John W. Thomason

“ The highway led straight through the forest. Many roads emptied into it, and from every road debouched a stream of horses, men, and guns. The battalion went into column of twos, then into column of files, to make room. On the left of the road, abreast of the Marines, plodded another column of foot—strange black men, in the blue greatcoats of the French infantry and mustard-yellow uniforms under them. Their helmets were khaki-colored, and bore a crescent instead of the bursting bomb of the French line. But they marched like veterans, and the Marines eyed them approvingly. ”

“ Machine-guns raved everywhere; there was a crackling din of rifles, and the coughing roar of hand-grenades. Company and platoon commanders lost control—their men were committed to the fight—and so thick was the going that anything like formation was impossible. It was every man for himself, an irregular, broken line, clawing through the tangles, climbing over fallen trees, plunging heavily into Boche rifle-pits. ”

“ Presently the road ceased to be a road—merely a broken way across an interminable waste of shell-holes, made passable after a fashion by the hasty work of French engineers, toiling behind the assault of the infantry.
The battalion skirted stupendous craters of exploded mines—“Good Gawd! you could lose my daddy’s house, an’ his barn, too, in that there hole! ’Taint no small barn, either!” The stars had come out, and shone very far off and strangely calm. The dark was foul with all the reek of an old battle-field. “After midnight,” conjectured the files. ”

“ The scout officer, leading, had out his canteen and wet his dry mouth. He was acutely conscious of his empty stomach. His mind dwelt yearningly on the mess-kit, freighted nobly with monkey-meat and tomatoes, awaiting him in the dependable Tommy’s musette. “Hope to God nothing happens to old Tommy!” The wheat caught at his ankles and he hated war. Lord, how these night operations make a man sweat! He went down a little gully and out of it, the sergeant at his shoulder, breathing on his neck. That crater—he visualized his map—it should be right yonder—two of them. ”

“ Behind and to the left the machine-guns still raved, but the artillery fell away. A greenish rocket flared from the pines ahead, and right in the faces of the panting Marines machine-guns and rifles blazed. In the shadow of the pines were men in cumbersome green-gray uniforms, with faces that looked hardly human under deep round helmets. With eyes narrowed, bodies slanting forward like men in heavy rain, the remnant of the battalion went to them. ”

“ A foul murky cloud of dust and smoke formed and went with the thinning companies, a cloud lit with red flashes and full of howling death.
The silent ridge to the left awoke with machine-guns and rifles, and sibilant rushing flights of nickel-coated missiles from Maxim and Mauser struck down where the shells spared. An increasing trail of crumpled brown figures lay behind the battalion as it went. The raw smell of blood was in men’s nostrils. ”

“ A great many more flung away their arms and bleated “Kamaraden” to men who in that red minute knew no mercy. Some hid in holes, or feigned death, to be hunted out as the press thinned. And the rest scuttled through the fringe of trees and back down toward St.-Etienne, while the Marines, lying prone or taking rest for their Springfields, killed them as they ran. This same rifle-fire, directed against the flank and rear of the column which had pushed to the right against the other battalions of the 5th, broke that force and dispersed it. ”

“ Later, working to the left of his company, he was caught up in a fighting swirl of Senegalese and went with them into an evil place of barbed wire and machine-guns. These wild black Mohammedans from West Africa were enjoying themselves. Killing, which is at best an acquired taste with the civilized races, was only too palpably their mission in life. Their eyes rolled, and their splendid white teeth flashed in their heads, but here all resemblance to a happy Southern darky stopped. They were deadly. Each platoon swept its front like a hunting-pack, moving swiftly and surely together. ”

“ The French column came up and passed. Its horizon-blue uniform was invisible in the dark, but the stars glinted a little on its helmets and bayonets. “V’la! Yanquis! B’soir, Americains!” “Dam’ right, Frenchie! Bon chance, huh?” They went on without lagging, well closed up. A man’s feet dragged going in; there are no such things on a battle-field as fresh troops, for you always approach by forced marches, infinitely weary—“but comin’ out—boy, we make knots!—” They reached La Voie du Chatelle, where Regimental was, and there the old Boche always shelled. ”

“ From most wounds men do not appear to suffer greatly at first. There is the hot impulse of the attack, and perhaps a certain shock from the missile, so that the nerves are numb. One has gone forward with the tide at the highest; life is a light thing to lay down, death a light thing to venture; yonder is the enemy; one has come a long way to meet him, and now the affair can be taken up personally. Then something hits—the wheat cuts off all the world. An infernal racket goes on somewhere—Springfields and Mausers, Maxim guns and Hotchkiss—sometimes closer, sometimes receding. ”

“ Night descended over a tortured area of wheat and woodland, lit by flares and gun-flashes, flailed by machine-guns, and in too many places pitiful with crying of wounded who had lain all the day untended in a merciless sun. Stretcher-bearers and combat patrols roamed over it in the dark. Water parties and ration parties groped back from forward positions over unknown trails. There were dog-fights all over the place, wild alarms, and hysterical outbreaks of rifle-fire. It was the same with the Boche ”

“ And behind the infantry, straining horses galloped with lean-muzzled 75s, battery on battery—artillery, over the top at last with the rifles. On the skirts of the attack hovered squadrons of cavalry the Marines had seen the day before, dragoons and lancers, marked from afar by the sparkle and glitter of lanceheads and sabres.
And forward through the wheat, the Boche lines broke and his strong points crumbled; standing stubbornly in one place; running in panic at another; and here and there attempting sharp counter-attacks ”

“ The battalion scout officer and a disillusioned sergeant, with hash marks on his sleeve, were the point. The men were echeloned back, right, and left with an automatic rifle on each flank. In the centre marched the colonel, smoking, to the horror of all, a cigar. Smoking was not done up there, after dark. With him was the elegant French captain, who appeared to be very gallantly resigned to it. The story would, he reflected, amaze and delight his mess—if he ever got back with it! These droll Americans! He must remember just what this colonel said: a type, Nom de Dieu! ”

“ The wood ended, and the attack burst out into the rolling wheatland, where the sun shone in a cloudless sky and poppies grew in the wheat. To the right, a great paved road marched, between tall poplars, much battered. On the road two motor-trucks burned fiercely, and dead men lay around them. Across the road a group of stone farm-buildings had been shelled into a smoking dust-heap, but from the ruins a nest of never-die machine-guns opened flanking fire. The khaki lines checked and swirled around them, and there was a mounting crackle of rifle-fire ... ”

“ I The dawn came very reluctantly through the clouds, bringing no sun with it, although the drizzle stopped. The battalion rose from its soggy blankets, kneading stiffened muscles to restore circulation, and gathered in disconsolate shivering groups around the galleys. These had come up in the night, and from them, standing under the dripping pines, came a promising smell of hot coffee. Something hot was the main consideration in life just now. ”

“ They lay there for days, eight Marines in a dozen yards, face down on their rifles. But they had done their job. The men in the wheat were close enough to use the split-second interval in the firing. They got in, cursing and stabbing. Meanwhile, to the left a little group of men lay in the wheat under the very muzzle of a gun that clipped the stalks around their ears and riddled their combat packs—firing high by a matter of inches and the mercy of God. A man can stand just so much of that. Life presently ceases to be desirable ”

“ It was the last day of September, and as the forenoon went by an intermittent drizzle sent the battalion to such miserable shelters as the men could improvise. Company commanders and seconds-in-command went up toward ruined Somme-Py for reconnoissance, and returned to profane the prospect to their platoon leaders.
“I do not like this place,” declared the captain of the 49th Company to his juniors. “It looks like it was just built for calamities to happen in.”
“Yep, and all the division is around here for calamities to happen to.... A sight more of us will go in than will ever come out of it!” ”

“ Others of the 6th lay on the ground over which the battalion passed. Some lay quietly, like men who rested after labor. Others were mangled and twisted into attitudes grotesque and horrible as the fury of the exploding shells had flung them. There were dead Germans, too. Up forward rifle-fire and machine-guns gave tongue, and all the Boche guns raged together. “Reckon the 6th is gettin’ to Blanc Mont now.” ”

“ You cannot take this Essen trench by frontal assault!”—“Why can’t we?” growled the American.
The shells began to drop into the trench.
“When it is light you will see, M. le Capitaine! You can only 150get forward by bombing your way in the boyaux. They are too strong in machine-guns, the Boche. Now I take my men and go. Seven days and nights we have been on our feet ... those of us who are left are very tired.... It is well that you be watchful in this place, but do not stir up the Boche yonder. They shoot with minenwerfers when you frighten them. ”

“ The night of the 19th the galleys got up, and the men had hot food. Early the morning of the 20th the division was relieved and began to withdraw to reserve position, while fresh troops carried the battle on. The 1st Battalion of the 5th Marines marched back, in a misty dawn, across the ground they had fought over two days before. In the trampled fields, where the dead lay unburied, old French territorials were mowing the ripe wheat and shocking it up. ”

“ For all his training, a pack was not at home on his shoulders or a rifle easy in his hands. He was aware of his panoply of war—the full belt dragging at his loins, the straps that cut into his shoulders, the bulge of prunes in his blouse-pockets, and his Springfield, increasingly heavy. He reflected, feeling for the road with clumsy hobnails—for he was blind in the dark—“Now, those men are undoubtedly of the professional-soldier type. It is all a business with them. They are tired and they want to rest, and they say so frankly. ”

“ There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. And yet—such a column represents a great deal more than 28,000 individuals mustered into a division. All that is behind those men is in that column, too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation—Brandywine and Trenton and Yorktown, San Jacinto and Chapultepec, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, El Caney; scores of skirmishes, far off, such as the Marines have nearly every year—in which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chap was in the Argonne ”

“ A few 184iron-souled Prussians—the Boche had such men—stood up to meet bayonet with bayonet, and died that way. The second-in-command saw such a one, a big feldwebel, spring against one of his sergeants with the long Prussian lunge that throws the bayonet like a spear to the full reach of the arm. It is a spectacular thrust, and will spit like a rabbit what stands in its way. But the sergeant, Bob Slover, a little fiery man with a penchant for killing Germans, ran under it and thrust from the ground for the Boche’s throat. ”

“ To the girl I left behind me——” No music here, no flags, no bright swords, no lines of battle charging with a yell. Combat groups of weary men, in drab and dirty uniforms, dressed approximately on a line, spaced “so that one shrapnel-burst cannot include more than one group,” laden like mules with gas-masks, bandoleers, grenades, chaut-chaut clips, trudging forward without haste and without excitement, they moved on an untidy wood where shells were breaking, a wood that did not answer back, or show an enemy. ”

“ The rifles fell silent, for the Boche infantry was in cover, or too far away to waste scant ammunition on. “O Lord, for one battery of 75s or a machine-gun outfit! All the Boches in the world, an’ nothin’ to reach ’em with!” lamented the captain of the 49th. “We’re clean away from our guns, and those devils seem to know it—look at ’em, yonder! Heard a shell from ours to-day, John? I haven’t.”—“Plenty from the other side, though—damn few of us left, capitan. ”

“ The smell he referred to lay through the wood like a tangible fog that one could feel against the cheek and see. It was the nub-end of June, and many battalions of fighting men had lain in the Wood Northwest of Lucy, going up to the front a little way forward or coming out to stand by in support. It was a lovely place for supports; you could gather here and debouch toward any part of the sector, from Hill 142, on the left, through the Bois de Belleau and Bouresches, to Vaux, where the infantry brigade took on. Many men had lain in the wood, and many men lay in it still. ”

“ Presently, dawn, with low clouds piling up in the rosy sky. And along the road, wherever there were groves, more cavalry was seen, at ease under the trees. Horses were picketed, lances and sabres stuck into the ground, and cooking-fires alight.
The Marines had not met the French horse before. They now looked approvingly upon them. Men and horses were alike big and well-conditioned. All morning the camions passed through a country packed with troops and guns, wherever there was cover from the sky. ”

“ Each battalion is an entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are xivdrab these days, but there are points of light on the helmets and the bayonets, and light in the quick, steady eyes and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There is no singing—veterans know, and they do not sing much—and there is no excitement at all; they are schooled craftsmen, going up to impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows ”