"Can"t you see it"s mules?" replied the man in an immoderate tone of voice, betraying annoyance.
We were spared what followed. The lieutenant undoubtedly confirmed his rank, and the man undoubtedly proffered unto him the respect withheld by mistake. When "Whispering Willie" joined us several minutes later in the dugout, his helmet rode on the back of his head, but his dignity was on straight.
The Battalion Commander, Major Griffith, was so glad to see us that he sent for another bottle of the murky grey water that came from a well on one side of a well populated graveyard not fifty yards from his post.
"A good night," he said; "haven"t seen it so quiet in three years. We have inter-battalion relief on. Some new companies are taking over the lines. Some of them are new to the front trenches and I"m going out with you and put them up on their toes. Wait till I report in."
He rang the field telephone on the wall and waited for an answer. An oil lamp hung from a low ceiling over the map table. In the hot, smoky air we quietly held our places while the connection was made.
"h.e.l.lo," the Major said, "operator, connect me with Milwaukee." Another wait----
"h.e.l.lo, Milwaukee, this is Larson. I"m talking from Hamburg. I"m leaving this post with a deck of cards and a runner. If you want me you can get me at Coney Island or Hinky d.i.n.k"s. Wurtzburger will sit in here."
"Some code, Major," Lincoln Eyre, correspondent, said. "What does a pack of cards indicate?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAVE OF FIRST AMERICAN KILLED IN FRANCE
Translation: Here Lie the First Soldiers of the Great Republic of the United States of America, Fallen on French Soil for Justice and for Liberty, November 3rd, 1917]
"Why, anybody who comes out here when he doesn"t have to is a funny card," the Major replied, "and it looks as if I have a pack of them to-night. Fritz gets quite a few things that go over our wires and we get lots of his. All are tapped by induction.
"Sometimes the stuff we get is important and sometimes it isn"t. Our wire tapping report last night carried a pa.s.sage something like this:--The German operator at one post speaking to the operator at another said:
""h.e.l.lo, Herman, where did that last sh.e.l.l drop?"
"Second operator replied, "It killed two men in a ration party in a communicating trench and spilt all the soup. No hot food for you to-night, Rudolph."
"Herman replying: "That"s all right. We have got some beer here."
"Then there was a confusion of sounds and a German was heard talking to some one in his dugout. He said:
""Hurry, here comes the lieutenant! Hide the can!"
"That"s the way it goes," added the Major, "but if we heard that the society editor of the _Fliegende Blaetter_ and half a dozen pencil strafers were touring the German front line, we"d send "em over something that would start "em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I was joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin"s to-night, they might give you something to write about and cost me a platoon or two. You"re not worth it. Come on."
Our party now numbered nine and we pushed off, stumbling through uneven lanes in the centre of dimly lit ruins. According to orders, we carried gas masks in a handy position.
This sector had a nasty reputation when it comes to that sample of Teutonic culture. Fritz"s poison sh.e.l.ls dropped almost noiselessly and, without a report, broke open, liberating to enormous expansion the inclosed gases. These spread in all directions, and, owing to the lowness and dampness of the terrain, the poison clouds were imperceptible both to sight or smell. They clung close to the ground to claim unsuspecting victims.
"How are we to know if we are breathing gas or not?" asked the Philadelphia correspondent, Mr. Henri Bazin.
"That"s just what you DON"T know," replied the Major.
"Then when will we know it is time to adjust our masks?" Bazin persisted.
"When you see some one fall who has breathed it," the Major said.
"But suppose we breathe it first?"
"Then you won"t need a mask," the Major replied, "You see, it"s quite simple."
"Halt!" The sharp command, coming sternly but not too loud from somewhere in the adjacent mist, brought the party to a standstill in the open on the edge of the village. We remained notionless while the Major advanced upon command from the unseen. He rejoined us in several minutes with the remark that the challenge had come from one of his old men, and he only hoped the new companies taking over the line that night were as much on their jobs.
"Relief night always is trying," the Major explained. "Fritz always likes to jump the newcomers before they get the lay of the land. He tried it on the last relief, but we burnt him."
While talking the Major was leading the way through the first trench I had ever seen above the surface of the ground. The bottom of the trench was not only on a level with the surrounding terrain, but in some places it was even higher. Its walls, which rose almost to the height of a man"s head, were made of large wicker woven cylinders filled with earth and stones.
Our guide informed us that the land which we were traversing was so low that any trench dug in the ground would simply be a ditch brimful of undrainable water, so that, inasmuch as this position was in the first line system, walls had been built on either side of the path to protect pa.s.sers-by from sh.e.l.l fragments and indirect machine gun fire. We observed one large break where a sh.e.l.l had entered during the evening.
Farther on, this communicating pa.s.sage, which was more corridor than trench, reached higher ground and descended into the earth. We reeled through its zig-zag course, staggering from one slanting corner to another.
The sides were fairly well retained by French wicker work, but every eighth or tenth duck board was missing, making it necessary for trench travellers to step knee-deep in cold water or to jump the gap.
Correspondent Eyre, who was wearing shoes and puttees, abhorred these breaks.
We pa.s.sed the Major"s post of command, which he used during intense action, and some distance on, entered the front line. With the Major leading, we walked up to a place where two Americans were standing on a firing step with their rifles extended across the parapet. They were silently peering into the grey mist over No Man"s Land. One of them looked around as we approached. Apparently he recognised the Major"s cane as a symbol of rank. He came to attention.
"Well," the Major said, "is this the way you let us walk up on you? Why don"t you challenge me?"
"I saw you was an officer, sir," the man replied.
"Now, you are absolutely sure I am YOUR officer?" the Major said slowly and coldly, with emphasis on the word "your." "Suppose I tell you I am a German officer and these men behind me are Germans. How do you know?"
With a quick movement the American brought his rifle forward to the challenge, his right hand slapping the wooden b.u.t.t with an audible whack.
"Advance one, and give the countersign," he said with a changed voice and manner and the Major, moving to within whispering distance, breathed the word over the man"s extended bayonet. Upon hearing it, the soldier lowered his gun and stood at attention.
It was difficult to figure whether his relief over the scare was greater than his fears of the censure he knew was coming.
"Next time anybody gets that close to you without being challenged," the Major said, "don"t be surprised if it is a German. That"s the way they do it. They don"t march in singing "Deutschland uber Alles."
"If you see them first, you might live through the war. If they see you first, we will have wasted a lot of Liberty bonds and effort trying to make a soldier out of you. Now, remember, watch yourself."
We pushed on encountering longer patches of trench where duck boards were entirely missing and where the wading sometimes was knee-deep. In some places, either the pounding of sh.e.l.ls or the thawing out of the ground had pushed in the revetments, appreciably narrowing the way and making progress more difficult. Arriving at an unmanned firing step large enough to accommodate the party, we mounted and took a first look over the top.
Moonlight now was stronger through the mist which hung fold over fold over the forbidden land between the opposing battle lines. At intervals nervous machine guns chattered their ghoulish gibberish or tut-tut-ted away chidingly like finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sputtering to the right and left of us was unenlightening. We couldn"t tell whether they were speaking German or English. Occasional bullets whining somewhere through that wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping of linen sheets.
Artillery fire was the exception during the entire night but when a sh.e.l.l did trace its unseen arc through the mist mantle, its echoes gave it the sound of a street car grinding through an under-river tunnel or the tube reverberations of a departing subway train.
We were two hundred yards from the German front lines. Between their trenches and ours, at this point, was low land, so boggy as to be almost impa.s.sable. The opposing lines hugged the tops of two small ridges.
Fifty yards in front was our wire barely discernible in the fog. The Major interrupted five wordless reveries by expressing, with what almost seemed regretfulness, the fact that in all his fighting experience he had never seen it "so d.a.m.n quiet." His observation pa.s.sed without a remark from us.
The Major appeared to be itching for action and he got into official swing a hundred yards farther on, where a turn in the trench revealed to us the m.u.f.fled figures of two young Americans, comfortably seated on grenade boxes on the firing step.
From their easy positions they could look over the top and watch all approaches without rising. Each one had a blanket wrapped about his legs and feet. They looked the picture of ease. Without moving, one, with his rifle across his lap, challenged the Major, advanced him, and received the countersign. We followed the Major in time to hear his first remark:
"Didn"t they get the rocking chairs out here yet?" he said with the provoked air that customarily accompanies any condemnation of the quartermaster department.
"No, sir," replied the seated sentry. "They didn"t get here. The men we relieved said that they never got anything out here."