Part 19

“When this report was finished we were ordered to shell fatigue, unloading 8-inch shells from automobile-trucks which brought them up to our position.

“All was hustle and bustle. The Colonial regiments had carried the first German lines and thousands and thousands of prisoners kept arriving and leaving. Ambulances filed along the roads continuously. As news began to arrive we left our work to seek more details, everything we could learn seemed to augur well.

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Private Charles Cameron

_1st Division, 3rd Machine Gun Battalion, Company “B”_

Decorated for extraordinary heroism in action near Soissons, France, July 19, 1918. When the infantry was held up by a trench occupied by Germans he voluntarily circled the trench and from the rear shot and killed one of the enemy and captured the others.]

“About 4 p.m. we left Proyart for Fontaine-les-Capy and in the first line. Alan was beaming with joy and full of impatience for the order to join in the action. Everywhere delirious joy reigned at having driven the enemy back without loss for us. We believed that no further resistance would be met and that our shock attack would finish the Germans. After passing the night at Fontaine-les-Capy we moved in the morning toward what had been the German first lines. I passed almost all the day with Alan. He was perfectly happy.

“‘My dream is coming true,’ he said to me, ‘and perhaps this evening or to-morrow we shall attack. I am more than satisfied, but it’s too bad about our July 4 leave. I can not hope to see Paris again now before the 6th or 7th, but if this leave is not granted me _“Mektoub! Mektoub”!’_ he finished with a smile.

“The field of battle was relatively calm, a few shells fell, fired by the enemy in retreat, and our troops were advancing on all sides. The Colonials had taken Assevillers and the next day we were to take their place in first line.”

WHEN THE HOUR CAME

“On July 3, about noon, we moved toward Assevillers to relieve the Colonials at nightfall. Alan and I visited Assevillers, picking up souvenirs, post-cards, letters, soldiers’ notebooks, and chattering all the time, when suddenly a voice called out, ‘The company will fall in to go to the first line.’

“Before leaving one another we made each other the same promise as we had made before the Champagne battle (September 25, 1915), that if one of us fell so severely wounded that there was no hope of escape the other would finish him off with a bullet in the heart, rather than let him await death in lingering torture. He showed me his revolver, saying, ‘I have more luck than you. If I can still use one arm I shall have no need of any one,’ and then we rejoined our different sections.”

The order for attack came at 4 o’clock and the troops went forward, the flash and glitter of bayonets above the tall corn through which the men pressed making a curious spectacle against the going down of wave after wave of men under the terrific gun fire.

“The losses were heavy and the enemy made a desperate resistance. The company of reserves was ordered to advance with the second wave of assault. ‘Forward!’ cried the captain, and the company deployed ‘in files of squadron,’ advancing slowly but surely under the enemy’s intense and murderous fire.

“The first section (Alan’s section) formed the right and vanguard of the company, and mine formed the left wing. After the first bound forward, we lay flat on the ground, and I saw the first section advancing beyond us and making toward the extreme right of the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. I caught sight of Seeger and called to him, making a sign with my hand.

“He answered with a smile. How pale he was! His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the corn-field. He was the tallest man in his section. His head erect and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend.

“‘Forward!’ And we made a second bound, right to the wave of assault, which we left behind a little, and down we threw ourselves again. The fusillade became more and more intense, reaching a paroxysm. The mitrailleuses mow men down and the cannons thunder in desperation. Bodies are crushed and torn to fragments by the shells, and the wounded groan as they await death, for all hope of escaping alive from such a hell has fled.

“The air is saturated with the smell of powder and blood, everywhere the din is deafening; men are torn with impatience at having to remain without moving under such a fire. We struggle even for breath and cries resound from every side. Suddenly a word of command, an order of deliverance, passes from mouth to mouth. ‘Forward! With bayonets!’—the command that Seeger had awaited so long.

“In an irresistible sublime dash we hurl ourselves to the assault, offering our bodies as a target. It was at this moment that Alan Seeger fell heavily wounded in the stomach. His comrades saw him fall and crawl into the shelter of a shell-hole. Since that minute nobody saw him alive.

“I will spare you an account of the rest of the battle. As soon as the enemy was driven back and Belloy-en-Santerre won I searched for news of Seeger. I was told of his wound and was glad of it, for I thought he had been carried away and henceforth would be far from the dangers of bullets and shells.

“Thus ended this Fourth of July that Seeger had hoped to celebrate in Paris. On the next day we were relieved from the first lines and went into reserve lines. A fatigue party was left to identify the dead.

“Seeger was found dead. His body was naked, his shirt and tunic being beside him and his rifle planted in the ground with the butt in the air. He had tied a handkerchief to the butt to attract the attention of the stretcher-bearers. He was lying on his side with his legs bent.

“It was at night by the light of a pocket electric lamp that he was hastily recognized. Stretcher-bearers took the body and buried it next day in the one big grave made for the regiment, where lie 3 hundred bodies. This tomb is situated at the Hill 76 to the south of Belloy-en-Santerre.

“As I think of the circumstances of his death I am convinced that after undressing to bandage himself he must have risen and been struck by a second bullet.”

STAYING TO THE END

How a Handful of Russian “Madmen” Held the Fort Until They Were Wiped Out

Here is a weird story of unavailing heroism on the part of a Russian officer and the remaining few of his company who held one of the forts in the siege of the Novogeorgievsk fortress. It is laconically told by the reporter but it needs no flourish:

Several forts pass through the last hours of their life. All the fortifications are swept away; most of the guns are silent; the men are nowhere in sight. German infantry floods the plain. Columns of soldiers advance from the right and from the left. Their front seems impenetrable.

In one of the forts, however, are still a few men. It is one limb of the stricken animal, with claws unsheathed, still throbbing with life. For these men there is a road of escape behind the fort, making their return to the fortress possible, but the “brave ones’ madness” asserts itself. The commanding officer gathers his men together and says:

“Boys, it’s for you to say. If you speak the word, we’ll all go back, though I’m for staying here.... Remember if we stay, the chances are that not one of us will escape. Which shall it be?”

“Of course, we’ll stay. What difference does it make? It’s just the same in the fortress.... We’ll stay and have our fun here.”

They bared their heads, made the sign of the cross, and kissed each other like brothers. The officer informed the fortress, through underground telephone, of the decision of his men.

“We stay here to the end. And maybe you’ll come and get us out.”

A few moments later, the struggle between this handful of men and several German columns began. The Germans, encircling the silent fort, never expected to find amid its ruins a handful of “madmen.” The advancing columns were rolling on. Suddenly the ruins burst into life. Machine guns splashed their hail of lead, and a shell or two fell into the midst of the German columns.

The Germans became furious. They rushed to the remains of the fort, and turned back, met by a living wall of lead and fire. The heavy German guns began their booming.... Clouds of dust and broken stone surround the fort, which still speaks its language of fire. The officer reports the operations to the fortress through the telephone:

“We are surrounded. Firing incessantly. They’re falling fast. They’ve turned back. They are hammering our covers with heavy guns. The Germans are beginning their attack. Firing, firing, firing. We’re mowing them down. How are things with you? We are waiting for you....”

A half-hour later, the officer reports again: “They’re hammering hard. The arches seem to hold out. Attacking us again. We’ve lots of ammunition. We are waiting for you....”

Another hour goes by. “Everything around is strewn with bodies of Germans. They are all mad. Throw themselves on us like starved rats, and we shoot. Every shot tells.”

A little later, the voice speaks excitedly: “The Germans are flooding everything. We’ve no time to fire.... We cut down ten, and twenty take their places.... We mow down the twenty, and forty others are there already.... The Germans are in the fort. We are still firing at those in the field.... They’re trying to break through the roof.... Can’t hear anything.... The Germans are piling rocks against our gun-openings.... We are still firing.... Fire....”

The voice stopped short. The Germans were in full possession of the fort.

WITHOUT THE GLAMOUR

A Lieutenant of the Royal Irish Fusiliers That Stormed Ginchy Paints War’s Horrors in Vivid Language

It is well, once in a while, to take a square look at the grim, the ghastly, the repellent aspects of war, the reality stripped of the glamour, and realize that heroism is not always manifest in valiant deeds, but is often expressed in endurance, in patient suffering, in the play or poise of the inner forces in terrible circumstances.

The experiences at the storming of Ginchy through which Lieut. Arthur C. Young of the Seventh Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, passed and which he embodied in a letter to a relative some days afterward, were not perhaps exceptional,—but his description of them is. It is very doubtful if a more literal, faithful yet graphically vivid picture of war in its actuality has come from the battle front. In simple direct language we get the horror, the awfulness of it—but we also get reflectively the quality of manhood that produces heroes.

Lieut. Young was, at the outbreak of the war, a resident of Kobe, Japan, and he promptly volunteered, returned to England and joined the Fusiliers. He had had his share of fighting, knew right well what it meant to go over the top, before the day at Ginchy which was the subject of his letter.

The storming of Ginchy described by Lieut. Young occurred Sept. 9, 1916. He says:

“It had been taken once or twice before, I believe (some say four times), but even out here it is so difficult to get authentic news about things which are happening quite close to us that you will have to make allowances for my possible inaccuracies. Each time, however, it was recaptured by the Germans, for to them it was a most important stronghold, particularly from their artillery’s point of view. A gunner officer told me why this was. You must remember that artillery fire is not very effective unless there is good observation, for atmospheric conditions affect shooting considerably. Now, the best sort of observation is that obtained from high ground in a forward position—it is better even than airplane or balloon observation, so I am told. Well, Ginchy was the last bit of high ground which the Germans held, and now that they have lost it, they are dependent on their less certain aerial observations, or, failing that, they must shoot by the map, which is no better than guesswork. Hence the vital importance to the Germans of Ginchy.

“On the night previous to the taking of Ginchy, my battalion had to take up a position on the further slope of the valley. We were some distance in rear at the time where the shells did not fall so plentifully. We had had nearly a week of it already, and a more horrible five days I have never passed in my life. We had been over the top from Falfemont Farm on the Tuesday, and had been thanked for our services in a special divisional order, but the price we had to pay for that feat was a big one, as the casualty list printed by this time only too well shows.

[Illustration:

© _New York Herald._

Treeing a Linesman Behind the Western Front]

“I was sent out to find a habitable trench for my company. We moved in there at dusk. We faced half-right, as it were, looking up the slope toward Ginchy. It was like being near the foot of Parliament Hill, with the village on top. Our right flank was down near the bottom of the valley; our left extended up to the higher ground toward the ruins of Waterlot Farm. The trench was very shallow in places, where it had been knocked in by shell-fire. I had chosen it as the only one suitable in the neighborhood, but it was a horrible place. British dead were lying about everywhere. Our men had to give up digging in some places, because they came down to bodies which were buried there when the parapet blew in. The smell turned us sick. At last in desperation I went out to look for another trench, for I felt sure the Germans must have the range of the trench we were in, and that they would give us hell when dawn broke. To my joy I found that a very deep trench some distance back had just been vacated by another regiment, so we went in there.

“The night was bitterly cold. I have felt hunger and thirst and fatigue out here to a degree I have never experienced them before, but those torments I can endure far better than I thought I could. But the cold—my word! It is dreadful. I suppose life in the Far East does not harden one’s constitution against that torture. Many a night have I slept out in the open, in narrow, wet trenches, with the rain pouring down, and almost groaned with the agony of cold. If two can huddle together, you can get some warmth, but the trenches are frequently too narrow for that. I think I feel the cold more than any one.

“However, dawn broke at last. It was very misty. All night we had been trying to get into touch with the unit on our left, but without success. So the Captain sent me out with an orderly to see whether I could manage it. We two stumbled along, but the mist was so dense we could see nothing. We came to one trench after another, but not a living thing could we see—nothing but dead, British and German, some of them mangled beyond recognition. Bombs and rifles and equipment were lying all over the place, with here and there a great-coat, khaki or gray according to the nationality of their one-time owners, but of living beings we could see no sign whatsoever. There was a horrible stench in places which nearly turned our stomachs.

A DANGEROUS RECONNAISSANCE

“To make matters more wretched, we could not make sure of our direction, and were afraid of running into a German patrol, or even a German trench, for such accidents are by no means uncommon in this region. However, we managed to find our way back and report that up to such and such a point on the map (approximately) there was no one on our left. The Captain was not content with this, so I went out again, this time with another officer. Having a compass on this second occasion, I felt far more self-confidence, and to our mutual satisfaction we discovered that the unit on our left was the right flank of an English division. Captain —— was very bucked when we brought back this information. As the mist continued for some time afterward, we were able to light fires and make breakfast.

“Now, I have forgotten to tell you that we were in reserve. The front line was some five or six hundred yards higher up the slope nearer Ginchy. We knew that a big attack was coming off that day, but did not think we should be called upon to take part. Accordingly, we settled down for the day, and most of the men slept. I felt quite at home, as I sat in the bottom of the deep trench, reading the papers I had received the previous day from England.

“OVER THE TOP”

“It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we first learned that we should have to take part in the attack on Ginchy. Now, you probably expect me to say at this point in my narrative that my heart leaped with joy at the news and that the men gave three rousing cheers, for that’s the sort of thing you read in the papers. Well, I had been over the top once already that week, and knew what it was to see men dropping dead all around me, to see men blown to bits, to see men writhing in pain, to see men running round and round, gibbering, raving mad. Can you wonder, therefore, that I felt a sort of sickening dread of the horrors which I knew we should all have to go through? How the others felt I don’t exactly know, but I don’t think I am far wrong when I say that their emotions were not far different from mine.

“You read no end of twaddle in the papers at home about the spirit in which men go into action. You might almost think they reveled in the horror and the agony of it all. I saw one account of the battle of Ginchy in which the correspondent spoke of the men of a certain regiment in reserve as ‘almost crying with rage’ because they couldn’t take part in the show. All I can say is that I should like to see such superhuman beings. It is rubbish like this which makes thousands of people in England think that war is great sport. As a famous Yankee General said, ‘War is hell,’ and you have only got to be in the Somme one single day to know it. The man who says he loves being in a charge is a liar, and an adjective liar at that.

“But to get on with the story. We were ordered to move up into the front line to reinforce the Royal Irish Rifles. None of us knew for a certainty whether we were going over the top or not, but everything seemed to point that way. Guides were sent down by the Rifles to lead us up. We wended our way up slowly, keeping as much as possible to the trenches, which were so shallow that the deepest part of them did not conceal more than our waists, but they were something to duck into if we heard a shell coming. The bombardment was now intense. Our shells bursting in the village of Ginchy made it belch forth smoke like a volcano. The German shells were bursting on the slope in front of us. The noise was deafening. I turned to my servant O’Brien, who has always been a cheery, optimistic soul, and said, ‘Well, O’Brien, how do you think we’ll fare?’ and his answer was for once not encouraging. ‘We’ll never come out alive, Sir!’ was his reply. Happily, we both came out alive, but I never thought we should at the time.

A CHARGE BY THE IRISH

“It was at this moment, just as we were debouching on to the scragged front line of trench, that we beheld a scene which stirred and thrilled us to the bottommost depths of our souls. The great charge of the Irish division had begun, and we had come up in the nick of time. Mere words must fail to convey anything like a true picture of the scene, but it is burned into the memory of all those who were there and saw it. Let me employ the simile of Parliament Hill. You are more than half way up it now. The flat top, where the village lies a heap of ruins, surrounded by a fence of shattered trees, is about 400 yards away. Between the outer fringe of Ginchy and the front line of our own trenches is No Man’s Land—a wilderness of pits, so close together that you could ride astraddle the partitions between any two of them. As you look half-right, obliquely along No Man’s Land, you behold a great host of yellow-coated men rise out of the earth and surge forward and upward in a torrent—not in extended order, as you might expect, but in one mass—I almost said a compact mass. The only way I can describe the scene is to ask you to picture five or six columns of men marching up hill in fours, with about a hundred yards between each column. Now, conceive those columns being gradually disorganized, some men going off to the right and others to the left to avoid shell holes. There seems to be no end to them. Just when you think the flood is subsiding, another wave comes surging up the beach toward Ginchy.

[Illustration:

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Lieutenant-Colonel George L. Watson

Wounded three times and mentioned in orders five times, he was awarded many decorations, French, English, Belgium, Portuguese and American. He carried out the first American gas-projector attack.]