And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 23

"Why in h.e.l.l don't they come back at us?" Griffin asks. "I've had myself all tuned up for the last twenty minutes to have a leg blown off and be thankful. I hate this waiting stuff."

"Keep your s.h.i.+rt on, Pete," Stanton remarks. "Give 'em a chance to get their breath and come out of their holes. That barrage drove 'em down a couple hundred feet into the ground and they haven't any elevators to come up on. We'll hear from 'em soon enough."

We did, but it was not more than a whisper as compared with what they were receiving from our side of the line. The German artillery came into lethargic action after the American barrage had been in constant operation for thirty minutes and then the enemy's fire was only desultory. Only an occasional sh.e.l.l from Kulturland came our way, and even they carried a rather tired, listless buzz, as though they didn't know exactly where they were going and didn't care.

Six or eight of them hummed along a harmless...o...b..t not far above our tree top and fell in the forest. It certainly looked as though we were shooting all the hard-stuff and the German end of the fireworks party was all coloured lights and Roman candles. Of the six sh.e.l.ls that pa.s.sed us, three failed to explode upon landing.

"That makes three dubs," said Guahn.

"You don't mean dubs," Stanton corrected him, "you mean duds and even then you are wrong. Those were gas pills. They just crack open quietly so you don't know it until you've sniffed yourself dead. Listen, you'll hear the gas alert soon."

Even as he spoke, we heard through the firing the throaty gurgling of the sirens. The alarm started on our right and spread from station to station through the woods. We adjusted the respirators and turned our m.u.f.fled faces toward the firing line. Through the moisture fogged gla.s.ses of my mask, I looked first upon my companions on this rustic scaffold above the forest.

War's demands had removed our appearances far from the human. Our heads were topped with uncomfortable steel casques, harder than the backs of turtles. Our eyes were large, flat, round glazed surfaces unblinking and owl-like. Our faces were shapeless folds of black rubber cloth. Our lungs sucked air through tubes from a canva.s.s bag under our chins and we were inhabiting a tree top like a family of apes. It really required imagination to make it seem real.

"Looks like the party is over," came the m.u.f.fled remark from the masked figure beside me. The cannonading was dying down appreciably. The blinking line of lights in front of us grew less.

A terrific upward blast of red and green flame from the ground close to our tree, reminded us that one heavy still remained under firing orders.

The flash seen through the forest revealed in intricate tracings the intertwining limbs and branches of the trees. It presented the appearance of a piece of strong black lace spread out and held at arm's length in front of a glowing grate.

From the German lines an increased number of flares shot skyward and as the cannon cracks ceased, save for isolated booms, the enemy machine guns could be heard at work, riveting the night with sprays of lead and sounding for all the world like a scourge of hungry woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.

"G.o.d help any of the doughboys that are going up against any of that stuff," Griffin observed through his mask.

"Don't worry about our doughboys," replied Stanton; "they are all safe in their trenches now. That's most likely the reason why our guns were ordered to lay off. I guess Fritzie got busy with his typewriters too late."

I descended the tree, leaving my companions to wait for the orders necessary for their departure. Unfamiliar with the unmarked paths of the forest and guided only as to general directions, I made my way through the trees some distance in search of the road back from the front.

A number of mud and water-filled sh.e.l.l holes intervened to make the exertion greater and consequently the demand upon lungs for air greater.

After floundering several kilometres through a strange forest with a gas mask on, one begins to appreciate the temptation that comes to tear off the stifling nose bag and risk asphyxiation for just one breath of fresh air.

A babel of voices in the darkness to one side guided me to a log cabin where I learned from a sentry that the gas scare had just been called off. Continuing on the road, I collided head on in the darkness with a walking horse. Its rider swore and so did I, with slightly the advantage over him as his head was still encased. I told him the gas alarm was off and he tore away the mask with a sigh of relief. I left him while he was removing the horse's gas mask.

A light snow was beginning to fall as I said good-night to the battalion commander in front of his roadside shack. A party of mounted runners was pa.s.sing on the way to their quarters. With an admirable lack of dignity quite becoming a national guard cavalry major in command of regular army artillery, he said:

"Good-night, men, we licked h.e.l.l out of them."

The Toul sector, during its occupation by Americans, always maintained a high daily rating of artillery activity. The opposing forces were continually planning surprises on one another. At any minute of the night or day a terrific bombardment of high explosive or gas might break out on either side. Both sides operated their sound ranging apparatus to a rather high degree of efficiency.

By these delicate instruments we could locate the exact position of an unseen enemy battery. Following that location, the battery would immediately be visited with a concentrated downpour of hot steel intended to wipe it out of existence. The enemy did as much for us, so that in the artillery, when the men were not actually manning the guns in action, they were digging gun pits for reserve positions which they could occupy if the enemy happened to get the proper range of the old positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery adopted a system by which many lives were saved.

If a German battery began sh.e.l.ling one of our battery positions, the artillerymen in that position were not called upon to stand by their guns and return the fire. The order would be given to temporarily abandon the position and the men would be withdrawn a safe distance. The German battery that was firing would be responded to, two to one, by other American batteries located nearby and which did not happen to be under fire at the time. By this system we conserved our strength.

Our infantry was strong in their praise of the artillery. I observed this particularly one day on the Toul front when General Pers.h.i.+ng dropped in unexpectedly at the division headquarters, then located in the hillside village of Bourcq. While the commander and his party were awaiting a meal which was being prepared, four muddy figures tramped down the hallway of the Chateau. Through the doorway the general observed their entrance.

The two leading figures were stolid German soldiers, prisoners of war, and behind them marched their captors, two excusably proud young Americans. One of them carried his bayoneted rifle at the ready, while the second carried the equipment which had been taken from the prisoners. The American commander ordered the group brought before him and asked one of the Americans to relate the story of the capture.

"We in the infantry got 'em, sir," replied one, "but the artillery deserved most of the credit. It happened just at dawn this morning. Jim here, and myself, were holding down an advance machine gun post when the Germans laid down a flock of sh.e.l.ls on our first line trench. We just kept at the gun ready to let them have it if they started to come over.

"Pretty soon we saw them coming through the mist and we began to put it to 'em. I think we got a bunch of them but they kept on coming.

"Then somebody back in our first line shot up the signal for a barrage in our sector. It couldn't have been a minute before our cannon cut loose and the sh.e.l.ls began to drop right down in the middle of the raiding party.

"It was a good heavy barrage, sir, and it cut clean through the centre of the raiders. Two Germans were ahead of the rest and the barrage landed right in back of them. The rest started running back toward their lines, but the first pair could not go back because they would have had to pa.s.s through the barrage. I kept the machine gun going all the time and Jim showed himself above the trench and pointed his rifle at the cut-off pair.

"They put up their hands right quick and we waved to 'em to come in.

They took it on the jump and landed in our trench as fast as they could.

We took their equipment off them and we were ordered to march them back here to headquarters. That's all there was to it, sir."

The enemy in front of Toul manifested an inordinate anxiety to know more about the strength of our forces and the character of the positions we occupied. A captured German doc.u.ment issued to the Fifth Bavarian Landwehr infantry brigade instructed every observer and patrol to do his or its best "to bring information about the new enemy."

"Nothing is known as yet about the methods of fighting or leaders.h.i.+p,"

the doc.u.ment set forth, "and all information possible must be gathered as to particular features of American fighting and outpost tactics. This will then be used for extending the information bulletin. Any observation or identification, however insignificant, may be of the greatest value."

The doc.u.ment directed that data on the following questions be obtained:

"Are sentry posts sentry posts or stronger posts? Further advanced reconnoitring patrols? Manner of challenging? Behaviour on post during day and night? Vigilance? Ambush tactics and cunning?

"Do they shoot and signal on every occasion? Do the posts hold their ground on the approach of a patrol, or do they fall back?

"Are the Americans careful and cautious? Are they noisy? What is their behaviour during smoke screens?"

The enemy's keen desire to acquire this information was displayed in the desperate efforts it made. One day the French troops occupying the trenches on the right flank of the American sector, encountered a soldier in an American uniform walking through their positions.

He was stopped and questioned. He said he had been one of an American patrol that had gone out the night before, that he had lost his way in No Man's Land and that he thought he was returning to his own trenches, when he dropped into those held by the French.

Although the man wore our uniform and spoke excellent English and seemed straightforward in his replies, as to his name and rank and organisation, the French officer before whom he was brought was not completely satisfied. To overcome this hesitancy, the suspected man opened his s.h.i.+rt and produced an American identification tag verifying his answers.

The French officer, still suspicious, ordered the man held while he telephoned to the American organisation mentioned to ascertain whether any man of the name given was missing from that unit.

"Yes," replied the American captain. "We lost him last October, when we were in the front line down in the Luneville sector. He was captured with eight others by the Germans."

"Well, we've got him over here on your right flank. He came into our lines this morning--" the French officer started to say.

"Bully," came the American interruption over the wire. "He's escaped from the Germans and has come clear through their lines to get back to his company. He'll get a D. S. C. for that. We'll send right over for him."

"But when we questioned him," replied the Frenchman, "he said he left your lines only last night on patrol and got lost in No Man's Land."

"I'll come right over and look at that party, myself," the American captain hastily replied.

He reached the French officer's dugout several hours later and the suspect was ordered brought in.

"He must be crazy, sir," the French orderly said. "He tried to kill himself a few minutes ago and we have had to hold him."

The man was brought into the dugout between two poilus who held his arms. The American captain took a careful look and said:

"That's not our man. He wears our uniform correctly and that's our regulation identification tag. Both of them must have been taken away from our man when he was captured. This man is an impostor."

"He's more than that," replied the Frenchman with a smile. "He's a German spy."