Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 31

ST. MIHIEL

"What are we going to do?" asked Bob.

"What can we do?" Ned returned.

"Let's go after him and bring him back!" exclaimed the excitable Bob.

"Maybe the Germans have him!"

"Then we'll not easily get him," said Jerry. "And, as a matter of fact, we can't even try."

"Why not?" asked Ned.

"Because we can't leave. All furloughs have been stopped these last three days. We may go into action any minute. If the professor is in trouble we can't help him."

"That seems hard," murmured Bob.

"It is," agreed Jerry. "But it's the fortune of war. We're here to fight, and we've got to do that when the time comes. It may be that the professor has only wandered off among our own soldiers, or those of the French or English, after a b.u.t.terfly or some other bug."

"But without his hat!" exclaimed Bob.

"And gone more than a day!" added Ned.

"Those things wouldn't worry him," said Jerry. "Half the time he forgets his hat, and it is midsummer now. As for being gone more than a day, he's often spent longer than that chasing a single flea. He is used to camping out, and he'll get along somehow. We'll just have to let him go, that's all."

"I suppose so," agreed Ned; "but it's too bad."

It was, but there was nothing they could do. The professor might wander into the enemy's territory and be captured, or he might come safely back to the little French village.

"Though if he doesn't come back what are we to do with his things and about Professor Petersen's nieces?" asked Ned.

"The best we can," advised Jerry.

"After the war, if we're alive, we can look for the girls," suggested Bob.

"Pretty slim chance of finding 'em," murmured Ned.

"It wouldn't do much good, anyway, if we can't find the professor. The money was not left to us to divide," was Jerry's comment.

Jerry had spoken truly when he said that all leave had been stopped, for now were beginning the final great a.s.saults of the American and Allied armies that were, if not actually to overwhelm the Huns, at least to approach so nearly that state that there was a distinction without a difference.

And it was well that Ned, Bob, and Jerry returned to their station when they did, for not ten minutes later the general order to move forward was given up and down the long line.

"Forward!" was the battle cry--the watchword that was to guide them all. "Forward!"

Forward they went, against Germany's best troops. Forward against a relentless and almost impregnable foe. Forward in the name of Humanity, Freedom, and Right. Forward all!

And as Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched with their comrades up to the firing lines there began that great movement of American troops which took part in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient--the wiping out of the great wedge the Germans had driven into France. And with the wiping out of this there began the final battle--the cleaning of the Argonne Forest which brought an end to the war.

For some time General Pers.h.i.+ng and his general staff had looked forward to the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient. With that out of the way it meant the concentration of the American divisions in their own zone.

Late in August the line, beginning at Port sur Seille, east of the Moselle, and extending to the west through St. Mihiel, thence north to a point opposite Verdun, was placed under the supervision of the American commander. Later the American sector was extended across the Meuse to the western edge of the Argonne Forest, and included the Second Colonial French, which held the point of the salient and the Seventeenth French Corps, which occupied the heights above Verdun.

As Ned, Bob, and Jerry marched on with their comrades they saw, or became aware of, the immensity of the preparations needed to make this movement a success. For they had to move against a German position second to none in strength. To quote General Pers.h.i.+ng:

"The preparation for a complicated operation against the formidable defenses in front of us included the a.s.sembling of divisions and of corps of army artillery, transport, aircraft, tanks, ambulances, the location of hospitals, and the molding together of all of the elements of a great modern army with its own railheads, supplied directly by our own Service of Supply. The concentration for this operation, which was to be a surprise, involved the movement, mostly at night, of approximately 600,000 troops, and required for its success the most careful attention to every detail.

"The French were generous in giving us a.s.sistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel, and we were confident from the start of our superiority over the enemy in guns of all calibers. Our heavy guns were able to reach Metz and to interfere seriously with German rail movements. The French Independent Air Force was placed under my command which, together with the British bombing squadrons and our air forces, gave us the largest a.s.sembly of aviation that had ever been engaged in one operation on the western front."

It must not be imagined that all this great army went forward in a day or two, or that the battle lasted but a short time. On the other hand, it was a fight, tooth and nail, for almost every foot of the way. The battle line from Les Esparages, around the nose of the St. Mihiel salient to the Moselle River was about forty miles, and was greatly strengthened by artificial defenses. This gives some idea of the task ahead of General Pers.h.i.+ng. If you will picture to yourself a distance from your own home, as you sit reading this, to some point distant forty miles, in the woods or mountains, and then figure this forty miles occupied by advancing troops, fighting against a ruthless foe, you will have some idea of the battle of St. Mihiel.

And it was forward into this battle that Ned, Bob, and Jerry and their comrades moved. It would be impossible to tell all that happened--of the surging forward into the face of devastating fire; of the men who fell at the sides of the chums, killed or desperately wounded; of the terrible and awful sights they saw. For days they fought on. Gaining ground here, losing, perhaps, a little there, hiding all night in rain-filled sh.e.l.l-holes, being driven out, but going back to recapture them again. On and on they went.

They were weary to death, but they kept on, and, for a wonder, such is sometimes the fortune of war, neither Ned, Bob, nor Jerry was seriously wounded. They received minor knocks, scratches, and bruises, and once Bob's cheek was grazed by a bullet. But they did not have to drop out of the fighting.

And it was fierce! No other word describes it. They fought, and fought, and fought again, onward, ever onward. For they must not stop.

The American army did not know that word.

And then, after nearly two weeks of steady fighting, with only such rest for the exhausted troops as was absolutely necessary, came the final stage. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, staggering from weariness, took their places in line one gray morning.

Suddenly about them thundered great salvos of firing. It shook the very ground. The chums looked at one another in wonder.

"This must be another big show," shouted Jerry. He had to shout to be heard above the noise.

"It is," said Ned.

And it was. It was the final a.s.sault against the last of the German defenses in St. Mihiel.

"Forward!" came the cry, given after four hours of the greatest artillery barrage ever laid down. At five o'clock, on the morning of September 12th, seven American divisions in the front line advanced.

They were a.s.sisted by tanks, manned by Americans and French, and there were groups of wire-cutters and other groups armed with bangalore torpedoes. "These," says General Pers.h.i.+ng, in his report, "went through the successive bands of barbed wire that protected the enemy's front line and support trenches, in irresistable waves on schedule time, breaking down all defenses of an enemy demoralized by the great volume of our artillery fire, and our sudden approach out of the fog."

And forward, in their own modest and humble way, with this great army of liberation went Ned, Bob, and Jerry. Shooting and being shot at they went forward until the iron strength of the foe was broken, and the cry sounded:

"They're running away! We've got 'em beat!"

And thus it was. German troops were giving way in a rout. Let General Pers.h.i.+ng tell it in his own simple way:

"Our 1st Corps advanced to Thiacourt, while our 4th Corps curved back to the southwest through Nonsard. The 2d Colonial French Corps made the slight advance required of it on very difficult ground, and the 5th Corps took its three ridges and repulsed a counter-attack. A rapid march brought reserve regiments of a division of the 5th Corps into Vigneulles in the early morning, where it linked up with patrols of our 4th Corps, closing the salient and forming a new line west of Thiacourt to Vigneulles and beyond Fresnes-en-Woevre. At the cost of only 7,000 casualties, mostly light, we had taken 16,000 prisoners and 443 guns, a great quant.i.ty of material, released the inhabitants of many villages from enemy domination, and established our lines in a position to threaten Metz. This signal success of the American First Army in its first offensive was of prime importance. The Allies found they had a formidable army to aid them, and the enemy learned finally that he had one to reckon with."

And that was the battle of St. Mihiel.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN ARGONNE FOREST