And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 43

_Memorandum_:

The Third Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces has been created and consists of the 1st. and 2nd. Divisions, two divisions that are known throughout France.

Officers and men of the Third Corps, you have been deemed worthy to be placed beside the best veteran French troops. See that you prove worthy. Remember that in what is now coming you represent the whole American nation.

R. L. BULLARD, Major General, Commanding 3rd. Corps.

The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets Forest all day during the 17th, had seen nothing. The appearance of all the myriad roads that cross and recross the forest in all directions was normal.

But that night things began to happen in the forest.

For once at least, the elements were favourable to our cause. There was no moon. The night was very dark and under the trees the blackness seemed impenetrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although it turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of the forest held much of the moisture and offered some protection to the thousands of men who spent the night beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard it roll in France before. The sound drowned the occasional boom of distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes would be followed by blinding flashes of lightning as nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in the sombre sky and vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the forest.

The immediate front was silent--comparatively silent if one considered the din of the belligerent elements. In the opposing front lines in the northern and eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen alike huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.

Then, along every road leading through the forest to the north and to the east, streams of traffic began to pour. All of it was moving forward toward the front. No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every inch of available road s.p.a.ce was vitally necessary for the forces in movement. The roads that usually accommodated one line of vehicles moving forward and one line moving to the rear, now represented two streams--solid streams--moving forward. In those streams were gun carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts and grunting tractors hauling large field pieces.

In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of American infantry plodded forward through the mud and darkness. In the occasional flash of a light, I could see that they were equipped for heavy fighting. Many of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up, while beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown eager beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, in addition to their c.u.mbersome packs, extra shoes and extra bandoliers of cartridges.

From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and haversacks. Their waists were girded with loaded ammunition belts, with bayonet hanging at the left side. Some of them wore grenade ap.r.o.ns full of explosives.

Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun parts slung across their backs as they leaned forward under their burdens and plunged wearily on into the mud and darkness, the thunder and lightning, the world destiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled, narrow gauge carts loaded down with machine gun ammunition.

Under the trees to either side of the road, there was more movement.

American engineers struggled forward through the underbrush carrying, in addition to their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts, picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them marched the swarthy, undersized, bearded veterans of the Foreign Legion. Further still under the trees, French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the giant trunks.

At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters with steel plated sides splotched with green and brown and red paint. These were the French tanks that were to take part in the attack. They groaned and grunted on their grinding gears as they manoeuvred about for safer progress. In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread of this modern Juggernaut.

There was no confusion, no outward manifestations of excitement. There was no rattle of musketry, shouting of commands or waving of swords.

Officers addressed their men in whispers. There was order and quiet save for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping of water from the wet leaves, punctuated now and then by the ear-splitting crashes that followed each nearby flash of lightning.

Through it all, everything moved. It was a mighty mobilisation in the dark. Everything was moving in one direction--forward--all with the same goal, all with the same urging, all with the same determination, all with the same hope. The forest was ghostly with their forms. It seemed to me that night in the damp darkness of Villers-Cotterets Forest that every tree gave birth to a man for France.

All night long the gathering of that sinister synod continued. All night long those furtive forces moved through the forest. They pa.s.sed by every road, by every lane, through every avenue of trees. I heard the whispered commands of the officers. I heard the slos.h.i.+ng of the mud under foot and the occasional m.u.f.fled curse of some weary marcher who would slip to the ground under the weight of his burden; and I knew, all of us knew, that at the zero hour, 4:35 o'clock in the morning, all h.e.l.l would land on the German line, and these men from the trees would move forward with the fate of the world in their hands.

There was some suspense. We knew that if the Germans had had the slightest advance knowledge about that mobilisation of Foch's reserves that night, they would have responded with a downpour of gas sh.e.l.ls, which spreading their poisonous fumes under the wet roof of the forest, might have spelt slaughter for 70,000 men.

But the enemy never knew. They never even suspected. And at the tick of 4:35 A. M., the heavens seemed to crash asunder, as tons and tons of hot metal sailed over the forest, bound for the German line.

That mighty artillery eruption came from a concentration of all the guns of all calibres of all the Allies that Foch could muster. It was a withering blast and where it landed in that edge of the forest occupied by the Germans, the quiet of the dripping black night was suddenly turned into a roaring inferno of death.

Giant tree trunks were blown high into the air and splintered into match-wood. Heavy projectiles bearing delayed action fuses, penetrated the ground to great depth before exploding and then, with the expansion of their powerful gases, crushed the enemy dugouts as if they were egg sh.e.l.ls.

Then young America--your sons and your brothers and your husbands, shoulder to shoulder with the French--went over the top to victory.

The preliminary barrage moved forward cras.h.i.+ng the forest down about it.

Behind it went the tanks ambling awkwardly but irresistibly over all obstructions. Those Germans that had not been killed in the first terrific blast, came up out of their holes only to face French and American bayonets, and the "Kamerad" chorus began at once.

Our a.s.saulting waves moved forward, never hesitating, never faltering.

Ahead of them were the tanks giving special attention to enemy machine gun nests that manifested stubbornness. We did not have to charge those death-dealing nests that morning as we did in the Bois de Belleau. The tanks were there to take care of them. One of these would move toward a nest, flirt around it several minutes and then politely sit on it. It would never be heard from thereafter.

It was an American whirlwind of fighting fury that swept the Germans in front of it early that morning. Aeroplanes had been a.s.signed to hover over the advance and make reports on all progress. A dense mist hanging over the forest made it impossible for the aviators to locate the Divisional Headquarters to which they were supposed to make the reports.

These dense clouds of vapour obscured the earth from the eyes of the airmen, but with the rising sun the mists lifted.

Being but a month out of the hospital and having spent a rather strenuous night, I was receiving medical attention at daybreak in front of a dressing station not far from the headquarters of Major General Harbord commanding the Second Division. As I lay there looking up through the trees, I saw a dark speck diving from the sky. Almost immediately I could hear the hum of its motors growing momentarily louder as it neared the earth. I thought the plane was out of control and expected to see it crash to the ground near me.

Several hundred feet above the tree tops, it flattened its wings and went into an easy swoop so that its under-gear seemed barely to skim the uppermost branches. The machine pursued a course immediately above one of the roads. Something dropped from it. It was a metal cylinder that glistened in the rays of the morning sun. Attached to it was a long streamer of fluttering white material. It dropped easily to the ground nearby. I saw an American signalman, who had been following its descent, pick it up. He opened the metal container and extracted the message containing the first aerial observations of the advance of the American lines. It stated that large numbers of prisoners had been captured and were bound for the rear.

Upon receipt of this information, Division Headquarters moved forward on the jump. Long before noon General Harbord, close behind his advancing troops, opened headquarters in the shattered farm buildings of Verte Feuille, the first community centre that had been taken by our men that morning. Prisoners were coming back in droves.

I encountered one column of disarmed Germans marching four abreast with the typical att.i.tude of a "Kamerad" procession. The first eight of the prisoners carried on their shoulders two rudely constructed litters made from logs and blankets. A wounded American was on one litter and a wounded Frenchman on the other.

A number of German knapsacks had been used to elevate the shoulders of both of the wounded men so that they occupied positions half sitting and half reclining. Both of them were smoking cigarettes and chatting gaily as they rode high and mighty on the shoulders of their captives, while behind them stretched a regal retinue of eight hundred more.

As this column proceeded along one side of the road, the rest of the roadway was filled with men, guns and equipment all moving forward.

Scottish troops in kilts swung by and returned the taunts which our men laughingly directed at their kilts and bare knees.

Slightly wounded Americans came back guarding convoys of prisoners. They returned loaded with relics of the fighting. It was said that day that German prisoners had explained that in their opinion, the British were in the war because they hated Germany and that the French were in the war because the war was in France, but that Americans seemed to be fighting to collect souveniers.

I saw one of these American souvenier collectors bound for the rear. In stature he was one of the shortest men I had ever seen in our uniform.

He must have spent long years in the cavalry, because he was frightfully bowlegged. He was herding in front of him two enormous German prisoners who towered head and shoulders above him.

He manifested a confidence in his knowledge of all prisoners and things German. Germans were "foreigners." "Foreigners" spoke a foreign language. Therefore to make a German understand you, it was only necessary to speak with them in a foreign language. French was a foreign language so the bowlegged American guard made use of his limited knowledge.

"Allay! Allay! Allay veet t'ell outer here," he urged his charges.

He was wearing his helmet back on his head so that there was exposed a shock of black, blood-matted hair on his forehead. A white bandage ran around his forehead and on the right side of his face a strip of cotton gauze connected with another white bandage around his neck. There was a red stain on the white gauze over the right cheek.

His face was rinsed with sweat and very dirty. In one hand he carried a large chunk of the black German war bread--once the property of his two prisoners. With his disengaged hand he conveyed ma.s.ses of the food to his lips which were circled with a fresco of crumbs.

His face was wreathed in a remarkable smile--a smile of satisfaction that caused the corners of his mouth to turn upward toward his eyes. I also smiled when I made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with which he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from his right hip were five holsters containing as many German automatic pistols of the Lueger make, worth about $35 apiece. Suspended from his right shoulder by straps to his left hip, were six pairs of highly prized German field gla.s.ses, worth about $100 apiece. I acquired a better understanding of his contagious smile of property possession when I inquired his name and his rank. He replied:

"Sergeant Harry Silverstein."

Later, attracted by a blast of extraordinary profanity, I approached one of our men who was seated by the roadside. A bullet had left a red crease across his cheek but this was not what had stopped him. The hobnail sole of his shoe had been torn off and he was trying to fasten it back on with a combination of straps. His profane denunciations included the U. S. Quartermaster Department, French roads, barbed wire, hot weather and, occasionally, the Germans.

"This sure is a h.e.l.l of a mess," he said, "for a fellow to find himself in this fix just when I was beginning to catch sight of 'em. I enlisted in the army to come to France to kill Germans but I never thought for one minute they'd bring me over here and try to make me run 'em to death. What we need is greyhounds. And as usual the Q. M. fell down again. Why, there wasn't a la.s.soe in our whole company."

The prisoners came back so fast that the Intelligence Department was flooded. The divisional intelligence officer asked me to a.s.sist in the interrogation of the captives. I questioned some three hundred of them.

An American sergeant who spoke excellent German, interrogated. I sat behind a small table in a field and the sergeant would call the prisoners forward one by one. In German he asked one captive what branch of the service he belonged to. The prisoner wis.h.i.+ng to display his knowledge of English and at the same time give vent to some pride, replied in English.

"I am of the storm troop," he said.

"Storm troop?" replied the American sergeant, "do you know what we are?

We are from Kansas. We are Cycloners."