  Day came, and with it the corvÉe carrying hot coffee and bread. After breakfast another corvÉe was sent after picks and shovels, and the men were set to work remodeling the trench, shifting the parapet to the other side, building little outpost trenches and setting barbed wire. The latter job was done in a wonderfully short time, thanks to German thoroughness, since for the stakes to which the wire is tied the Boches had substituted soft iron rods, three quarters of an inch thick, twisted five times in the shape of a great corkscrew. This screw twisted into the ground exactly like a cork-puller into a cork. The straight part of the rod, being twisted upon itself down and up again every ten inches, formed six or seven small round loops in a height of about five feet. Into these eyes the barbed wire was laid and solidly secured with short lengths of tying wire. First cutting the tying wire, we lifted the barbed wire out of the eyes, shoved a small stick through one and, turning the rod with the leverage of the stick, unscrewed it out of the ground and then reversing the process screwed it in again. The advantage of this rod is obvious. When a shell falls amidst this wire protection, the rods are bent and twisted, but unless broken off short they always support the wire, and even after a severe bombardment present a serious obstacle to the assaulters. In such cases wooden posts are blown to smithereens by the shells, and when broken off let the wire fall flat to the ground. As I was walking up and down, watching the work, I noticed a large box, resting bottom up, in a deep hole opening from the trench. Dragging the box out and turning it over, I experienced a sudden flutter of the heart. There, before my astonished eyes, resting upon a little platform of boards, stood a neat little centrifugal pump painted green and on the base of it in raised iron letters I read the words "Byron Jackson, San Francisco." I felt queer at the stomach for an instant. San Francisco! my home town! Before my eyes passed pictures of Market Street and the "Park." In fancy I was one of the Sunday crowd at the Cliff House. How could this pump have got so far from home? Many times I had passed the very place where it was made. How, I wonder, did the Boche get this pump? Before the war or through Holland? A California-built pump to clean water out of German trenches, in France! It was astonishing! With something like reverence I put the pump back again and, going to my place in the trench, dug out one of my bottles of champagne and stood treat to the crowd. Somehow, I felt almost happy. As I continued my rounds I came upon a man sitting on the edge of the ditch surrounded by naked branches, busy cutting them into two-foot lengths and tying them together in the shape of a "cross." I asked him how many he was making, and he told me that he expected to work all day to supply the crosses needed along one battalion front. French and German were treated alike, he assured me. There was absolutely no difference in the size of the crosses. As we worked, soup arrived, and when that was disposed of, the men rested for some hours. We were absolutely unmolested except by our officers. But at one o'clock that night we were again assembled in marching rig, each man carrying an extra pick or shovel, and we marched along parallel with our trench to the summit of the butte. There we installed ourselves in the main line out of which the Germans were driven by the One Hundred and Seventy-second. Things came easy now. There was no work of any kind to be done, and quickly we found some dry wood, built small fires and with the material found in dugouts brewed some really delightful beverages. Mine was a mixture of wine and water out of Haeffle's canteen, judiciously blended with chocolate. The weather was delightful and we spent the afternoon lying in sunny spots, shifting once in a while out of the encroaching shade into the warm rays. We had no idea where the Germans were,—somewhere in front, of course, but just how far or how near mattered little to us. Anyway, the One Hundred and Seventy-second were fully forty metres nearer to them than we were, and we could see and hear the first-line troops picking and shoveling their way into the ground. Little King was, as usual, making the round of the company, trying to find some one to build a fire and get water if he, King, would furnish the chocolate. He found no takers and soon he laid himself down, muttering about the laziness of the outfit. Just as we were dozing deliciously, an agonized yell brought every soldier to his feet. Rushing toward the cry, I found a man sitting on the ground, holding his leg below the knee with both hands and moaning as he rocked back and forth. "Je suis blessÉ! Je suis blessÉ!" Brushing his hands aside I examined his limb. There was no blood. I took off the leg-band, rolled up his trousers, and discovered no sign of a wound. I asked the man again where the wound was, and he passed his hand over a small red spot on his shin. Just then another man picked up a small piece of shell, and then the explanation dawned upon me. The Germans were shooting at our planes straight above us; a bit of shell had come down and hit our sleeper on the shin-bone. Amid a gale of laughter he limped away to a more sympathetic audience. Several more pieces of iron fell near us. Some fragments were no joking matter, being the entire rear end of three-inch shells weighing, I should think, fully seven pounds. At 4 p.m. the soup corvÉe arrived. Besides the usual soup we had roast mutton, one small slice per man, and a mixture of white beans, rice, and string beans. There was coffee, and one cup of wine per man, and, best of all, tobacco. As we munched our food our attention was attracted to the sky above by an intense cannonade directed against several of our aeroplanes sailing east. As we looked, more and more of our war-birds appeared. Whipping out my glasses, I counted fifty-two machines. Another man counted sixty. Haeffle had it a hundred. The official report next day stated fifty-nine. They were flying very high and in very open formation, winging due east. The shells were breaking ahead of them and between them. The heaven was studded with hundreds upon hundreds of beautiful little round grayish clouds, each one the nimbus of a bursting shell. With my prismatics glued to my eyes I watched closely for one falling bird. Though it seemed incredible at the moment, not one faltered or turned back. Due east they steered, into the red painted sky. For several minutes after they had sailed out of my sight I could still hear the roar of the guns. Only one machine, the official report said, was shot down, and that one fell on the return trip. Just before night fell, we all set to work cutting pine branches, and with the tips prepared soft beds for ourselves. Sentries were placed, one man per section, and we laid ourselves down to sleep. The night passed quietly; again the day started with the usual hot coffee and bread. Soup and stew at 10 a.m., and the same again at 4 p.m. One more quiet night and again the following day. We were becoming somewhat restless with the monotony but were cheered by the captain. That night, he told us, we should return to Suippes and there we should re-form the regiment and rest. The programme sounded good, but I felt very doubtful, so many times we had heard the same tale and so many times we had been disappointed. Each day the corvÉes had brought the same news from the kitchen. At least twenty times different telephonists and agents de liaison had brought the familiar story. The soup corvÉes assured us that the drivers of the rolling kitchens had orders to hitch up and pull out toward Souain and Suippes. The telephonists had listened to the order transmitted over the wires. The agents de liaison had overheard the commandant telling other officers that he had received marching orders and, "Ma foi! each time each one was wrong!" So after all, I was not much disappointed when the order came to unmake the sacks. We stayed that night and all that day, and when the order to march the following evening came, all of us were surprised, including the captain. I was with the One Hundred and Seventy-second at the time, having some fun with a little Belgian. I had come upon him in the dark and had watched him in growing wonder at his actions. There the little fellow was, stamping up and down, every so often stopping, shaking clenched fists in the air, and spouting curses. I asked him what was the matter. "Rien, mon sergent," he replied. "Je m'excite." "Pourquoi?" I demanded. "Ah," he told me, "look,"—pointing out toward the German line,—"out there lies my friend, dead, with three pounds of my chocolate in his musette, and when I'm good and mad, I'm going out to get it!" I hope he got it! That night at seven o'clock we left the hill, marched through Souain four miles to Suippes and sixteen miles farther on, at Saint-Hilaire, we camped. A total of twenty-six miles. At Suippes the regiment passed in parade march before some officer of the État-Major, and we were counted:—eight hundred and fifty-two in the entire regiment, out of thirty-two hundred who entered the attack on the 25th of September. THE END The Riverside Press BOOKS ON THE GREAT WAR Published by Houghton Mifflin Company Thrilling stories of real adventure; graphic pictures of the fighting by men who actually fought; notable volumes dealing with the larger aspects of the struggle; in short, books for every taste and on every phase of the war may be found in these pages.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
