same time our artillery has taken care of the enemy's guns by this time so that no German barrage will be able to come down on our raiders. Our guns for the last three minutes have been dumping gas and high explosives on every battery position behind the German lines. That's called 'Neutralisation.'"

"Boston talking." The room grows quiet again as the Adjutant takes the message.

"2:36. Y-1 reports O. K."

"Everything fine and dandy," the Colonel observes, smiling.

"Boston talking." There is a pause.

"2:39. G-7 reports sending up three red rockets east of A-19. The operator thinks it's a signal for outposts to withdraw and also for counter barrage."

"Too late," snaps the Colonel. "There's a reception committee in Hades waiting for 'em right now."

At 2:40 the dugout door opens and in walks Doc Comfort from the Red Cross First Aid Station across the road.

"Certainly is a pretty sight, Colonel. Fritzies' front door is lit up like a cathedral at high mass."

At 2:41. "A very good beginning," remarks a short, fat French Major who sits beside the Colonel. He represents the French army corps.

2:43. "Boston talking,—Lieutenant Kernan reports everything quiet in his sector."

2:45. "Boston talking," the Adjutant turns to the Colonel and repeats, "Pittsburgh wants to know if there's much coming in here."

"Tell them nothing to amount to anything," replies the Colonel and the Adjutant repeats the message over the wire. As he finished, one German shell did land so close to the dugout that the door blew open. The officer stepped to the opening and called out into the darkness.

"Gas guard. Smell anything?"

"Nothing, sir. Think they are only high explosives."

2:47. "Boston talking—enemy sent up one red, one green rocket and then three green rockets from B-14," the Adjutant repeats.

"Where is that report from?" asks the Colonel.

"The operator at Jamestown, sir," replies the Adjutant.

"Be ready for some gas, gentlemen," says the Colonel. "I think that's Fritzie's order for the stink. Orderly, put down gas covers on the doors and windows."

I watched the man unroll the chemically dampened blankets over the doors and windows.

2:49. "Boston talking—23 calls for barrage."

The Colonel and Major turn immediately to the wall map, placing a finger on 23 position.

"Hum," says the Colonel. "Counter attack, hey? Well, the barrage will take care of them, but get me Watson on the line."

"Connect me with Nantucket," the Adjutant asks the operator. "Hello, Watson, just a minute," turning to Colonel, "here's Watson, sir."

"Hello, Watson," the Colonel says, taking the receiver. "This is Yellow Jacket. Watch out for counter attack against 23. Place your men in readiness and be prepared to support Michel on your right. That's all," returning 'phone to the Adjutant, "Get me Mr. Lake."

While the Adjutant made the connection, the Colonel explained quickly the planned flanking movement on the map. "If they come over there," he said to the French Major, "not a God-damn one of them will ever get back alive."

The French Major made a note in his report book.

"Hello, Lake," the Colonel says, taking the 'phone. "This is Yellow Jacket. Keep your runners in close touch with Michel and Watson. Call me if anything happens. That's all."

3:00. "Boston talking—G-2 reports all O.K. Still waiting for the message from Worth."

3:02. "Storming party reports unhindered progress. No enemy encountered yet."

This was the first message back from the raiders. It had been sent over the wire and the instruments they carried with them and then relayed to the Colonel's command post.

"Magnifique," says the French Major.

3:04. "Boston talking. X-10 reports gas in Bois des Seicheprey."

3:05. "Boston talking. Hello, yes, nothing coming in here to amount to anything. Just had a gas warning but none arrived yet."

3:07. "Boston talking,——Yes, all right" (turning to Colonel), "operator just received message from storming party 'so far so good.'"

"Not so bad for thirty-seven minutes after opening of the operation," remarks the Colonel.

"What is 'so far so good'?" inquires the French Major, whose knowledge of English did not extend to idioms. Some one explained.

3:09. "Boston talking—Watson reports all quiet around 23 now."

"Guess that barrage changed their minds," remarks the Colonel.

With gas mask at alert, I walked out for a breath of fresh air. The atmosphere in a crowded dugout is stifling. From guns still roaring in the rear and from in front came the trampling sound of shells arriving on German positions. The first hints of dawn were in the sky. I returned in time to note the hour and hear:

3:18. "Boston talking—O-P reports enemy dropping line of shells from B-4 to B-8."

"Trying to get the boys coming back, hey?" remarks the Colonel. "A fat chance. They're not coming back that way."

3:21. "Boston talking—23 reports that the barrage called for in their sector was because the enemy had advanced within two hundred yards of his first position. Evidently they wanted to start something, but the barrage nipped them and they fell back fast."

"Perfect," says the French Major.

3:25. "Boston talking—two green and two red rockets were sent up by the enemy from behind Richecourt."

"Hell with 'em, now," the Colonel remarks.

3:28. "Boston talking—all O. K. in Z-2. Still waiting to hear from Michel."

"I rather wish they had developed their counter attack," says the Colonel. "I have a reserve that would certainly give them an awful wallop."

3:30. "Boston talking—more gas in Bois des Seicheprey."

3:33. "Boston talking—white stars reported from Richecourt."

"They must be on their way back by this time," says the Colonel, looking at his watch.

3:37. "Boston talking,—enemy now shelling on the north edge of the town. A little gas."

3:40. "Boston talking—X-1 reports some enemy long range retaliation on our right.

"They'd better come back the other way," says the Colonel.

"That was the intention, sir," the lieutenant reported from across the room.

3:42. "Boston talking—signalman with the party reports everything O. K."

"We don't know yet whether they have had any losses or got any prisoners," the Colonel remarks. "But the mechanism seems to have functioned just as well as it did in the last raid. We didn't get a prisoner that time, but I sorter feel that the boys will bring back a couple with them to-night."

3:49. "Boston talking—G-9 reports some of the raiding party has returned and passed that point."

"Came back pretty quick, don't you think so, Major?" said the Colonel with some pride. "Must have returned over the top."

It is 3:55 when we hear fast footsteps on the stone stairs leading down to the dugout entrance. There is a sharp rap on the door followed by the Colonel's command, "Come in."

A medium height private of stocky build, with shoulders heaving from laboured breathing and face wet with sweat, enters. He removes his helmet, revealing disordered blonde hair. He faces the Colonel and salutes.

"Sir, Sergeant Ransom reports with message from Liaison officer. All groups reached the objectives. No enemy encountered on the right, but a party on the left is believed to be returning with prisoners. We blew up their dugouts and left their front line in flames."

"Good work, boy," says the Colonel, rising and shaking the runner's hand. "You got here damn quick. Did you come by the Lincoln trench?"

"No, sir, I came over the top from the battalion post. Would have been here quicker, but two of us had to carry back one boy to that point before I could get relieved."

"Wounded?"

"No, sir,—dead."

"Who was it?" asks the young lieutenant.

"Private Kater, sir, my squad mate."

As the sergeant raised his hand in parting salute, all of us saw suspended from his right wrist a most formidable weapon, apparently of his own construction. It was a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one end and the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled up like a ball of yarn. He smiled as he noticed our gaze.

"It's the persuader, sir," he said. "We all carried them."

He had hardly quitted the door when another heavily breathing figure with shirt half torn off by barbed wire appeared.

"K Company got there, sir; beg pardon, sir. I mean sir, Sergeant Wiltur reports, sir, with message from Liaison officer. All groups reached the objectives. They left their dugouts blazing and brought back one machine gun and three prisoners."

"Very good, Sergeant," said the Colonel. "Orderly, get some coffee for these runners."

"I'd like to see the doctor first, sir," said the runner with the torn shirt. "Got my hand and arm cut in the wire."

"Very well," said the Colonel, turning to the rest of the party, "I knew my boys would bring back bacon."

More footsteps on the entrance stairway and two men entered carrying something between them. Sweat had streaked through the charcoal coating on their faces leaving striped zebra-like countenances.

"Lieutenant Burlon's compliments, sir," said the first man. "Here's one of their machine guns."

"Who got it?" inquired the Colonel.

"Me and him, sir."

"How did you get it?"

"We just rolled 'em off it and took it."

"Rolled who off of it?"

"Two Germans, sir."

"What were they doing all that time?"

"Why, sir, they weren't doing anything. They were dead."

"Oh, very well, then," said the Colonel. "How did you happen to find the machine gun?"

"We knew where it was before we went over, sir," said the man simply. "We were assigned to get it and bring it back. We expected we'd have to fight for it, but I guess our barrage laid out the crew. Anyhow we rushed to the position and found them dead."

"All right," said the Colonel, "return to your platoon. Leave the gun here. It will be returned to you later and will be your property."

I went out with the machine gun captors and walked with them to the road. There was the hum of motors high overhead and we knew that American planes were above, going forward to observe and photograph German positions before the effects of our bombardments could be repaired. A line of flame and smoke pouring up from the enemy's front line showed where their dugouts and shelters were still burning.

Daylight was pouring down on a ruined village street, up which marched the returning raiders without thought of order. They were a happy, gleeful party, with helmets tipped back from their young faces wet and dirty, with rifles swung over their shoulders and the persuaders dangling from their wrists. Most of them were up to their knees and their wrap puttees were mostly in tatters from the contact with the entanglements through which they had penetrated.

As they approached, I saw the cause for some of the jocularity. It was a chubby, little, boyish figure, who sat perched up on the right shoulder of a tall, husky Irish sergeant. The figure steadied itself by grasping the sergeant's helmet with his left hand. The sergeant steadied him by holding one right arm around his legs.

But there was no smile on the face of the thus transformed object. His chubby countenance was one of easily understood concern. He was not a day over sixteen years and this was quite some experience for him. He was one of the German prisoners and these happy youngsters from across the seas were bringing him in almost with as much importance as though he had been a football hero. He was unhurt and it was unnecessary to carry him, but this tribute was voluntarily added, not only as an indication of extreme interest, but to reassure the juvenile captive of the kindly intentions of his captors.

"Jiggers, here's the Colonel's dugout," one voice shouted. "Put him down to walk, now."

The big sergeant acted on the suggestion and the little Fritz was lowered to the ground. He immediately caught step with the big sergeant and took up the latter's long stride with his short legs and feet encased in clumsy German boots. His soiled uniform had been the German field grey green. His helmet was gone but he wore well back on his head the flat round cloth cap. With his fat cheeks he looked like a typical baker's boy, and one almost expected to see him carrying a tray of rolls on his head.

"For the luva Mike, Tim," shouted an ambulance man, "do you call that a prisoner?"

"Sure he does look like a half portion," replied Sergeant Tim with a smile. "We got two hundred francs for a whole one. I don't know what we can cash this one in for."

"He ought to be worth more," some one said; "that barrage cost a million dollars. He's the million dollar baby of the raid."

"Sergeant, I'm not kidding," came one serious voice. "Why turn him in as a prisoner? I like the kid's looks. Why can't we keep him for the company mascot?"

The discussion ended when the Sergeant and his small charge disappeared in the Colonel's quarters for the inevitable questioning that all prisoners must go through. Several wounded were lying on the stretchers in front of the first aid dugout waiting for returning ambulances and passing the time meanwhile by smoking cigarettes and explaining how close each of them had been to the shell that exploded and "got 'em."

But little of the talk was devoted to themselves. They were all praise for the little chaplain from New England who, without arms, went over the top with "his boys" and came back with them. It was their opinion that their regiment had some sky pilot. And it was mine, also.



CHAPTER XIV

ON LEAVE IN PARIS

"So this—is Paris,"—this observation spoken in mock seriousness, in a George Cohan nasal drawl and accompanied by a stiff and stagy wave of the arm, was the customary facetious pass-word with which American soldiers on leave or on mission announced their presence in the capital of France.

Paris, the beautiful—Paris, the gay—Paris, the historical—Paris, the artistic—Paris, the only Paris, opened her arms to the American soldier and proceeded toward his enlightenment and entertainment on the sole policy that nothing was too good for him.

I saw the first American soldiers under arms reach Paris. It was early in the morning of July 3rd, 1917, when this first American troop train pulled into the Gare d'Austerlitz. It was early in the morning, yet Paris was there to give them a welcome. The streets outside the station were jammed with crowds. They had seen Pershing; they had seen our staff officers and headquarters details, but now they wanted to see the type of our actual fighting men—they wanted to see the American poilus—the men who were to carry the Stars and Stripes over the top.

The men left the cars and lined up in the station yard. It had been a long, fifteen hour night ride and the cramped quarters of the troop train had permitted but little sleep. There was no opportunity for them to breakfast or wash before they were put on exhibition. Naturally, they were somewhat nervous.

The standing line was ordered to produce its mess cups and hold them forward. Down the line came a bevy of pretty French girls, wearing the uniform of Red Cross nurses. They carried canisters of black coffee and baskets of cigarettes. They ladled out steaming cupfuls of the black liquid to the men. The incident gave our men their first surprise.

Rum or alcohol has never been a part of the United States army ration. In the memory of the oldest old-timers in the ranks of our old regular army, "joy water" had never been issued. On the other hand, its use had always been strictly forbidden in the company messes. Our men never expected it. Thus it was that, with no other idea occurring to them, they extended their mess cups to be filled with what they thought was simply strong hot coffee. Not one of them had the slightest suspicion that the French cooks who had prepared that coffee for their new American brothers in arms, had put a stick in it—had added just that portion of cognac which they had considered necessary to open a man's eyes and make him pick up his heels after a long night in a troop train.

I watched one old-timer in the ranks as he lifted the tin cup to his lips and took the initial gulp. Then he lowered the cup. Across his face there dawned first an expression of curious suspicion, then a look of satisfied recognition, and then a smile of pleased surprise, which he followed with an audible smacking of the lips. He finished the cup and allowed quite casually that he could stand another.

"So this is Paris,"—well, it wasn't half bad to start with. With that "coffee" under their belts, the men responded snappily to the march order, and in column of four, they swung into line and moved out of the station yard, at the heels of their own band, which played a stirring marching air.

Paris claimed them for her own. All that the war had left of Paris' gay life, all the lights that still burned, all the music that still played, all the pretty smiles that had never been reduced in their quality or quantity, all that Paris had to make one care-free and glad to be alive—all belonged that day to that pioneer band of American infantrymen.

The women kissed them on the street. Grey-headed men removed their hats to them and shook their hands and street boys followed in groups at their heels making the air ring with shrill "Vive's." There were not many of them, only three companies. The men looked trim and clean-cut. They were tall and husky-looking and the snap with which they walked was good to the eyes of old Paris that loves verve.

With a thirty-two-inch stride that made their following admirers stretch their legs, the boys in khaki marched from the Austerlitz station to the Neuilly barracks over a mile away, where they went into quarters. Paris was in gala attire. In preparation for the celebration of the following day, the shop windows and building fronts were decked with American flags.

Along the line of march, traffic piled up at the street intersections and the gendarmes were unable to prevent the crowds from overflowing the sidewalks and pressing out into the streets where they could smile their greetings and throw flowers at closer range. A sergeant flanking a column stopped involuntarily when a woman on the curb reached out, grabbed his free hand, and kissed it. A snicker ran through the platoon as the sergeant, with face red beneath the tan, withdrew his hand and recaught his step. He gave the snickering squads a stern, "Eyes front!" and tried to look at ease.

How the bands played that day! How the crowds cheered! How the flags and handkerchiefs and hats waved in the air, and how thousands of throats volleyed the "Vive's!" This was the reception of our first fighting men. But on the following day they received even a greater demonstration, when they marched through the streets of the city on parade, and participated in the first Parisian celebration of American Independence Day.

Parisians said that never before had Paris shown so many flags, not even during the days three years before, when the sons of France had marched away to keep the Germans out of Paris. It seemed that the customary clusters of Allied flags had been almost entirely replaced for the day by groups composed solely of the French tri-colour and the Stars and Stripes. Taxis and fiacres flew flags and bunting from all attachable places. Flag venders did wholesale business on the crowded streets. Street singers sang patriotic parodies, eulogising Uncle Sam and his nephews, and garnered harvests of sous for their efforts.

The three companies of our regulars marched with a regiment of French colonials, all veterans of the war and many of them incapacitated for front service through wounds and age. French soldiers on leave from the trenches and still bearing the mud stains of the battle front life, cheered from the sidewalks. Bevies of middinettes waved their aprons from the windows of millinery shops. Some of them shouted, "Vive les Teddies!" America—the great, good America—the sister republic from across the seas was spoken of and shouted all day long. Paris capitulated unconditionally to three companies of American infantry.

From that day on, every American soldier visiting Paris has been made to feel himself at home. And the unrestricted hospitality did not seem to be the result of an initial wave of enthusiasm. It was continuous. For months afterward, any one wearing an American uniform along the boulevards could hear behind him dulcet whispers that carried the words tres gentil.

At first, our enlisted men on leave in Paris or detailed for work in the city, were quartered in the old Pipincerie Barracks, where other soldiers from all of the Allied armies in the world were quartered. Our men mingled with British Tommies, swarthy Italians and Portuguese, tall blond Russians, French poilus, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. At considerable expense to these comrades in arms, our men instructed them in the all-American art of plain and fancy dice rolling.

Later when our numbers in Paris increased, other arrangements for housing were made. The American policing of Paris, under the direction of the Expeditionary Provost General, Brigadier General Hillaire, was turned over to the Marines. Whether it was that our men conducted themselves in Paris with the orderliness of a guest at the home of his host, or whether it was that the Marines with their remarkable discipline suppressed from all view any too hearty outbursts of American exuberance, it must be said that the appearance and the bearing of American soldiers in Paris were always above reproach.

I have never heard of one being seen intoxicated in Paris, in spite of the fact that more opportunities presented themselves for drinking than had ever before been presented to an American army. The privilege of sitting at a table in front of a sidewalk cafe on a busy boulevard and drinking a small glass of beer unmolested, was one that our men did not take advantage of. It was against the law to serve any of the stronger liqueurs to men in uniform, but beer and light wines were obtainable all the time. All cafes closed at 9:30. In spite of the ever present opportunity to obtain beverages of the above character, there was many and many an American soldier who tramped the boulevards and canvassed the cafes, drug stores and delicatessen shops in search of a much-desired inexistent, ice cream soda.

Many of our men spent their days most seriously and most studiously, learning the mysteries of transportation on the busses and the Paris underground system, while they pored over their guide books and digested pages of information concerning the points of interest that Paris had to offer. Holidays found them shuffling through the tiled corridors of the Invalides or looking down into the deep crypt at the granite tomb of the great Napoleon. In the galleries of the Louvre, the gardens of the Tuilleries, or at the Luxembourg, the American uniform was ever present. At least one day out of every ten day leave was spent in the palace and the grounds at Versailles.

The theatres of Paris offered a continual change of amusement. One of the most popular among these was the Folies Bergeres. Some of our men didn't realise until after they entered the place that it was a French theatre. Due to the French pronunciation of the name, some of the American soldiers got the idea that it was a saloon run by an Irishman by the name of Foley. "Bergere" to some was unpronounceable, so the Folies Bergeres was most popularly known in our ranks as "Foley's place."

Another popular amusement place was the Casino de Paris, where an echo from America was supplied by an American negro jazz band, which dispensed its questionable music in the promenoir during the intermission. There were five negroes in the orchestra and each one of them seemed to have an ardent dislike for the remaining four. Individually they manifested their mutual contempt by turning their backs on one another while they played. Strange as it may seem, a most fascinating type of harmony resulted, producing much swaying of shoulders, nodding of heads and snapping of fingers among the American soldiers in the crowd. French men and women, with their old world musical taste, would consider the musical gymnastics of the demented drummer in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and come to the conclusion that the world had gone plumb to hell.

All types of American soldiers made Paris their mecca as soon as the desired permissions had been granted. One day I sat opposite a remarkable type whom I found dining in a small restaurant. I noticed the absence of either beer or wine with his meal, and he frankly explained that he had never tasted either in his life. He thanked me, but refused to accept a cigarette I offered, saying without aside that he had yet his first one to smoke. When I heard him tell Madame that he did not care for coffee, I asked him why, and he told me that his mother had always told him it was injurious and he had never tasted it.

I became more interested in this ideal, young American soldier and questioned him about his life. I found that he and his father had worked in the copper mines in Michigan. They were both strong advocates of union labour and had participated vigorously in the bloody Michigan strikes.

"Father and I fought that strike clear through," he said. "Our union demands were just. Here in this war I am fighting just the same way as we fought against the mine operators in Michigan. I figure it out that Germany represents low pay, long hours and miserable working conditions for the world. I think the Kaiser is the world's greatest scab. I am over here to help get him."

* * * * *

One day in the Chatham Hotel, in Paris, I was dining with an American Brigadier General, when an American soldier of the ranks approached the table. At a respectful distance of five feet, the soldier halted, clicked his heels and saluted the General. He said, "Sir, the orderly desires permission to take the General's car to headquarters and deliver the packages."

"All right, Smith," replied the General, looking at his watch. "Find out if my other uniform is back yet and then get back here yourself with the car in half an hour."

"Thank you, sir," replied the man as he saluted, executed a snappy right about face and strode out of the dining-room.

"Strange thing about that chauffeur of mine," said the General to me. "I had a lot of extra work yesterday on his account. I had to make out his income tax returns. He and his dad own almost all the oil in Oklahoma. When he paid his income tax, Uncle Sam got a little over a hundred thousand dollars. He went in the army in the ranks. He is only an enlisted private now, but he's a good one."

* * * * *

Walking out of the Gare du Nord one day, I saw a man in an American uniform and a French Gendarme vainly trying to talk with each other. The Frenchman was waving his arms and pointing in various directions and the American appeared to be trying to ask questions. With the purpose of offering my limited knowledge of French to straighten out the difficulty, I approached the pair and asked the American soldier what he wanted. He told me but I don't know what it was to this day. He spoke only Polish.

* * * * *

It was not alone amidst the gaiety of Paris that our soldiers spread the fame of America. In the peaceful countrysides far behind the flaming fronts, the Yankee fighting men won their way into the hearts of the French people. Let me tell you the story of a Christmas celebration in a little French village in the Vosges.

Before dawn there were sounds of movement in the murky half-light of the village street. A long line of soldiers wound their way past flaming stoves of the mess shacks, where the steaming coffee took the chill out of the cold morning stomachs.

Later the sun broke bright and clear. It glistened on the snow-clad furrows of the rolling hills, in which, for centuries, the village of Saint Thiebault has drowsed more or less happily beside its ancient canal and in the shadow of the steeple of the church of the good Saint Thiebault.

Now a thousand men or more, brown-clad and metal-helmeted, know the huts and stables of Saint Thiebault as their billets, and the seventy little boys and girls of the parish know those same thousand men as their new big brothers—les bons Americains.

The real daddies and big brothers and uncles of those seventy youngsters have been away from Saint Thiebault for a long time now—yes, this is the fourth Christmas that the urgent business in northern France has kept them from home. They may never return but that is unknown to the seventy young hopefuls.



There was great activity in the colonel's quarters during the morning, and it is said that a sleuthing seventy were intent on unveiling the mystery of these unusual American preparations. They stooped to get a peep through the windows of the room, and Private Larson, walking his post in front of the sacred precincts, had to shoo them away frequently with threatening gestures and Swedish-American-French commands, such as "Allay veet—Allay veet t'ell outer here."

An energetic bawling from the headquarters cook shack indicated that one juvenile investigator had come to grief. Howls emanated from little Paul Laurent, who could be seen stumbling across the road, one blue, cold hand poking the tears out of his eyes and the other holding the seat of his breeches.

Tony Moreno, the company cook, stood in front of the cook shack shaking a soup ladle after the departing Paul and shouting imprecations in Italian-American.

"Tam leetle fool!" shouted Tony as he returned to the low camp stove and removed a hot pan, the surface of whose bubbling contents bore an unmistakable imprint. "Deese keeds make me seek. I catcha heem wit de finger in de sugar barrel. I shout at heem. He jumpa back. He fall over de stove and sita down in de pan of beans. He spoila de mess. He burn heese pants. Tam good!"

And over there in front of the regimental wagon train picket line, a gesticulating trio is engaged in a three cornered Christmas discussion. One is M. Lecompte, who is the uniformed French interpreter on the Colonel's staff, and he is talking to "Big" Moriarity, the teamster, the tallest man in the regiment. The third party to the triangle is little Pierre Lafite, who clings to M. Lecompte's hand and looks up in awe at the huge Irish soldier.

"He wants to borrow one of these," M. Lecompte says, pointing to the enormous hip boots which Moriarity is wearing.

"He wants to borrow one of me boots?" repeated the Irishman. "And for the love of heavin, what would he be after doin' wid it? Sure and the top of it is higher than the head of him."

"It is for this purpose," explains the interpreter. "The French children do not hang up their stockings for Christmas. Instead they place their wooden shoes on the hearth and the presents and sweets are put in them. You see, Pierre desires to receive a lot of things."

"Holy Mother!" replies Moriarity, kicking off one boot and hopping on one foot toward the stables. "Take it, you scamp, and I hopes you get it filled wid dimonds and gold dust. But mind ye, if you get it too near the fire and burn the rubber I'll eat you like you was a oyster."

The Irish giant emphasised his threat with a grimace of red-whiskered ferocity and concluded by loudly smacking his lips. Then little Pierre was off to his mother's cottage, dragging the seven league boot after him.

With the afternoon meal, the last of the packages had been tied with red cords and labelled, and the interior of the Colonel's quarters looked like an express office in the rush season. The packages represented the purchases made with 1,300 francs which the men of the battalion had contributed for the purpose of having Christmas come to Saint Thiebault in good style.

M. Lecompte has finished sewing the red and white covering which is to be worn by "Hindenburg," the most docile mule in the wagon train, upon whom has fallen the honour of drawing the present loaded sleigh of the Christmas saint.

"Red" Powers, the shortest, fattest and squattiest man in the battalion, is investing himself with baggy, red garments, trimmed with white fur and tassels, all made out of cloth by hands whose familiarity with the needle has been acquired in bayonet practice. Powers has donned his white wig and whiskers and his red cap, tasseled in white. He is receiving his final instructions from the colonel.

"You may grunt, Powers," the colonel is saying, "but don't attempt to talk French with that Chicago accent. We don't want to frighten the children. And remember, you are not Santa Claus. You are Papa Noel. That's what the French children call Santa Claus."

It is three o'clock, and the regimental band, assembled in marching formation in the village street, blares out "I Wish I Were in the Land of Cotton," and there is an outpouring of children, women and soldiers from every door on the street. The colonel and his staff stand in front of their quarters opposite the band, and a thousand American soldiers, in holiday disregard for formation, range along either side of the street.

The large wooden gate of the stable yard, next to the commandant's quarters, swings open; there is a jingle of bells, and "Hindenburg," resplendent in his fittings, and Papa Noel Powers sitting high on the package-heaped sleigh, move out into the street. Their appearance is met with a crash of cymbals, the blare of the band's loudest brass, and the happy cries of the children and the deeper cheers of the men.

Christmas had come to Saint Thiebault. Up the street went the procession, the band in the lead playing a lively jingling piece of music well matched to the keenness of the air and the willingness of young blood to tingle with the slightest inspiration.

"Hindenburg," with a huge pair of tin spectacles goggling his eyes, tossed his head and made the bells ring all over his gala caparison. Papa Noel, mounted on the pyramid of presents, bowed right and left and waved his hands to the children, to the soldiers, to the old men and the old women.

As the youngsters followed in the wake of the sleigh, the soldiers picked them up and carried them on their shoulders, on "piggy" back, or held them out so they could shake hands with Papa Noel and hear that dignitary gurgle his appreciation in wonderful north pole language.

When Papa Noel found out that he could trust the flour paste and did not have to hold his whiskers on by biting them, he gravely announced, "Wee, wee," to all the bright-eyed, red-cheeked salutations directed his way.

The band halted in front of the ancient church of Saint Thiebault, where old Father Gabrielle stood in the big doorway, smiling and rubbing his hands. Upon his invitation the children entered and were placed in the first row of chairs, the mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and young women sat in back of them, and further back sat the regimental officers. The soldiers filled the rest of the church to the doors.

The brief ceremony ended with a solemn benediction and then the curtains were drawn back from one of the arches in front of and to the left of the main altar.

There stood Saint Thiebault's first Christmas tree, or at least the first one in four years. It was lighted with candles and was resplendent with decorations that represented long hours of work with shears and paste on the part of unaccustomed fingers. Suggestions from a thousand Christmas minds were on that tree, and the result showed it. The star of Bethlehem, made of tinsel, glistened in the candlelight.

Not even the inbred decorum of the church was sufficient to restrain the involuntary expressions of admiration of the saint by the seventy youngsters. They oh-ed and ah-ed and pointed, but they enjoyed it not a whit more than did the other children in the church, some of whose ages ran to three score and more.

Papa Noel walked down the centre aisle leading a file of soldiers, each of whom carried a heaping armful of packages. Young necks craned and eyes bulged as the packages were deposited on the tables in front of the communion rail. M. Lecompte raised his hands for silence and spoke.

"These Americans," he said, "have come to our country to march and to fight side by side with your fathers and your big brothers and your uncles and all the men folk who have been away from Saint Thiebault so long. These Americans want to take their places for you to-day. These Americans in doing these things for you are thinking of their own little girls and little boys away back across the ocean who are missing their fathers and big brothers and uncles to-day, just the same as you miss yours."

There were wet eyes among the women and some of the older men in khaki closed their eyes and seemed to be transporting themselves thousands of miles away to other scenes and other faces. But the reverie was only for a minute.

M. Lecompte began calling the names for the distribution of gifts and the children of Saint Thiebault began their excited progress toward the tables. Here Papa Noel delivered the prized packages.

"For Marie Louise Larue," said M. Lecompte, "a hair ribbon of gold and black with a tortoise bandeau."

"For Gaston Ponsot, a toy cannon that shoots and six German soldiers at least to shoot."

"For Colette Daville, a warm cape of red cloth with a collar of wool."

"For Alphonse Benois, an aeroplane that flies on a string."

"For Eugenie Fontaine, a doll that speaks."

"For Emilie Moreau, a pair of shoes with real leather soles and tops."

"For Camille Laurent, red mittens of wool and a sheepskin muff."

"For Jean Artois, a warship that moves and flies the American flag."

It continued for more than an hour. The promoters of the celebration were wise to their work. There was more than one present for each child. They did not know how many. Time after time, their names were called and they clattered forward in their wooden shoes for each new surprise.

The presents ran the range of toys, clothing, games, candies and nuts, but the joy was in sitting there and waiting for one's name to be called and going forward to partake of that most desirable "more."

Big Moriarity had his hands in the incident that served as a climax to the distribution. He had whispered something to M. Lecompte and the result was that one little duffer, who sat all alone on a big chair, and hugged an enormous rubber boot, waited and waited expectantly to hear the name "Pierre Lafite" called out.

All the other names had been called once and not his. He waited. All the names had been called twice and still not his. He waited through the third and the fourth calling in vain, and his chin was beginning to tremble suspiciously as the fifth calling proceeded without the sound of his name.

The piles of packages on the tables had been getting smaller all the time. Then M. Lecompte pronounced the very last name.

"Pierre Lafite," he called.

Pierre's heart bounded as he slipped off the chair and started up the aisle dragging his big rubber boot. The rest of the children had returned to their seats. All the elders in the church were watching his progress.

"For Pierre Lafite," repeated M. Lecompte, holding up the enormous boot. "A pair of real leather shoes to fit in the foot of the boot." He placed them there.

"And a pair of stilts to fit in the leg of the boot." He so placed them.

"And a set of soldiers, twenty-four in number, with a general commanding, to go beside the stilts." He poured them into the boot.

"And a pair of gloves and a stocking cap to go on top of the soldiers.

"And a baseball and a bat to go on top of the gloves.

"And all the chinks to be filled up with nuts and figs, and sweets. Voila, Pierre," and with these words, he had poured the sweetmeats in overflowing measure into the biggest hip boot in the regiment.

Amid the cheers of the men, led by big Moriarity, Pierre started toward his seat, struggling with the seven league boot and the wholesale booty, and satisfied with the realisation that in one haul he had obtained more than his companions in five.

Company B quartet sang "Down in a Coal Hole," and then, as the band struck up outside the church, all moved to the street. The sun had gone down, the early winter night had set in, and the sky was almost dark.

"Signal for the barrage," came the command in the darkness.

There were four simultaneous hisses of fire and four comets of flame sprang up from the ground. They broke far overhead in lurid green.

"Signal for enemy planes overhead," was the next command, and four more rockets mounted and ended their flights in balls of luminous red. Other commands, other signals, other rockets, other lights and flares and pistol star shells, enriched a pyrotechnical display which was economically combined with signal practice.

The red glare illuminated the upturned happy faces of American and French together. Our men learned to love the French people. The French people learned to love us.



CHAPTER XV

CHATEAU-THIERRY AND THE BOIS DE BELLEAU

I have endeavoured to show in preceding chapters the development of the young American army in France from a mere handful of new troops up to the creation of units capable of independent action on the front. Only that intense and thorough training made it possible for our oversea forces to play the veteran part they did play in the great Second Battle of the Marne.

The battle developed as a third phase of the enemy's Western Front offensives of the year. The increasing strength of the American forces overseas forced Germany to put forth her utmost efforts in the forlorn hope of gaining a decision in the field before the Allied lines could have the advantage of America's weight.

On March 21st, the Germans had launched their first powerful offensive on a front of fifty miles from Arras to Noyon in Picardy and had advanced their lines from St. Quentin to the outskirts of Amiens.

On April 9th, the German hordes struck again in Flanders on a front of twenty miles from Lens northward to the River Lys and had cut into the Allied front as far as Armentieres.

There followed what was considered an abnormal delay in the third act of the demonstration. It was known that the Germans were engaged in making elaborate arrangements for this mid-summer push. It was the enemy hope in this great offensive to strike a final effective blow against the hard-pressed Allied line before America's rising power could be thrown into the fight.

The blow fell on the morning of May 27th. The front selected for the assault was twenty-five miles in width, extending from the Ailette near Vauxaillon to the Aisne-Marne Canal near Brimont. The Prussian Crown Prince was the titular chief of the group of armies used in the assault. One of these forces was the army of General von Boehm, which before the attack had numbered only nine divisions and had extended from the Oise at Noyon to east of Craconne. The other army was that of General Fritz von Buelow, previously composed of eight divisions and supporting a front that extended from Craconne across the Rheims front to Suippe, near Auberive. On the day of the attack, these armies had been strengthened to twice their normal number of divisions, and subsequently captured German plans revealed that the enemy expected to use forty-five divisions or practically half a million men in the onslaught.

The battle began at dawn. It was directed against the weakly held French positions on the Chemin des Dames. It was preceded by a three hour bombardment of terrific intensity. The French defenders were outnumbered four to one. The Germans put down a rolling barrage that was two miles deep. It destroyed all wire communications and flooded battery emplacements and machine gun posts with every brand of poison gas known to German kultur. Dust and artificial smoke clouds separated the defenders into small groups and screened the attacking waves until they had actually penetrated the French positions.

The French fought hard to resist the enemy flood across the Chemin des Dames with its ground sacred with tragic memories, but a withdrawal was necessary. The French command was forced to order a retreat to the Aisne. Hard-fighting French divisions and some units of the British Fifth Army, which had been badly hit in Picardy in March, made an orderly withdrawal southward.

On the second day of the fight the enemy made a strong thrust toward Soissons, and after keeping the city under continual bombardment, succeeded in overcoming all resistance and occupying the city on May 29th. On the first day of the attack alone, twelve thousand explosive, incendiary and poison gas shells were hurled in amongst the hospitals in Soissons. American ambulance units did heroic work in the removal of the wounded.

The Germans forced a crossing on the Aisne. On the following day, May 30th, they had crossed the Vesle River and had captured Fere-en-Tardenois. On the following day their victorious hordes had reached the Marne and were closing in on Chateau-Thierry.

Some idea of the terrific strength of the enemy offensive may be gained from a recapitulation which would show that in five days the Germans had pushed through five successive lines of Allied defence, and had penetrated more than twenty-five miles. On the first day, they had captured the Chemin des Dames, on the second day, they had overcome all resistance on the Aisne, on the third day, their forces, pushing southward, had crossed the Vesle River, on the fourth day, they had destroyed the lines of resistance along the Ourcq, on the fifth day, they had reached the Marne.

It was a crisis. The battle front formed a vast triangle with the apex pointing southward toward Paris. The west side of the triangle extended fifty miles northward from the Marne to the Oise near Noyon. The east side of the triangle ran north-eastward thirty miles to Rheims. The point of this new thrust at Paris rested on the north bank of the Marne at Chateau-Thierry. The enemy had advanced to within forty miles of the capital of France; the fate of the Allied world hung in the balance.

Undoubtedly I am prejudiced, but I like to feel that I know the real reason why the German hordes stopped at Chateau-Thierry on the north bank of the Marne. To me that reason will always be this—because on the south bank of the Marne stood the Americans.

On that day and in that event there materialised the German fears which had urged them on to such great speed and violence. In the eleventh hour, there at the peak of the German thrust, there at the climax of Germany's triumphant advances, there at the point where a military decision for the enemy seemed almost within grasp, there and then the American soldier stepped into the breech to save the democracy of the world.

The Marne River makes a loop at this place and Chateau-Thierry lies on both banks. The Marne there is called a river, but it would hardly come up to the American understanding of the word. The waterway is more like a canal with banks built up with stone blocks. There are streets on either bank, and these being the principal streets of the town, are bordered with comparatively high buildings.

While the Germans were on the outskirts of the city, American forces had made brilliant counter attacks on both sides. To the west of Chateau-Thierry the German advance forces, seeking to penetrate Neuilly Wood, had been hurled back by our young troops. To the east of Chateau-Thierry the enemy had succeeded in crossing the Marne in the vicinity of Jaulgonne.

This operation was carried out by the German 36th Division. On the night of May 30th, at a point where the Marne looped northward eight miles to the east of Chateau-Thierry, the enemy succeeded in putting a few men across the river.

Along the south bank of the river at that place, the Paris-Chalons ran through a number of deep cuts and one tunnel. The enemy took shelter in these natural protections. They suffered serious losses from the Allied artillery which also destroyed some of their pontoons across the river, but in spite of this, the Germans succeeded in re-enforcing the units on the south bank to the strength of about a battalion.

Almost at the same time, the French defenders at this place received re-enforcements from the Americans. Units of the 3rd United States Regular Division and the 28th U. S. Division, comprised largely of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, were rushed forward from training areas, miles back of the line, where they were engaged in fitting themselves for line duty. These incompletely trained American units abandoned their bayonet-stabbing of gunny-sacks and make-believe warfare to rush forward into the real thing.

On June 2nd, these Americans, under command of French officers, began the counter attack to sweep the Germans back from the south bank. By that time the enemy had succeeded in putting twenty-two light bridges across the Marne and had established a strong bridgehead position with a number of machine guns and a strong force of men in the railway station on the south bank of the river opposite Jaulgonne.

This position was attacked frontally by the Americans and French. Our novices in battle were guilty of numerous so-called strategical blunders, but in the main purpose of killing the enemy, they proved irresistible. The Germans broke and ran. At the same time, the French artillery lowered a terrific barrage on the bridges crossing the river, with the result that many of the fleeing enemy were killed and more drowned. Only thirty or forty escaped by swimming. One hundred of them threw down their arms and surrendered. The remainder of the battalion was wiped out. At the close of the engagement the Americans and the French were in full command of the south bank.

But it was in Chateau-Thierry itself that the Germans made their most determined effort to cross the river and get a footing on the south bank, and it was there, again, that their efforts were frustrated by our forces. On May 31st, American machine gun units, then in training seventy-five kilometres south of the Marne, were hurriedly bundled into motor lorries and rushed northward into Chateau-Thierry.

The Germans were advancing their patrols into the north side of the city. They were pouring down the streets in large numbers, with the evident purpose of crossing the bridges and establishing themselves on the south bank.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of May 31st that those American machine gunners got their first glimpse of real war. That night while the German artillery raked the south bank of the river with high explosive shells, those Americans, shouldering their machine guns, marched into the city and took up defensive positions on the south bank of the river.

During the night many houses were turned into ruins. Shells striking the railroad station had caused it to burn. In the red glare our men saw the houses about them collapse under clouds of dust and debris. Under cover of darkness the Germans filtered through the streets on the north side of the river. The American machine gunners went into position in the windows of houses on the south bank and in gardens between the houses, and from these positions it was possible to command all of the bridge approaches and streets leading to the river on the opposite side.

During the night, Lieutenant John T. Bissell, a young Pittsburgher but recently graduated from West Point, started across one of the bridges and reached the north bank with a squad of a dozen men and two machine guns. This little unit went into position in a place commanding the forked highways which converged not far from the northern approach of the iron bridge crossing the river. It was this unit's function to prevent the enemy advance from this direction. The unit was separated from its comrades on the south bank by the river and about two hundred yards. In spite of the fact that the enemy artillery intensified its shelling of the south bank, the American machine gunners remained at their posts without firing and played a waiting game.

With the coming of dawn the Germans began to make their rushes for the bridges. Small compact forces would dart forward carrying light machine guns and ammunition with them. They encountered a terrific burst of American fire and wilted in front of it. Those that survived crawled back to the shelter of protecting walls, where they were re-enforced with fresh units, and again the massed formations charged down the streets toward the bridges. The slaughter of Germans increased until the approaches were dotted with bodies of the enemy slain.

On June 1st, the Germans having consolidated positions on the hills commanding the city from the north, they directed a terrific artillery and machine gun fire into our exposed positions on the south bank, as well as the small posts still held on the north bank by Lieutenant Bissell and his machine gunners. Although the position held by the little American group had long been considered untenable, the members of it stuck it out until nightfall, when they received orders to retire to the south bank. At the same time, French colonials which had held a position throughout the day on the north bank on the edge of the town, withdrew in accordance with the same plan. The retirement of both parties was covered by our machine gunners on the south bank, who poured a hot fire into the evacuated areas as the Germans began occupying them.

By 10:30 that night the completion of the movement was signalised by a terrific explosion, as the French colonials blew up one of the stone bridges over which they had withdrawn. But the destruction of the bridge had cut off the little band of Americans and left them almost surrounded by the enemy on the north bank of the river, which was now becoming strongly populated by the enemy. Through the darkness could be heard the sound of shuffling, hobnailed boots, and even above the crack of the guns there came the weird swish of the grey coats as they pushed forward in mass formations.

The little party of thirteen Americans dismantled their guns and, with each man carrying his allotted piece, they began working their way along the river bank toward the main bridge, where they discovered that the enemy was almost upon them. They immediately went into position behind the stone parapet on the very brink of the river, and, although in constant danger from the American fire that poured out from the south bank, they poured streams of lead point-blank into the advancing German ranks.

The Americans on the south bank were not aware of the plight of the little party on the north bank. In spite of their losses, the Germans continued their grewsome rushes toward the approaches of the iron bridge across which our machine gunners were pouring a devastating fire. Lieutenant Bissell and his men made one effort to cross the bridge, but were forced to crawl back to shelter on the north bank, carrying with them three of their wounded. They found themselves between a cross-fire. Then Bissell, alone, approached as near as he dared, and the first intimation that the Americans on the south bank had of the fact that Americans were in front of them was when Lieutenant Cobey heard Bissell's voice calling his name. A cease fire order was immediately given and Bissell and his men rushed across the bridge, carrying their wounded with them.

On the following day the Germans were in occupation of all the houses facing the north bank of the river, and could be seen from time to time darting from one shelter to another. Throughout the day their artillery maintained a terrific downpour of shells on the positions held by our men on the south bank. So intense was the rifle fire and activity of snipers, that it meant death to appear in the open. The Americans manned their guns throughout the day, but refrained from indulging in machine gun fire because it was not desired to reveal the locations of the guns. Nightfall approached with a quiet that was deadly ominous of impending events.

At nine o'clock the enemy formations lunged forward to the attack. Their dense masses charged down the streets leading toward the river. They sang as they advanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured later, came straight from the high command and demanded the acquisition of a foothold on the south bank at all costs. They paid the costs, but never reached the south bank.

The American machine gun fire was withering. Time after time, in the frequent rushes throughout the night, the remnants of enemy masses would reach sometimes as far as the centre of the big bridge, but none of them succeeded in reaching the south bank. The bridge became carpeted with German dead and wounded. They lay thick in the open streets near the approaches. By morning their dead were piled high on the bridge and subsequent rushes endeavoured to advance over the bodies of their fallen comrades. In this battle of the bridges and the streets, our men showed a courage and determination which aroused the admiration of the French officers, who were aware by this time that forty-eight hours before these same American soldiers had seen battle for the first time.

Our machine gunners turned the northern bank of the river into a No Man's Land. Their vigilance was unrelenting and every enemy attempt to elude it met with disaster. There were serious American casualties during that terrific fire, but they were nothing in comparison with the thousand or more German dead that dotted the streets and clogged the runways of the big bridge in piles. The last night of the fight enormous charges of explosive were placed beneath the bridge and discharged.