The Iron Division, National Guard of Pennsylvania, in the World War Part 11

One man of the 110th went to sleep in a hole in the night and did not hear the withdrawal just before dawn. Obviously his name could not be made public. When he woke it was broad daylight, and he was only partly concealed by a little hole in the railroad bank. There was nothing he could do. If he had tried to run for his regimental lines he would have been drilled like a sieve before he had gone fifty yards. Soon the German batteries would begin sh.e.l.ling, so he simply dug deeper into the embankment.

"I just drove myself into that bank like a nail," he told his comrades later. He got away the next night.

Richard Morse, of the 110th, whose home is in Harrisburg, went out with a raiding party. The Germans discovered the advance of the group and opened a concentrated fire, forcing them back. Morse was struck in the leg and fell. He was able to crawl, however, and crawling was all he could have done anyway, because the only line of retreat open to him was being swept by a hail of machine gun bullets. As he crawled he was. .h.i.t by a second bullet. Then a third one creased the muscles of his back. A few feet farther, and two more struck him, making five in all.

Then he tumbled into a sh.e.l.l hole. He waited until the thres.h.i.+ng fire veered from his vicinity and he had regained a little strength, then crawled to another hole and flopped himself into that. Incredible as it may seem, he regained his own lines the fourth day by crawling from sh.e.l.l hole to sh.e.l.l hole, and started back to the hospital with every prospect of a quick recovery. He had been given up for dead, and the men of his own and neighboring companies gave him a rousing welcome. He had nothing to eat during those four days, but had found an empty tin can, and when it rained caught enough water in that to a.s.suage his thirst.

Corporal George D. Hyde, of Mt. Pleasant, Company E, 110th, hid in a hole in the side of the railroad embankment for thirty-six hours on the chance of obtaining valuable information. When returning, a piece of shrapnel struck the pouch in which he carried his grenades. Examining them, he found the cap of one driven well in. It was a miracle it had not exploded and torn a hole through him.

"You ought to have seen me throw that grenade away," he said.

In this waiting time it was decided to clean up a position of the enemy that was thrust out beyond their general line, from which an annoying fire was kept up constantly. Accordingly, a battalion of the 110th was sent over to wipe it out.

The Rev. Mandeville J. Barker, rector of the Episcopal Church in Uniontown, Pa., is chaplain of the 110th, with the rank of first lieutenant. He had endeared himself to officers and men alike by his happy combination of buoyant, gallant cheerfulness, st.u.r.dy Americanism, deep Christianity, indifference to hards.h.i.+p and the tender care he gave to the wounded. He had become, indeed, the most beloved man in the regiment.

He went over the top with the battalion that attacked by night on the heights of the Vesle. It was not his duty to go; in fact had the regimental commander known his intention, he probably would have been forbidden to go. But go he did. He had an idea that his job was to look after the men's bodies as well as their souls, and when there was stern fighting to do, he liked to be in a position where he could attend to both phases of his work.

The attacking party wiped out the Hun machine gun nest after a sharp fight and then retired to their own lines, as ordered. It was so dark that some of the wounded were overlooked. After the battalion returned, voices of American wounded could be heard out in that new No Man's Land, calling for help. Dr. Barker took his life and some first aid equipment and water in his two hands and slipped out into the dark, with only stars.h.i.+ne and the voices of the wounded to guide him and, between the two armies, attended to the wounds of the men as best he could by the light of a small pocket torch, which he had to keep concealed from the enemy lookouts.

One after another the clergyman hunted. Those who could walk he started back to the lines. Several he had to a.s.sist. One lad who was beyond help he sat beside and ministered to with the tenderness of a mother until the young soul struggled gropingly out into the Great Beyond. Then, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, the beloved "Sky Pilot" started back.

But again the sound of a voice in agony halted him. This time, however, it was not English words that he heard, but a moaning pet.i.tion in guttural German: "Ach Gott! Ach, mein lieber Gott!"

The men of the 110th loved their "parson" even more for what he did then. He turned right about and went back, groping in the dark for the sobbing man. He found a curly-haired young German, wounded so he could not walk and in mortal terror, not of death or of the dark, but of those "terrible Americans who torture and kill their prisoners." Such was the tale with which he and his comrades had been taught to loathe their American enemies. Dr. Barker treated his wounds and carried him back to the American lines. The youngster whimpered with fear when he found where he was going, and begged the clergyman not to leave him. When he finally was convinced that he would not be harmed, he kissed the chaplain's hands, crying over them, and insisted on turning over to Dr.

Barker everything he owned that could be loosened--helmet, pistol, bayonet, cartridges, b.u.t.tons, and other odds and ends.

"All hung over with loot, the parson was, when he came back," said a sergeant in telling of the scene afterward.

"The Fighting Parson," as the men called him, did not fight, actually, but he went as close to it as possible. On one occasion snipers were bothering the men. Dr. Barker borrowed a pair of gla.s.ses, lay flat on the field and, after prolonged study, discovered the offenders, four of them, and notified an artillery observer. A big gun casually swung its snout around, barked three times and the snipers sniped no more. Two or three days later, the regiment went over and took that section of German line and found what was left of the four men. "The Parson's Boche," the men called them.

Toward the last of the action below the Vesle, a group of men of the 110th had established an outpost in a large cave, which extended a considerable distance back in a cliff--just how far none of the men ever discovered. After they had been there several days, Dr. Barker arranged to cheer them a little in their lonely vigil. The cave had been an underground quarry. The Germans had occupied it, knew exactly where it was and its value as a hiding place, and kept a constant stream of machine gun bullets flying past its mouth.

For three weeks it had been possible to enter or leave the cave only after dark. Even then it was risky, for the mouth of the cave was only about fifty yards from the German trenches and slight sounds could be heard. After dark the Hun fire was laid down about the entrance at every suspicious noise. Sometimes the men inside would amuse themselves by heaving stones outside from a safe position within, to hear Fritz turn loose his "pepper boxes."

Despite these difficulties, Dr. Barker got a motion picture outfit into the cave and gave a show of six reels to the men stationed there, after which Y. M. C. A. men entertained them with songs and eccentric dances.

Men who saw that performance, in the light of torches and flambeaux, will never forget the picture.

Toward the last there were sounds from the farther interior of the cave, and two American soldiers walked into the circle, blinking their eyes.

n.o.body gave much attention to them, supposing they just had wandered away a few minutes before, until one of them interrupted a song with the hoa.r.s.ely whispered query:

"Got any chow?" Which is army slang for food.

"Aw, go lay down," was the querulous reply of the man addressed. "Ain't yuh got sense enough not to interrupt a show? Shut up, will yuh?"

"Gee, but I'm hungry," came the answer. "I need some chow. We been lost in this doggone cave for two days."

Investigation developed that he was telling the truth, and Dr. Barker produced from some mysterious horn of plenty some chocolate, which the famished men ate with avidity. With the natural, healthy curiosity of American youth, they had set out to explore the cave and had become lost in its mazes. Only the lights and noises of Dr. Barker's concert had led them out.

An instance of the att.i.tude of mind of the Pennsylvania men, who felt nothing but contempt for their foes, and of how little the arrogance and intolerance of the typical Prussian officer impressed them, was given by members of the 111th Ambulance Company, working with the 111th Infantry.

Soldiers of Pennsylvania Dutch descent had amazed the Germans more than once not only by understanding the conversation of the enemy, but by their intense anger, almost ferocity, which they displayed on occasions when confronted with "the Intolerable Thing" called the Prussian spirit.

Offspring of men and women of st.u.r.dy, free-minded stock who fled from oppression in Europe, they flamed with the spirit of the real liberty lover when in contact with the Prussian.

A little group of the 111th's ambulanciers when carrying back the wounded, met a German major who was groaning and complaining vigorously and demanding instant attention. The contrast between his conduct and that of American officers, who almost invariably told the litter-bearers to go on and pick up worse wounded men, was glaring, but finally the bearers good-humoredly decided to get the major out of the way to stop his noise. He was not wounded severely, but was unable to walk, and they lifted him to the stretcher with the same care they gave to all the wounded.

Promptly the major began to upbraid the Americans, speaking in his native tongue. In the language of a Billingsgate fishwife--or what corresponds to one in Hunland--he cursed the Americans, root, stock and branch, from President Wilson down to the newest recruit in the army.

Thomas G. Fox, of Hummelstown, Pa., one of the bearers, understood his every word and repeated the diatribe in English to his fellows, who became restive under the tirade. At last the major said:

"You Americans think you are going to win the war, but you're not."

That was too much for Fox and his companions.

"You think you are going to be carried back to a hospital, but you're not," said Fox. Whereupon the litter was turned over neatly and the major deposited, not too gently, on the hard ground. For some time he lay there, roaring his maledictions. Then he started to crawl back, and by the time he got to a hospital, he had lost some of his insolence.

CHAPTER XII

IN DEATH VALLEY

Hun infantry in considerable force held Fismes. Their big guns had been moved across the Vesle, tacit admission they had no hope of holding the south bank of the river, but the strength of the force in the town indicated the customary intention to sell out as dearly as possible to their dogged and unfaltering pursuers.

Lying in the woods, or whatever other shelter they could find, our infantrymen for two days watched French and American batteries moving into position. It seemed the procession was interminable.

"There'll be something doing for Fritz when those babies get going," was the opinion of the Pennsylvania doughboys.

French and American forces already had crossed the river east and west of Fismes, which was almost the geographic center of the line between Soissons and Rheims. To stabilize the line, it was essential not only that Fismes be taken, but that the river crossings be forced and Fismette seized.

Forward bodies of infantry continually had been feeling out the German positions in Fismes and on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, August 3rd, reconnaissance parties from the 168th Infantry, formerly the Third Iowa National Guard, of the Rainbow Division, entered the southern edge of the town.

They clung there desperately until the next day, but the Germans deluged them with gas, which hung close because of the river and the heavy atmosphere, and it was deemed inadvisable for the small force to remain.

Their reconnaissance had been completed and they were ordered to return to their lines. The information they brought back aided the staff materially in planning the general attack.

The Germans had placed heavy guns on the crests of hills one or two kilometers north of the river, from which they poured in a flanking fire.

A few hours after the return of the men of the 168th, the ma.s.sed French and American batteries turned loose with a racket that seemed to rend the universe.

The Germans had been dropping sh.e.l.ls intermittently since daylight, but even this spasmodic firing stopped entirely under the hurricane of shrapnel, high explosive and gas sh.e.l.ls from the Allied artillery, which swept the town, the river crossings and the country to the north. It was a case of "keep your head down, Fritzie boy," or lose it.

The artillery preparation was not protracted. After an hour or so, it steadied down into a rolling barrage and the first wave of attackers went over. The 32d and 42d (Rainbow) Divisions, exhausted, had been brought out of the front line and Pennsylvania's iron men slipped into place.

It fell to the fortune of the 112th Infantry to lead the advance on Fismes and, supported though it was by other regiments and by tremendous artillery fire, it was the 112th Pennsylvania that actually took Fismes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Committee on Public Information._

INTO THE MAW OF BATTLE