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Show ? 77. War at Clot Range Described in a Remarkable Strict by an Officer of tht Marine, 1 Capt. JOHN W. THOMASON, Jr. J , (Illustrated by the Author from Slcetche Made on the Battle6eld) jb J ( by the Be!I Syndicate. Inc.) ? STORY FROM THE START The author describes how the First battalion of the Fifth marines ma-rines are quartered near Marlgriy during the first part of June, 191 S, when they are suddenly eent up north to relieve the First division, bearing- the brunt of the German offensive. Part of the Fifth wrest Hill 142 from the enemy and wait there for the German counter offensive they can see forming. CHAPTER I Continued Later In the flay the lieutenant was back on . .the pine-crested hill, now Identified .as. Hill 142. Captain Hamilton was there, one or two other officers, and a handful of the Forty-ninth Forty-ninth and Sixty-seventh companies; a semblance of a line was organized. From the direction of Torcy a counter-attack developed ; the Boohe was Altering cleverly and forming somewhere some-where on the Torey road, In cover. The marines were prone, slingg ad-Justed, ad-Justed, killing him. "It's a quarter-point quarter-point right windage " "Xaw 1 not a breath of air ! Use zero " A file of sweating soldiers, burdened bur-dened with picks and shovels In addition ad-dition to bandoleers and combat gear, came trotting from the right. A second sec-ond lieutenant, a reddish, rough-looking youngster, slumped up and saluted. salut-ed. "You in charge here?" he said to the marine officer. "I'm .Lieutenant .Lieuten-ant Yythe of the Second Engineers, with a detachment. I'm to report to you for orders..'.' '.'Yell captaln'9 right up yonder how many- men you got?" "Twenty-two, sir " "Fine! That makes thirty-six of us, includin' me Just flop right here, and we'll hold this line. Orders are to dig In here but that can wait see yonder yon-der 7" Those engineers, their packs went one way and thel tools another, and they cast themselves' Tdown' ' ha'ppily. "What range, buddy ?uslnr. any windage ?" - A hairy non-com got Into his sling and laid out a little pile of clips. . . . There was always good feeling between the marines of the' Second division, and the regular army units that formed It, but the marines and the Second engineers "Say, If I ever got a drink, a Second engineer can have half of It! Boy, -they dig trenches and mend roads all night. and they fight all day ! An' when us guys get all killed off, they just come up an' take over the war ! They's no better folks anywhere than the engineers. en-gineers. . . " CHAPTER if The Boche wanted - Hill 142; he came, and the -rifiewbroke him, and he came again. All his.. batteries were In action, an.ij. always his machine-guns machine-guns scourged the placfe, but he could not make head Sgilfnstrthe rifles. Guns he could undersrarid ;; he knew all about bombs and auto-rifies and machine-guns .an-d-.-trench-niortars, but aimed, sustained rifle fire.' that coir.es Vom nowheje in particular and picks fff men it 'b'rb'ugTit The" war' home to the Individual '"and demoralized" him. Toward mid-day, this sixth of June. 191S, the condition around. liilj ..142 stabilized. A small action, fought 'by. battalions over a limited 'urea ''Of ho' special Importance, It gave the Hoche something nev : toflfmk-ouV and 'It may be that people' who .write his-, tories will date-an era from It. Between attacks the . stretcher-bearers stretcher-bearers and .the. Red Cross men on both sides did their utmost for the wounded who we're scattered through the wheat around the hill, and who now, under the torture-of stiffening wounds and the hot sun, began- to cry out. As the afternoon advanced, you heard pitiful voices, little and thin across the fields: "Aoh, Hlmmel, hllf. hilf! Braiidighe! . . . I.iebe Gott, brandighe!" . . . "First-aid this way. First-aid, for the love of God !" . . . Late in the afternoon a great uproar up-roar arose to the right. There was more artillery up now. more machine-guns, machine-guns, more of everything. The Third battalion of the Sixth marines and the Third battalion of the Fifth attacked at-tacked the towu called Bouresches and the wood known as Bols de Bel--leau. They attacked across the open, losing hideously. Platoons were shot down entire. Lieutenant Robinson got Into Bouresches. with twenty men out of some hundred who started, threw the Boche out, and held it. They pained a footing In the rocky ledges at the edge of the Bois de Iielleau. suffering much from what was believed to he a machine-gun nest at this point. They tried to leave It and go on, with a containing force to watch it ; they found that the whole wood was -a machine-gun nest. Night descended over a tortured, area of wheat and woodland, lit by' flares and gun-flashes, flailed by machine-guns, and In two many places pitiful with crying of mounded who tad lain all the day untended in a merciless sun. Stretcher bearers and comoat patrols roamed over It In the dark. Water parties and ration parti)- yoped back from forward positions over unknown trails. There were dog-fights- all over the place, wild alarms, and hysterical outbreaks out-breaks of rifle-fire. It was the same with the Boche; he knew the ground better, and he was determined to repossess re-possess it. His people filtered back through the American strong points, for the marines did not hold a continuous con-tinuous line; Isolated positions were connected by patrols and machine-guns machine-guns laid for Interlocking fire. At the. southern angle of Hill 142 the Forty-ninth company put out a listening post one man down the slope a little way, to watch for visitors. visi-tors. In the night, there was a trampling, tramp-ling, a grunt, and one scream "Boche!" At once the hill blazed into actlou weary men, overspent, they fired into the dark until their pieces were hot. And after, they found the listening post fellow, bayoneted. bayon-eted. And down the hill a little huddle hud-dle of new dead. Not all the rifle-fire rifle-fire had gone astray. Back in brigade, officers bent over maps and framed orders for a stronger attack on the Bols de Bel-leau Bel-leau at dawn. ... Brigade was writing writ-ing also to Division : " . . . casualties severe . . . figures on which to base call for replacements will be submitted sub-mitted as soon as possible " At the crossroads beyond La Vole du Chatelle the replacements met the war. Behind them, crammed somehow .Into weeks, were Quantlco, the transport, trans-port, Brest, a French troop train. An Engineer of the Second. Then there was the golden country around St. Algnan, the "Saint Onion" of Americans. The war was represented by demoniac de-moniac non-coms, instructors in this and that. Bayonet drills "Come on, now; leiume hear you 'What do we wash . our bay'nets in? German .blood!' Aw sing out like you meant It, you dam' replacements ! I'll swear. It's a shame to feed animals ani-mals like, you to the Germans " Gas-mask drill "Take more than five seconds, an', your maw gets a gold star Now ! the gas-alert position posi-tion O, for Gawd's sake, you guy,, you 'wit' the two left feet " "But sergeant, I find that I have a certain difficulty " Sergeants also swear terribly. . . . There was every kind of drill, eight hours a day of It, and police work. Rumors of great battles In the north. Glum and sad civilians they were glum and sad .everywhere In France, that spring of 1918 talking In anxious groups after the town crier with his drun: passed. Another troop train maybe the same train that was carelessly left alongside a train containing the wine ration for some French division, the papers In which case are probably still accumulating. accu-mulating. Camions after that. The replacements debussed late of a June afternoon and went up a great white road between exactly spaced poplars. They marched first In column col-umn of squads, then in column of files, platoons on opposite sides of the empty road. At the crest of a slope the column stopped. You could see, hanging above the skyline to the north and east, curious shapes "Look like a elephant's head, bows on, wit' his ears out, don't they, ner-geant?" ner-geant?" The tall non-com replacement replace-ment officer In charger "We'll stop here, sir. Boche sausages yonder observation balloons see the who'ie country. We'll wait till dark." The detachment was glad to fall out, off the road. The sun set after a while, and the day drowsed Into the long twilight. Presently the sergeant ser-geant said: "We can move now, sir." The replacements moved, making mak-ing no conversation. A little country road led them off the highway. They passed a shattered shat-tered farmhouse where a few soldiers lounged In the dusk, "Regimental, sir. Gets shelled a lot. No, sir, they don't expect you to report. Somebody Some-body on the road to meet you. . . . "A little group of officers rose out of the ditch, yawning. They looked slack and tired. "Replacement column? col-umn? You in charge? Yes assignments assign-ments made back In Brigade. You'll go too, Henry: Your battalion gets a hundred and seventy, with five officers. offi-cers. Take 'em off the head of the column tell Major Turrlll " The detachment followed the officer called Henry, who set what they considered con-sidered an Immoderate pace. He passed the word: "Don't bunch up; if a plane comes over low, don't look up at It he can see your faces ; no smokin', an' don't talk " They went through a gap in a hedge and were at another crossroads. cross-roads. "Fall out here, an' form combat com-bat packs. Leave your stuff under the hedge. Take one blanket. Come on quickly, now ! an' don't bunch up! " The replacements formed combat packs expertly, remembering I Parrls island and Quantlco. "Smartly, "Smart-ly, now ! Come by here, fill your pockets each man take two boxes hard bread Where'll you carry them? How In hell do I know There !" Two goods boxes sat close together, and the men filed between them. One box had dried prunes In It, the other bread. "Don't stop! Don't stop! Bight down that road, an' keep movln' !'" Out over the woods a sound started, start-ed, a new sound. It was a rumbling whine, It grew to a roar, and a 77 crashed down Just beyond the crossroads. cross-roads. A cloud blacker than the night leaped up, shot with red fire "Lie down, all hands!" Another landed at once; the air was full of singing particles. par-ticles. The men, flat on their faces. In the dark, waited numbly for the next order. There were a dozen or so shells all around the place. The' Innf nnn Kit- 1. f '. n n U 4 J ICIOI UUC 1111 UCLMCCU LUC L U gUI'US boxes, where a man was lying. The boxes and the man vanished in a ruddy cloud better than if he'd gotten got-ten It in the belly and rolled around screaming. . . . There were no more shells "Say, yon know, I saw a arm an' a rifle goin' up wit' that burst I who was he, anyway? " "Keep quiet, there ! All right ! on your feet right down that road" the officer ordered, and added to himself him-self "Dam' it! Should have remembered remem-bered they shell La Vole du Chatelle every night this time but they acted fine. . . ." A voice spoke up, excited, amused: "Say! Sergeant McGee anything like that in Vera Cruz" "Pipe uuwn, you Boot." They went down a wood-road, black as a pocket. Just ahead came a bright flash and a roar, and fragments frag-ments ripped through the woods, and they heard a lamentable crying, getting get-ting weaker: "First aid! first aid" The column came to a dead mule and the wreck of a cart lying athwart the road, and a smoking hole, and a smell of liiirh ovnliwtvo o,, -I, 1. ... . ..j... ...... , oiini y ifru of blood. There was a struggling group, somebody working swiftly in the dark, a whiteness of bandages, and the white blur of a man's torso. "Lie still, damn you !" "O, Ahhhhh ! Go easy, you" "Hel!, I know It hurts, guy, but I got to get this bandage ban-dage on, haven't I? Come on quit kickin' " Passing around the mule, a man stepped on something neither hard nor soft nothing else on earth feels that way and he floundered to one side, cursing hysterically. "Quiet, hack there pass the word, no talking!" The tiles obediently passed the word. The column groped on In the dark. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |