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Show fIX BAYONETS! TH Ww mt Cloi Range Described fit a Remark' able Series by an Gjicr of iht Marine . Capt. JOHN W. THOMASON, Jr. by th Bell Syndicate. Inc.) STORY FROM THE START The author describes how the First battalion of the Fifth marines ma-rines are quartered near Marijrny during the first part of June, 1913, when they are suddenly sent up north to relieve the First division, bearing the brunt of the German offensive. Part of the Fifth wrest Hill 142 from th enemy and wait there for the German counter offensive they can see forming. A terrific German Ger-man attack soon develops, wreak-I wreak-I Ir.g: fearful bavoc among the ma-j ma-j rinea, but not dislodging them. On the sixth of June the Fifth runs Into bitter fighting in the vicinity of Champillon and drives out the Eoche. but at great cost - Then came the Bols de Belleau 1 and again the marines acquitted themselves marvelously. Re-i Re-i placements arrive to cover the I heavy losses. The marines are j relieved, but the respite is short-1 short-1 lived, as they are soon ordered to i the Eoissons sector, where a -great German offensive is under way. On July IS, after a heavy barrage, the Americans, Senegalese Senegal-ese and French foreign legion go ; forward. All enemy positions are taken, though at fearful cost, and the First battalion of the Fifth marines are withdrawn for rest and replacements. CHAPTER VI Continued 9 "So this, Slover, is the Champagne," said the second-in-command to one of his non-coms who stood beside him. The sergeant spat. "It looks like hell, sir!" he said. The lieutenant strolled over to where a French staff officer stood with a knot of officers In the edge of the pines, pointing out features of this extended field, made memorable by bitter fighting. "Since 1014 we have fonght hard here," lie was saying. "Oh, the French know this Champagne well, and the Poche knows It too. Yonder" he pointed to the southwest "Is the liutte de Souain, where our Foreign Legion met In the first year that Guard division that the Prussians rail the 'Cockchafers'. They took the Butte, but roost of the Legion are lying there now. And yonder" the Frenchman extended his arm with a gesture that had something of the salute in It "stands the monntaln of Ilhelms. If you look the air Is clearing clear-ing a little you can perhaps see the towers of Rheims'ltself." A long grayish hill lay against the (tray sky at the horizon, and over It a good glass showed, very far and faint, the spires of the great cathedral, ca-thedral, with a cloud of shell-fire hanging ovtr them. "All this terrain, as far as Rheims, Is dominated by Blanc Mont ridge yonder to the north. As long as the Lothe holds Blanc Mont, he can throw his shells Into Rheims; he ran dominate the whole Champagne sector, sec-tor, us far as the Marne. Indeed, they say that the kaiser watched from Blanc Mont the battle that he hiuiu hed here in July. And the Boche meuns to hang on there. So far, we have failed to dislodge them. I expect" ex-pect" he broke off and smiled gravely in the circle of officers "you will some very hard fighting lu the tit-xt few days, gentlemen !" The second-in-command an! the raptnln, that afternoon, were huddled toiler a small sheet of corrugated I on, stolen by an enterprising orderly from the French gunners. The captain was very large, and the other very U-i'n, and they were both about the smile length. They fitted under the sheet by a sort of dovetailing process that made it complicated for either id move. A second-in-command Is sort of an understudy to the company commander. command-er. In some of the outfits the captain lines everything, and his understudy i-rti only mope around and wait for his senior to become a casualty. In ii'Iiers. It is the junior who gets things thme. and the captain Is Just n figurehead. In the Forty-ninth, however, the relation was at its happiest. hap-piest. The big captain and his lleu-trnat.t lleu-trnat.t fututioneil together as smoothly smooth-ly a parts of a sweet-running engine. Mid thorn was between them the nn-di'iiiiinnr.ttive nn-di'iiiiinnr.ttive afToi'tinn of men who have faced much peril together. "As for nie." remarked the captain. i im w itig up one soaked knee and put-t.i.g put-t.i.g the other out in the wet. "I want tn get uoundM In this fight. A hon Mighty, in the arm or the leg, I think. Something that will keep me In a nice dry hospital until spring. I don't like cold weather. Now who Is . purlin'? It's nothin' to me. John. If your side leaks keep off o' mine!" So the last day of September. 1018. pr.sed. with the racket up forward unabated. So much of war Is lust lying around waiting in more or less discomfort. And herein lies the ex-co'tonce ex-co'tonce of veterans. They swear ond growl horribly under discomfort nnj exposure far more than gren troops; but privations do not sap their spirit or undermine that Intangible thing called morale. Rather do sufferings suf-ferings nourish In the men a cold, mounting anger, th.it svyellr, to sullen ardor when at last the Infantry comes to grip-'- with the enemy, and then It jioes hard indeed with hltu who stands in the way. on the front, a few kilometers from where the battalion lay and listened -o the guns. Courard's attack was lom'i.g to a head around the heights uciih of Sotmue-Py uud the strong trench systems that guarded the way to Blanc Mont ridge. Three magnificent magnifi-cent French divisions, one of chasseurs, chas-seurs, a colonial division, and a line division with a Verdun history, shattered shat-tered themselves In fruitless attacks on the Essen trench and the Essen hook, a switch line of that system. Beyond the Essen line the Blanc Mont position loomed Impregnable. Late on the 1st of October, a gray, bleak day, the battalion cot Its battle orders, and took over a mangled front line from certain weary Frenchmen. Gathering the platoon leaders and non-coms around them, the captain and the second-in-command of the Forty-ninth company spread a large map on the ground, weighting its corners with their pistols. "You give tlie dope, John," ordered the captain, who was not a man of words, and his junior spoke somewhat In this manner. "Here, you birds, look at this map. The Frogs have driven the Boche a kilometer and a half north of Somme-Py. Somme-Py. You see It here the town you watched them shell this morning. They have gotten Into the Prussian trench this blue line with the wire in front of it. It's Just a fire trench, mostly shell-holes linked up. Behind It. quite close. Is the Essen trench, which Is evidently a humdinger! Concrete Con-crete pill boxes and deep dugouts and all that ort of thing regular fort. "The Frogs say It can't be taken from the front they've tried. We're goln' to take It. On the other side of that Is the Elbe trench and a little to the left the Essen hook, and In the center the Bols de Vipre same kind o' stuff, they say. 'We're to take them. You see them all on the map. . . Next, away up In this corner of the map. Is the Blanc Mont place. Whoever Who-ever Is left when we get that far will take that, too. . . . Questions? . . . Yes, Tom, we ought to get to nse those sawed-off shotguns they eave us at St Mihlel though when we get past the Essen system, we'll be in the open, mostly. . . . The old Deux-leme Deux-leme division Is goln' In tonight it's goln' to be some party I Move out of here as soon as It's dark. That's all." The road here was screened on the side toward the enemy by coarse mats of camouflage material erected on tall poles. Through this. screen the German Ger-man flares, ceaselessly ascending, shone with cold, greenish whiteness, so that men saw their comrades' faces weirdly drawn and pale under their helmets. The files talked as they went "I've seen the time I'd have called those things pretty but now reckon hell's lit with the same kind of glims 1" . . . "Remember the flare that went up In our faces the night we made the relief In Bellew woods? Seemed to me like everybody In the world was lookln' at me." "Bols de Belleau! mighty few in the battalion now that remember them days, sonny. . . ." The road passed Into desolation and wound north, kilometer after kilometer. kilo-meter. Presently the camouflage ended and the battalion felt exceed- "Those Sawed-Off Shotguns They Gave Us at St. Mihlel." Ingly naked without Its shelter. Then a slope to the left screened the way, the crest of it sharply outlined as the flares ascended. Beyond that crest the machine-guns sounded very near; now and again the air was filled with the whispering rush of their bullets, passing pass-ing high toward some chance target in the rear. The upper air was populous with shells passing, and the sky flickered with gun-flashes, hut the road along which the battalion went enjoyed for the time an uneasy Immunity. The rests wee all too short ; the sweating sweat-ing tiles swore at tlwlr heavy packs; the going was very hard. Presently the road ceased to he a road mrroly a broken way across an Interminable waste of shell-holes, made passahle after a fashion by the hasty work of F'renih engineers, toiling behind the assault of the Infantry. The files plodded on each side of the tun, Med track, and as they neari'd j Sonime-I'y a pitiful stream of tratlic grew end passed between them, the tide of French wounded ebbing to the rear. They were the debris of the attacks at-tacks that had spent themselves through the day walking winndd, drifting back like shadows tn stained blue uniforms men who stnggered and leaned against each other and spoke in low, racked voices to the passing files: and broken men who were borne In stretchers, moaning "Ah, Jesu! ..." "T'ouccment. doucement ! ! . . ." Farther back the ambulances would be waiting for theru. The coluniu went quickly through the town of Somme-Pj, Into which shells were falling, stumbling over the debris of ruined walls and houses. There was a very busy French dressing dress-ing station there, under the relic of a church. It was too dark to see, but each man caught the sound and the smell of It. They cleared the town and went on to a crossroads. French guides were to have met the battalion there, for the line was just ahead, but the guides were late. There was a nerve-racking halt. The next battalion In column closed up; a machine-gun outfit, with Its solemn, blase mules, jammed Into the rifle companies. The Forty-ninth was the leading company, just behind the Battalion Headquarters group, and the second-in-command went up to where the major and his satellites were halted. "Crossroads are always a dam' bad business, Coxy." the major was observing ob-serving to his adjutant. "Just askin' for It here no tellin' how late our Frog friends will be get the men moved Into that ditch off the road yonder Ah ! thought so !" A high, swift whine that grew to shrieking roar, and a five-Inch shell crashed down some fifty yards to the right of the crowded road. Everybody except the mules were flat on the ground before It landed, but wicked splinters of steel sung across the road, and a machine-gunner, squatting by his cart, collapsed and rolled toward the edge of the road, swearing and clutching at his thigh. CHAPTER VII Furious Fighting by the Essen Hook. The men moved swiftly and without disorder, to the ditch, which was a deep communication trench paralleling the road. Another shell came as they moved, falling to the left, and then another, closer, this time between the road and the trench, A mule or two reared and plunged, stricken ; a marine ma-rine whose head had been unduly high slumped silently down the side of the trench with most of his head gone. More-shells came, landing along the road, between the road and the trench, and one or iwo of them In the trench itself. Cries and groans came from the head of the column ; stretcher bearers hurried in that direction ; the battalion lay close and waited. Then the shelling stopped. Up forward the major drew a long breath. "Just har-assln' har-assln' Are on these crossroads. I was afraid we were spotted. Now, those guides " A little group of Frenchmen French-men arrived panting at the bead of the column and the men were quickly on the move again. "If Brother Boche had kept fllngtn' them seabags around here, he'd a-hurt somebody. Where do we go from here?" Said the major, coming to the head of the Forty-ninth with a French guides "Francis, we're takin' the regimental regi-mental front division's putting four battalions In the line. The Sixth will be on our left ; Infantry brigade on the right. Let me know how your sector looks my P. O. will be I'd better send a runner with you. Here's your guide." The company moved off, and the other companies, going Into position in the battered Prussian trench, facing fac-ing the formidable Essen work. The French riflemen they found there were hanging on In the very teeth of the enemy. Their position had been hastily hasti-ly constructed a few days before by the hard-pressed Boche and was a mere selection from the abundant shell craters, connected by shallow digging. The marines stumbled and slipped through Its windings. It was cluttered up with dead men. for It had been strongly held and dearly won. The Forty-ninth took over the part allotted to It from some ten platoons pla-toons of Frenchmen, eight or ten men to a platoon, in command of a first lieutenant. It was what was left of a full battalion. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |