HISTORY
OF THE 305th FIELD ARTILLERY
by
Charles Wadsworth Camp
1919
XVI
RECONNOITERING IN FRONT OF FISMES
THE reconnaissance we made in the Fismes sector on August
14th was about as much like our Lorraine ones as a
pleasant day is like a period of violent storm. Nor was
it as agreeable as a reconnaissance made during an
advance, for here we faced a semi-stabilized battle. The
Huns could see our little party, and they had registered
everything. Still all reconnaissances have one feature in
common. They never work out exactly as one plans. They
fail invariably to follow the pretty rules laid down by
the books. At the front you mould technique to the
demands of the moment, and to the necessity for quick
results.
It is a matter of interest to preserve the field order
that sent us into this, our costliest battle. The
reconnaissance was made in pursuance to its provisions.
It follows:
Headquarters 77th Division, American E. F.
14 August, 1918.
FIELD ORDER NO. 23.
MAPS: FERE-en-TARDENOIS
FISMES 1 000
1. The 4th Field Artillery Brigade will be relieved by
the 152nd Field Artillery Brigade on the nights of August
15-16 and 16-17, 1918, in compliance with G-3 order no.
31, 3rd Army Corps, 14 August, 1918.
2. The 305th Field Artillery will relieve the 16th Field
Artillery, the 304th Field Artillery will relieve the
77th Field Artillery, the 306th Field Artillery will
relieve the 13th Field Artillery,
assuming missions of organizations relieved. Necessary reconnaissances on 14th and 15th August as previously
directed.
3. Relief will be completed as follows:
1st Night: (15-16) (a) 12 battery to be relieved in each
position. 1/2 battery 152nd Brigade will be accompanied
by an officer who will remain at the position. One chief
of section of each 1/2 battery will remain at the
position.
(b) Telephone operators, linemen, and observers of the
152nd Brigade will report to their posts and will remain
in observation only.
2nd Night: (16-17) (a) Remaining 1 of each battery
relieved. One officer and 2 chiefs of section to remain
at position until following noon.
(b) All specialists relieved, excepting one telephone
operator and one observer of 4th Field Artillery Brigade
in each post, will remain in place until noon following.
(c) Ammunition dumps will be turned over to 152nd
Brigade.
(d) Battery combat train and other elements will stand
relieved at 21: 00 o'clock.
(e) Ammunition train will stand relieved at 21:00
o'clock.
4. Arrangements for exchange of wire, camouflage nets,
etc. will be made between commanders concerned.
5. Elements of 16tb Field Artillery, as relieved, will
proceed to position in FORET de FEREby roads to south
through NESLES. Other elements will use main road through
FERE-en-TARDEN-NOIS. Elements of the 152nd Field
Artillery Brigade will use the roads running north from
the FORET de NESLES.
6. The 302nd Trench Mortar Battery will remain for the
present in the location where it is bivouacked.
Reconnaissances will be made to select suitable positions
for this battery so that it may be put in position in the
near future.
7. Command will pass to battery, battalion, and
regimental Commanders of 152Dd Brigade, as the relief of
each unit is reported complete.
8. Command of the artillery of the sector will pass to
Command-ing Officer 152nd Brigade at 8 A. M. August 17,
1918; P. C. 152nd Field Artillery Brigade will open at
FERE CHATEAU at the same time, same date.
By command of Major General Duncan,
J. R. R. Hannay
Chief of Staff.
So we set out to study the ground. The regimental,
battalion, and battery parties left Nesles Woods
together, and trotted down the hill to Mareuil where the
4th Field
Artillery Brigade had its headquarters. It was a warm,
brilliant day. Therefore, we knew we would see and be
seen. We dashed past parties of pioneers repairing roads
that had been damaged by shell fire the previous night.
In the stricken village ambulances stood outside a
distributing station, and on the ground were many
stretchers, bearing forms, some still, some restless,
each covered with a secretive issue blanket on which the
wounded man's tin hat and gas mask rested. Ether and
iodine cut the pervading chlorine odor.
Brigade Headquarters was a one story building originally
a cafe or a rural hostelry. It was dilapidated. The dusty
square in front of it was white with chloride
sprinklings. Opposite, an arched gateway admitted to a
large courtyard surrounded by stables and dwellings. Our
party was herded in here and commanded to keep out of
sight, because Hun planes were constantly passing
overhead, expressing an impudent curiosity. So we got as
many horses as we could in the sheds, and kept the rest
close to the walls. Then officers and enlisted men made
themselves inconspicuous and awaited the result of the
conference of field officers, which continued in the
reformed cafe across the street.
Every Soldier, I think, has noticed that daylight
acquires false qualities from one's own perceptions. To
all of us there was an unnatural tone to that brilliant
sun, streaked occasionally by enemy planes. Perhaps
another planet might have light like that. You heard men
commenting about it with little laughs.
Restlessness grew upon us. Would the conference never
end? A group of field officers came from headquarters.
Their faces were serious. They glanced about uneasily.
Some of them appeared a trifle undecided. They paused,
forming little groups, to which representatives from our
party attached themselves. Gossip drifted into the hot,
restless courtyard. One of the batteries, which the 305th
was going to relieve, we heard, had had forty casualties
during a burst of harassing fire the afternoon before.
There was always harassing fire it seemed, where we were
going. We would have to take up new positions, we said
confidently. Back from the gossipping groups slipped the
depressing word that there were no positions much better
than the ones already occupied.
The Colonel came in. He said at first we would have to go
forward from that point on foot. Those of us who had
studied the maps groaned, for the road went diagonally
toward the front line. By it our positions were many
miles away. The Colonel reconsidered. He talked again to
some of the officers of the 4th. Doubtfully he decided we
might ride as far as regimental headquarters with an
interval of 200 meters between pairs.
No officer or man that took that ride cared much for it.
We curved up the hill past the half destroyed Romanesque
church, and turned into a main road on the crest. There
were, of course, no shell screens, and, to the left, we
could look all the way to Jerry's temporary home. One of
the men expressed the general emotion.
"I feel all undressed up here," he grinned.
Everywheres along that road were nice fresh signs left by
the enemy, pointing the way to dressing stations, to
ration and ammunition dumps, to short cuts for the
various villages. And there were newer French signs,
regulating traffic, repeatedly calling attention to the
exposed nature of the highway.
In the vicinity of a small group of buildings ahead large
high explosive shells were vomiting blackly. We guessed
that the group was Chartreuve Farm, the regimental
headquarters of the 16th Field Artillery.
We waited in a lane, behind the shelter of a wall until
the rest of the party had come up, then hurried across a
courtyard into the farm. Two or three habitable rooms
down stairs were packed. The colonel and the majors
conferred behind a closed door with the field officers of
the 16th. Less important but quite intelligent young men
gave us the sector gossip while the Hun continually
reminded us he knew where we were.
The sector gossip was simple. It was a rotten place we
were going to and there wasn't much we could do about it.
Jerry had a big concentration of artillery opposite and
he was using it with an admirable and murderous skill. We
listened mutely to recitations of casualties. We sensed
some joy on the part of these young men that they were
going out; a brotherly sympathy that we were going in.
This conference, too, ended at last, and the 16th gave us
a bite from their field kitchen set beneath great trees
in the pretty grounds of the place.
The Colonel and his party went no farther just then. The
two battalion parties continued on foot, out of the
friendly trees, across stripped fields, and into the
ravaged village of Chery Chartreuve.
Even on that busy day the 305th rendered even more
bibulous the name of this dissipated appearing town. It
was known ever after among us as "Sherry
Chartreuse."
A military policeman stood between wrecked buildings at
the first corner. He reminded the more careless of us to
carry our gas masks in the alert position. Another, a
hundred meters beyond, advised:
"Walk farther apart, sirs. They're giving the road
hally-lool-yah right now."
They were. The louder whistling of shells preceded
explosions close at hand. A bank on the side of the road
towards the enemy was pitted with funk holes gouged out
by infantrymen. Into these we ducked when the whistling
warned us of a dangerously close explosion. We must have
resembled animals of absurd habit that hopped aimlessly
from place to place.
This erratic progress brought us to our first view of Les
Pres Farm-place of unbeloved memories.
A huge hangar rose where a country road crossed the main
highway. The number of shell holes testified to the
enemy's interest in that crossroads. The country Toad
climbed a bare slope to a cluster of buildings, a third
of a mile from the hangar. Your first impression was of a
large and dignified stone dwelling house with half a
dozen outpost trees, and wings of sheds and stables
reaching behind it around a large courtyard. To the right
were two small stone dwellings, with a horse shed and one
or two outhouses just below them. The bare slope
stretched upward for another half mile beyond the farm,
blatantly broken by three battery positions, whose only
protection was flat tops. Wherever you glanced you saw
the mortal and redolent remains of horses in grotesque
attitudes.
Jerry saluted us. He commenced raking those exposed
battery positions. From beneath the flat tops soldiers
scurried like an indignant party of ants whose hill has
been disturbed. As we climbed the slope we couldn't help
admiring the nicety of the Hun fire. Their volleys walked
through the positions then walked back again until there
was so much jetty smoke you couldn't be quite sure where
the shells were falling.
"Hundred and fifties," we muttered.
"Battery positions!" Someone sneered.
"Targets! That's all!"
The farm at first appeared deserted. Then we saw a red
headed soldier peering at us curiously from a funk hole
dug close to the wall of one of the smaller buildings.
This one, nearest the enemy, we had been told would be
the First Battalion command post. The other would be used
for a similar purpose by the second battalion. The large
farmhouse and the courtyard were occupied by the infantry
for a dressing station and a reserve position; and the
306th, it was understood, would establish a battalion
command post there. The farm, it was clear, was already
crowded. From its exposed position it was obvious it
would give Jerry plenty of practice.
The two battalion parties went each into its little
future home.
Walls decorated with coarse cartoons by the Huns, very
recently departed; logs piled in the rooms above the
cellars in an insufficient effort to hurry the burst of a
direct hit; bedding rolls tumbled about; a greasy deal
table with, strewn across its top, the remains of a meal
and a few gay copies of " La Vie Parisienne, "
incredibly out of place -these are the less animate
things that greeted us. The others were some men with
sleeves rolled up and a tendency to scratch, and flies
innumerable-on the walls, on the men, obliterating the
neglected food.
The men welcomed us. When, they wanted to know, did they
get out?
We examined the cellars. There was one under each
building-stuffy, fly-choked places with rough bunks
improvised, and, inevitably, the switchboards in the
places of honor.
Gossip was unnecessary here. The place spoke for itself.
Still they did tell us some things.
This was the 16th's first trip to the front. They hadn't
expected to stay here long.
"We used," a major said, " the observatory
for a bleachers. I'm not joking."
Decidedly he wasn't. There were casualties in that
observatory. We had to move it. As long as we stayed
there the ridge was raked periodically by high
explosives, gas, and air bombs.
We fought the flies away from a map and studied the dispositions. It was
proposed to place batteries D, E, and F in the three positions the Huns
were harassing on the hillside. From a rear window we could see a grove
of trees just across the road, a few hundred meters from the farm.
Battery C would go there-on a forward slope. We would have to walk some
distance to inspect the possibilities for the other two batteries.
We set out after waiting for what we thought was a quiet
moment. It might as well be said now that there were no
quiet moments in or near Les Pres Farm until the Hun
moved back to the Aisne early in September. There was
never a time you could go about your work there with a
feeling of comparative security. Always shells were
bursting near you or whistling unpleasantly close. To
give the devil his due, it was great artillery work, and
it was devilishly uncomfortable. We learned afterwards
that we bad made Jerry dodge rather more than he had us.
Now he opened up as we walked across the fields to the
southeast, but we managed to reach the battery A and B
positions and express a decided disapproval. We stood on
the edge of a deep valley where B seemed fairly well off
with a little natural foliage to break the angles of its
camouflage. A was a hundred meters forward in the open
with only its flat tops to make a futile attempt to
deceive the Hun airmen.
The valley-the map called it the Fond de Mezieres; the
soldiers a little later renamed it Death Valley-was full
of artillerymen and infantry, bathing in a narrow stream,
washing clothes, playing ball, or dreamily watching their
horses as they grazed.
"It's doomed," we said to each other.
It was. A night or two later the Huns filled it with gas
and high explosive, collecting a heavy toll. We decided
at the first glance to have nothing to do with it even
for our kitchens or first aid stations.
We learned a lot that afternoon about the radius of Hun
shell fragments. They seemed to follow us wherever we
went. They disturbed our consultations, and they hurried
our walks. Even so it was nearly six o'clock before we
got through and took the road home, dodging along the
line of funk holes to Chery Chartreuve.
We noticed, as we walked, hot, dusty, and tired, through
the town, a Y. M. C. A. canteen in a half ruined
building. That place was to impress us less pleasantly
later on, but now we greeted it with joy. Chalked across
the door by some German was the legend:
"Hier wasser."
A big, cool looking pump stood inside, and the next room
held a counter with chocolate, cakes, cigars, and
cigarettes.
We wandered on, refreshed, to Chartreuve Farm where our
horses waited for us.
Regimental headquarters, we learned, would not remain
there. There was a farm house a mile or so farther
back-considerably safer to all appearances-named La
Tuillerie.
Nesles Woods impressed us as exceedingly peaceful and
remote from danger when we trotted in just before dusk.
We smiled. Clearly the lesson of the previous night had
not been wasted on those who had stayed in the woods that
day. Let the Hun airmen come! The floor of the forest was
fairly honey-combed with elaborate funk holes. Some were
even covered with sheets of elephant iron.
The 305th learned early the wisdom of taking every
precaution possible, and undoubtedly, it is due to that
habit that our casualty list is no greater.
We faced that night the Les Pres Farm facts. We had to go
there, and it was clear that, because of the amount of
artillery already in and the nature of the terrain, there
were no really good positions to be had. Those on the
slope above the farm, however, probably could be improved
on, and it was decided not to use more than two of them,
and that only temporarily. A, B, and C, however, would
start, at least, in the 16th emplacements, The
communication experts were as troubled as battery
commanders. It was going to be a job to keep those lines
working, and lack of equipment would have to be combatted
as well as shell fire.
"We've got to take our losses.9) everyone admitted,
"but we can try to hold them down."
Those who had made the reconnaissance had brought back to
Nesles Woods some stirring descriptions. In our bivouac
no illusions remained, and each man went about the work
of preparation with an extreme care, with a thorough
understanding.
That day Major Miller replaced Captain Parramore, who had
been invalided to a hospital, as regimental surgeon.
At dusk of the 15th the two pieces prescribed from each
battery were ready to start. We had hoped by leaving
early to dodge some of the night congestion on the roads.
For those roads would be shelled.
"Keep your platoons moving," officers said with
an effect of prayer.
Whips cracked, the horses strained forward. Our sections
jolted out of the friendly and haggard forest.
XVII
LES PRES FARM AND MUCH SHELL FIRE
EARLY as we were, the roads were crowded from the first.
The two other regiments of the brigade had had the same
idea of an early start. Quads, bearing ammunition, and
ration trucks, bumped along, their drivers sarcastic and
anxious. There was a great deal of infantry out- some
fantassins, and very many of our own doughboys. A lot of
heavy firing made the dusk noisy. The darkness came down
nearly impenetrable and ominous. Frequently now the
column halted.
There's plenty of chance in war. B's platoon had its
captain. A's was in command of a lieutenant. During one
of these halts B slipped past A, and a little later got
what might have been A's share.
But it was all rather confusing, and conditions got worse
on the main road above Mareuil. Shells came perpetually
like unseen fingers tearing the black pall of night. One
knew that they wouldn't all fall over or short. The halts
were continual, and, because of the congestion, you
couldn't keep your carriages separated.
E got it first. Shrapnel popped overhead, but nobody
bothered much about that. Then a high explosive shell
burst on the road in the midst of the platoon, and horses
reared and tried to pull free, making queerly human
sounds. It was impossible to tell at first how much
damage had been done. Officers and non-commissioned
officers rode up and down the line, shouting and
exhorting, but they might as well have saved their
breath. There was no panic among the men. Nor,
miraculously, had a man been hit. Two horses had been
killed, and their teammates were dangerously active.
"Cut 'em out," came the quick command.
"Haul'em over to the ditch, if you can. But let's go
on."
The flashes from bursting shells helped the drivers. The
dead animals were cut out and drawn to one side. The
platoon moved ahead.
It wasn't all shrapnel and high explosive. As the column
approached Chartreuve Farm gas shells came over in a
dangerous concentration. Reluctantly men put on their
respirators, shutting out what little light there was.
They struggled with frightened horses and got the awkward
masks over their muzzles. They went on through a
suffocating blackness. The few commands were choked, and
had to be mumbled from mouth to mouth.
It was under these uncomfortable circumstances that B
suffered. The column was blocked again near Chartreuve
crossroads. B was just short of the junction, clearly a
registered point, consequently a dangerous one. Yet there
was nothing to do about it. Some outfit has to be caught
at or near crossroads in these blocks. You can ride ahead
if you like, and try your hand at straightening out the
tangle, but in the majority of cases you come back with
nothing accomplished, and you stand still, or sit your
horse, and pray for the movement of the units ahead of
you.
The Hun came down on the crossroads, and some of the
shells fell among the waiting cannoneers and drivers of
B. Even in the blinding respirators it was easy to see
that men and horses were down. The horses screamed, and
there came a whimpering cry from some hurt fellow for his
mother.
Nor was there any panic here. An amateur of the National
Army cried out cheerily:
"It would be a hell of a war, boys, if nobody got
killed." "Where's the Captain?"
The Captain's horse stood riderless near the head of the
platoon. Lieutenant Montgomery found his orderly, and
that anxiety was removed. The Captain had gone ahead on
foot to try to break the jam. Lieutenant Montgomery sent
a messenger to report what had happened, and with his own
hands attended as best he could to the wounded.
There was nothing to be done for Private John W.
Whetstone. He had been instantly killed. Private Harry E.
Kronfield, it was clear, hadn't long to live. An
ambulance, by rare good luck, was struggling through the
jam at this point. It picked Kronfield up and hurried him
to a first aid station, but he died before morning. This
ambulance also took Private Douglas Tredendall, so
severely hurt that he was evacuated and never returned to
the regiment, and Private Joseph Horowitz. His injury was
particularly unfortunate as he was the medical orderly
with the platoon. His task of mercy was very brief. With
one arm blown away he was evacuated and we didn't see him
again. First Class Private George A. Thomas was wounded
less seriously.
By the time these men had been cared for and the horses
cut out the jam broke, and the column pounded on towards
Les Pres Farm.
D battery had no casualties on the way up. Its first
platoon went, as did E's temporarily on to the hill above
the farm. There was a lot of gas there and several bursts
of heavy shelling. By choosing quieter moments, however,
Captain Starbuck got his guns in and his limbers and
caissons started for home.
Corporal Connie F. Geer was in charge of the second piece
caisson. Going back the traffic had thinned out a good
deal so that the column moved rapidly. Corporal Geer had
been particularly cheery and helpful during the trying
moments when the caissons had dumped their ammunition at
the position. On the return journey he was at the rear of
the column. He went back often to make sure there was no
straggling. The train must have been half way home when
one of his men reported Geer missing. A search of the
road was unsuccessful. The shelling was still heavy, and
it was necessary to get men, horses, and carriages back
to the echelon. There a report was made, and Lieutenant
Hoadley set out with a party. They found Corporal Geer's
body at the lip of a fresh crater close to the side of
the road. His death had probably been instantaneous. He
was buried that day in a quiet corner of Nesles Woods.
Even at the echelon the night didn't wear itself away
very comfortably. Regimental Headquarters had moved to La
Tuilleric Farm that afternoon. At midnight a messenger
arrived with a note from Colonel Doyle for the battalion
commanders, explaining the arrangements for going in.
This impressed some as altering a few of the
dispositions. There were excited conferences. One, some
of us will recall was held in a fourgon, heavily
blanketed with horse covers. Even so, the light of the
single candle within escaped wanly here and there.
Outraged cries roared through the forest.
" Put out that light, you - fool!
" If you want to croak go and do it by
yourself."
It was impossible to heed these compliments. If
important dispatches arrive they must be read. What to
do about the present one was a problem. The solution gave
Captain Henry Reed a pleasant automobile ride through
quarrelsome firing to headquarters. He found out there
that the document hadn't been intended to change
anything, so we went ahead on the basis we had agreed
upon the day before.
The details went up on the morning of the 16th.
The movement of a detail was never a very dignified
proceeding. Details went in for efficiency rather than
appearance. The surrey was always an absurdity on a
shell- torn road. There was never anything less military.
But it carried a lot of stuff.
Doughboys used to grin at the group of very military
appearing horsemen followed by a couple rambling cobs
which drew this vehicle with its fringes flapping from a
bent top. Underneath were piled switchboards, telephones,
instruments of precision, and spare wire.
Everybody got to the farm, and pitched in. Officers and
men of the battalion details, in spite of the fire, got
an idea of where the lines ran, and how they were laid.
They also appraised the task that lay ahead. These lines
were continually shelled out. Some improvement could be
made by relaying here and there, but at best it was going
to be nasty work. For the Huns had so much artillery and
ammunition that they didn't hesitate to snipe with 77s or
Austrian 88s at a single man at work in the barren
fields.
The detail men in such warfare have rather the worst of
it. They work, as a rule, in pairs on the lines, or in an
exposed observatory, or on the edge of woods, doing the
careful work of a surveyor under the most distracting
conditions. And it is always simpler to be brave in a
crowd.
The yellow intelligence sheet for that day, too, informed
us that the enemy was taking an increasing interest in
Les Pres and its neighboring positions. Things were noisy
while we settled ourselves. The B position, which we had
thought the best of the lot, got a pounding during the
morning. The B men escaped, but the 16th had a number of
casualties. Captain Ravenel reconnoitered a fresh
position, and Major Easterday decided that he should move
his first platoon there that night, and bring his second
into action alongside of it.
Major Wanvig had put F directly into a new position near
the
Les Pres crossroads, and he settled on positions for D
and E on the slope of the valley beyond Chery Chartreuve,
so that none of the sections took many chances with the
emplacements on the hill.
The observatories looked nastier than their reputation, but we had to
use the ridge above the farm. The regimental and the two battalion
Observatories were there, so close together that they were really one.
Besides, the ridge was sprinkled with the observatories of other
organizations, with division and corps stations; and the infantry had a
reserve line near. All this activity added to the discomforts of that
exposed place. Lieutenant Thornton Thayer had spent the previous night
there and had got the lay of the land. We sent our observers and operators up, and, although an officer of
the 16th remained for several hours afterwards,
practically took over at noon.
Lieutenants MacNair and Graham were already down with the
infantry, and we sent eight enlisted men to them to act
as runners. It was found advisable at the start to
alternate this work between the two battalions, so that
after the first day only one officer and one group of men
were with the infantry at one time. Such liaison was
particularly dangerous in this sector. The infantry
received a lot of high explosive, and, because of the low
ground near the Vesle, suffered from gas more than the
artillery. Yet it was really the only liaison we had,
beyond rocket signals. It had been found difficult to
maintain a telephone line between infantry and artillery
battalion headquarters in spite of the division liaison
order which gave to the infantry the task of laying and
maintaining such a line. We put a wire through to a
forward observatory at Mount St. Martin, very close to
the front line, but because of the constant movement of
battalion headquarters and the shortage of men, the
infantry never hooked up with it. We connected with the
infantry net through one of their switchboards, and when
they had wire communication with their front line troops
we did too. But in such a type of warfare runners furnish
the only dependable communication, and our men were on
the road day and night.
The sun set hot and red that first night in, and with his
going Jerry awakened to a new interest in us. There were
no dugouts. Men not on duty crawled into such funk holes
as existed or into the stifling cellars at battalion
headquarters.
Privates Shackman and Silber had already been sent to the
observatory to act as operators. Lieutenant Thayer left
the shelter of the cellar and with Corporal Tucker dodged
up the hill to relieve the officer and the men of the
16th.
At Boston, as the observatory was called, there was, at
that time, for protection only two narrow trenches, five
or six yards apart, one for the operators, the other for
the observers. They were less than six feet deep. They
had no overhead cover.
A few minutes after the arrival of our party a thick
cur-tain of high explosives descended on the ridge. The
ugly little volcanoes bracketed Boston while our men
crouched in the trenches. The curtain lifted. Perhaps it
was just an evening hymn of hate, and the rest of the
night would pass without music.
In five minutes the curtain was down again. The bracket
narrowed. Fragments of shell shrieked over the trenches.
Sand stung the faces of the little party.
Lieutenant Thayer and the 16th officer decided to take
their men to a flank until the show should end.
"Jump out and run for it after the next shell,"
they directed.
One burst closer than before. The little party clambered
from the trenches. Some were quicker than others. A
following shell hit directly on the lip of the smaller
trench. The 16th officer fell back, his rain coat drilled
full of jagged holes. Private Martin W. Silber slipped in
on top of him, and the rest turned back without
hesitation to see what could be done. They lifted Silber
out. He was dead. The 16th officer had not been injured.
So those that remained dashed to the left and fell in
shell holes where they waited for the curtain to lift
again. But gas came in for a time with the high
explosive, and they put on their respirators and worked
from shell hole to shell hole until they were out of
range.
In the command posts at the farm everyone knew the ridge
and the crossroads were getting it. Our men were in the
observatory and our platoons before long would have to
pass the crossroads.
A drop on the switchboard fell.
"Silber's dead," the operator commented.
He commenced to test.
"0. K.-O. K."
He paused. He whirred the magneto of his home telephone.
"Red line out, sir."
A moment later he reported two other lines out. That's
the way they went at Les Pre.
Linesmen left through the noisy darkness with coils of
wire and testing telephones over their shoulders.
In the First Battalion cellar the operator called to
Major Easterday.
"Second Battalion wants you, sir."
The major lifted the hand set.
"Tucker. Which one is he?" he asked.
You see he had only been with the regiment a few days
then.
"What's the matter with Tucker?" Reed asked.
"First battalion says they've just heard he's been
killed."
There were close personal friends of Tucker's among the
detail in that cellar. They swore softly as they went
about their jobs.
As the major replaced the telephone hand set on the table
the blanket which hung as a curtain at the cellar
entrance waved. A hand drew it aside and in stepped
Corporal Tucker.
Our men didn't believe in ghosts. They grasped his hand
and a laugh burst out.
Tucker denied the Second Battalion's story, and made his
report. Thayer had sent word by him that he was going to
establish a new observatory. We had gone over the ground
with a fine tooth comb. The change in the location of the
observatory would only be a matter of a few yards. A
digging detail was ordered up to him with a guide.
Lieutenant Mots, with a number of bandsmen, bearing picks
and shovels, arrived about the same time, and started to
dig in a regimental observatory. Corporal Caen ran up to
stand by the telephone in the old observatory until the
change could be made to the new ones. And all night the
Hun remembered the ridge with high explosive and gas,
while stray aeroplanes swooped low there, to let fall a
bomb or two.
The curtain in the cellar swung in again.
"For the Lord's sake keep that curtain down,"
somebody grumbled. "If an aeroplane sees this candle
we'll be bombed out in a jiffy."
But it was a battery commander who had halted his platoon
at the crossroads. He took off his helmet. The
perspiration poured from his hair. What, he asked the
major, should he do about his platoon? He didn't want to
lose his men or his pieces if he could help it, and the
shelling down there was particularly vicious. Nor was
there any way around.
"Watch your chance and take them through one at a
time," the major said shortly.
The battery commander nodded, replaced his helmet, and
backed cautiously out.
"Somebody on the line for the major of the
16th," the switchboard man called.
The 16th officers had sat there for some time, waiting
only to hear that the relief was complete before striking
out for quieter parts. The 16th major answered the call
and looked annoyed. We gathered that an ammunition dump
at the C position had been hit and was burning. His
officer in command there evidently wanted to know what he
should do.
"Go in and put it out," the 16th major said,
and lowered the hand set.
Almost at once, it seemed to those in the cellar, the
same drop rattled again, and the operator asked for the
same officer. The 16th major picked up the hand set with
a frown. Then his expresson altered, and when he spoke
his voice had changed, too.
"Wolff is dead," he said to Major Easterday,
and every-one knew he spoke of the officer in command of
the C position whom he had just ordered into the burning
dump.
"Wolff is dead," he repeated, " and Dean,
the only other officer I have there, is wounded. You
don't take over until the relief is complete. I'll have
to get one of the 16th's officers. Who is Robinson?"
"One of our battery C officers," Major
Easterday answered.
No one asked for a moment, because it seemed certain that
Robinson had been struck, also. The 16th major shook his
head when at last the question had been asked.
"No, he's taken command. He seems to know what he is
about."
Robinson did. It was for that affair that he and Corporal
Johnson were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Wolff and he had been sitting together in a funk hole,
and Wolff had just said to him, expecting to leave with
the last of his battery in a few moments:
"You know, Robinson, I'm not so sure I'm going to
get out of this place alive after all."
He had laughed a little, and just then the shell had
tumbled into the dump, and he had telephoned battalion
head-quarters and had asked what he should do about it.
He. and his assistant Dean, and Robinson had all gone in,
carrying dirt which they had thrown on the popping
shells.
Robinson had just gone out for more dirt, and Deane was
starting when the explosion occurred. There had been
shrapnel there. While it was still bursting Robinson had
dashed in. Corporal Johnson, without any command, without
any request, had followed him, and they had dragged out
Wolff's body, and the wounded lieutenant. It was then
that Robinson had reported.
The major of the 16th looked very tired. At last he
shrugged his shoulders, and called up his colonel.
"Wolff's dead. Dean's hurt. Burning dump. What? One
officer of the 305th, but I'm getting an officer over to
stay until the relief's complete."
It seemed at times as if that formality would never be
accomplished. We got reports from A, and, at last from C.
But B hadn't reported its second platoon in yet, or its
command post moved to the new position. So we sat and
waited.
We had had a number of gas alarms during the evening.
Time after time our gas guard had wound his klaxon, and
time after time we had struggled into respirators, and
the switchboard operators had learned how difficult it
was to talk intelligibly through a mask. But we had
suspected nothing worse than mustard gas. While we sat
impa-tiently there an officer of the 16th stumbled down
the cellar steps and through the curtain. He seemed to be
in a hurry, and his face was white. From a corner a quiet
voice spoke:
"There's phosgine in this cellar."
The penetrating, sickly odor, was apparent to everyone.
Masks went on with a rush. The newcomer, however, didn't
disturb his. He waved his hand deprecatingly. It trembled
a trifle.
"Don't bother. I think I've brought it in on my
clothes. Those shells are all over the hillside. Good
Lord! I tell you one of them fell at my feet. Don't know
why the rotten thing didn't hit me. When are we getting
out, Major? "
The major shook his head. Nobody knew. It was B that held
us up, and we tried them again. This time there was no
answer to our call. We tried them through A and C. They
were out of touch with the world.
Over there on the edge of Death Valley the B signal men
worked frantically with a coil of twisted pair that had
been snarled half a mile from the new battery position.
We established runners from that point to the battery so
that the relief could be reported and communication of a
sort maintained until daylight when the battalion detail
ran a new line in.
At midnight, then, the 16th was through, and it went out
of Les Pres Farm, leaving us our own masters.
We gazed upon our new kingdom. In the stifling cellars
such men as were not on duty tried to sleep. They lay
sprawled on the dirt floor, endeavoring in their
restlessness to keep out of each other's way. Their
respirators were conveniently at hand.
At the positions men crouched in funk holes, sleeping by
turn. There lay one moaning softly with a bad touch of
shell shock. Now and then a soldier paused and spoke to
him sympathetically; for the hardiest realized that this
was illness, not cowardice. You had only to feel his weak
and rapid pulse. The surgeon was on his way.
Details struggled with the flat tops, softening angles
against the daylight. Nearly motionless the rocket guards
gazed in the direction of Boston. Nestling against the
lip of the hill was a wan patch, like a dying bit of fox
fire. It was a shelter tent, blanketed, and with flaps
down where two officers worked over the intricate figures
of new barrages.
Even in that unrevealing starlight each man you saw
projected an expression of extreme weariness. And already
many were ill with the dysentery that got us all sooner
or later. And there was no prospect ahead of real sleep
as long as we should stay in that place.
There seemed no diminution in the fire even when the
stars paled. The details took advantage of the first
light and went over the lines while Hun aeroplanes loafed
about the ridge and the positions.
Instead of the brisk freshness of early morning we
breathed the warning odor of animal decay.
The last officer of the 16th walked through Les Pres
Farm, asking about his horse, reminiscing disjointedly
about his escapes. We watched him go without saying
anything, wondering when we would follow him and how.