OCR Text |
Show FIX BAYONETS ! Ti Wtr Clot Rnrt DrwnW IntR- ' . - wutrlublt Stritt h Officir of th Mtrmm " CapL JOHN W. THOMASON, Jr. 0.Mri W at - (05 Vr tee Ball eradicate I- seems that the marines move dqwn to the left to here and the Ninth and Twenty-third move to the right to here. These pendl lines show the direction di-rection of attack then we Jump off, angling a little to the right, compass bearing and the lufantry outfits point about as much to the left. That brings us together up here about three kilometers, and we go on straight, a little west of north from there, to Blanc Mont" The morning of October 8 (1918) came gray and misty. From midnight until dawn the front had been quiet nt that point comparatively. Then all the French and American guns opened with one world-shaking crash. From the Kesen trench the ground fell away gently, then rose! In a long slope, along which could be made out the slgiags of the German trenches. The Bols de Vlpre was a bluish mangled man-gled wood, two kilometers north. Peer- at a shattered knte the men flattened flat-tened and all faces turned toward the flank. "Machine-guns on the left I" "Hell I It's that Essen hook we've got to pass thank Ood, it's long raugel Come on, you birds." And the battalion went on, enduring grimly. Finally, when well past Its front, which ran dlngou-ally dlngou-ally to the line of advance, the Seven-teenth Seven-teenth company, that had the left, turned savagely on the Essen hook and got foothold In its rear. A one-pounder one-pounder from the reglmentnl headquarters head-quarters company was rushed up to assist as-sist them, and the men yelled with delight de-light as the vicious little cannon got In direct hits on the Boche emplacements. emplace-ments. Hopelessly cut off, the large body of Germans In this formidable work surrendered after a few sharp and bloody minutes, and the Seven-teenth, Seven-teenth, sending back Us prisoners, rejoined re-joined the battalion. Trlsoners began to stream back from the front of the attack, telling of the success of the Sixth. Wounded came with them, some walking, some carried on Improvised stretchers by ti.o Rnrlio "kauinrnds." Most of them STORY FROM THE START Tne author descrll.es how the First battalion of the Fltth marines ma-rines ara quartered Bear Marlgny during th Brat P ot an,'-1U, an,'-1U, when they are suddenly aant up north to relieve the Ural dlvlalun, bearlna- 'un the Herman offensive. I art oi the Fifth wrest Hill M from the enemy and watt there 'or the German counter offensive they can see formln;. terrific Oer-man Oer-man Utack soon develops. wreaa ina feaiful havoc among the marines, ma-rines, but not dtslolgtn them On ths sixth of Juns the r inn runs into bitter flghtins In the vicinity of Champlllon and drives out the Boche, but at great cost. Then came the Bols de B end igaln the marines acquitted themselvee marvelouily. Replacements Re-placements arrive to cover the heavy lo.see. The marines are relieved, but the respite Is shortlived, short-lived, as they are soon ordered to the dolssons sector, where a great German offensive Is under way. On July 1, after a heavy barrage, the Americans. Senegalese Senegal-ese and French foreign lesion go forward. All enemy positions are ........ ,k,.h fearful cos', lug from their shelters, the battalion saw all this ground swept by a hurricane hur-ricane of shell-Hre. "Move down the trench to the left," came the order. The battalion moved, filing around the traverses with Judicious Judi-cious Intervals between men, so that the Boche shells might not Include too many In their radius of death. For Heinle was beginning to shoot back. He had the range of his vacated trench perfectly, and, holding the high ground, he could see what he was shooting at. Shells began to crash down among the companies, whole squads were blotted out, and men choked and coughed as the reek of high explosive caught at their windpipes. wind-pipes. "Lordy, sln't we ever goln' te get outa this dam' place an' get at 'em" A shell with a driving band loose came with a banshee scream, anl men and pieces of men were blown and the First Battalion of the Fifth marines are withdrawn for rest and replacements. After a short test behind the Champagne front, the marines are ssaln advanced, ad-vanced, to assist the French In a terrlflo drive against the heights of Blano Mont. CHAPTER VII Continued 10 Courteous and sauve, although he swayed on his feet from weariness and his eyelids drooped from loss of sleep, the Frenchman summed up the situation for the marine captain. "We hold this fire trench. In your sector are four communication trenches running run-ning to the Kssen work, which Is about a hundred meters distant We hold most of the boyau on the extreme ex-treme right; the others we have barricaded. bar-ricaded. You cannot take this Essen trench by frontal assault !" "Why can't we?" growled the American. "When It is light you will see, Mon Capltalnel You can only get forward by bombing your way In the boyaux. They are too strong In machine-guns, the Roche. Now I take my men and go. Seven days and nights we have been on our feet . . . those of us who , are left are very tired It Is well that you be watchful In this place, but do not stir up the Boche yonder. They shoot with mlnenwerfers when you frighten them. Such a one finished fin-ished my pauvre enpltalne and six men with him. Bon chance, Mon Cap-Itulne. Cap-Itulne. Bon Jour!" "Cheerful bird, wasn't be?" remarked re-marked the captain. "Wonder If that thing I stepped on Just outside this hole was his captain? John, before It gets good daylight, don't you want to take a look-see at this Essen trench? Take whoever you want and see how were grinning. "Goln fine up there, bovs, goln' fine!" "Looklt, fellers I Got a bon bllghty We'll give 'em your regards re-gards In Paris l" For awhile now the battalion hnlt-ed, hnlt-ed, keeping Its distance from the unit ahead. The men lay on their rifles snd expressed unreasonable yearnings for food. "Eat? Eat? Hell I Shock troops ain't supposed to eat 1" Officers cast anxious glances toward the utterly utter-ly exposed left. The French attack had failed to keep abreast of the American. The left company, the Seventeenth, was In a cover of scrubby trees. The other companies were likewise concealed. con-cealed. Only th Forty-ninth lay per- force in the open, on a bleak, shell-pocked shell-pocked slope. A high-flying Boche plane spotted Its platoon . columns, asprawl eighty or a hundred yards apart on the chalky ground. "No good," said the second ln-command, cocking his head gander-wise In his flat helmet, "Is goln' to come of that dam' thing guess all our noble aviators avia-tors have gone home to lunch." The plane, high and small and shining in the sky, circled slowly above them. Far back of the Boche lines there was a railroad gun that took a wireless wire-less from the wheeling vulture. "Listen." said the captain, "listen to th-" There were lots of shells passing over the long tearing whine of the 75s, the coarser voices of the Boche 77s replying, and heavy stuff, but most of it was breaking behind or In front of the battalion. Into this roof of sound came a deeper note a far-off far-off rumble that mounted to an enormous enor-mous shattering roar, like a freight train on a down-grade. The company flattened against the ground like par-. par-. . . At,. rA.it ahiifik and trldges, . and the world shook ana reeled under them as a nlne-lncb shell crashed Into the earth fifty yards ahead, exploding with a cataclysmic detonation that rocked their senses. An appalling geyser of black .smoke and torn earth leaped skyward, Jagged splinters of steel whined away, and stones and clods showered down. Before Be-fore the smoke had lifted from the monstrous crater the devastating rumble rum-ble came again, and the second shell roared down fifty yards to the rear. "Oh, Lordy I They've got us bracketed brack-eted r "I saw that one I I saw It look right where the next one's gonna bit, an' "Look where it's gonna hit I Lawd, If I Just knew It wasn't gonna I hit me ahh 1 The third shell came, and men who risked an eye could see It a dark, tremendous streak, shooting straight down to the quivering earth. A yawning yawn-ing hole opened with thunder fairly between two platoon colnmns, and th earth vomited. . . . It was wonderful won-derful shooting. All the shells that followed dropped between the columns of prone men but not a man was hit 1 The heavy projectiles sank far into the chalky soil, and the explosions ..nt th desdly fragments outward the land lies." - The Essen trench had been very active when the companies were being posted; staccato bursts of machine-gun machine-gun fire had ripped across the Intervening Inter-vening dark, and Sprlngflelds had answered. an-swered. There had been some bombing bomb-ing around traverses In the boyaux. But when In the creeping grayness of the dawn, the lieutenant from the . Forty-ninth ventured across to It with his orderly and a sergeant ; he found the Boche retiring. Filing quickly through the communication trenches, the battalion occupied It without difficulty, diffi-culty, and, looking around them, were very glad they hadn't had to take it by storm. And the captain understood why the French lieutenant had said It couldn't be stormed. The French had tried the evening before to cross the scant distance dis-tance and get Into It Most of those who had charged lay as the Boche Maxims bad cut them down. In one place, between two boyaux that formed with the opposed lines a rough square of perhaps one hundred yards, he counted eighty-three dead Frenchmen. French-men. Lying very thick near the Up of their own trench, the bodies formed a sort of wedge, thinning to- .. . t Oiav hail tidon HpH. Pushed Their Way Onward. In the air. "That was In the first platoon," pla-toon," said the second-ln-eommand, shaking the dirt off his gas-mask. "Something ought to be done about that gunner. El Capltanl" Another landed in the opposite lip of the trench where the two officers crouched, half-burying them both. "My God. cap'nl You killed?" "Hell, no I Are you?" "Far enough to the left," the .major sent word. "We will wait here. The Sixth leads we're the' last battalion In support today." Coming from the mase of trenches In the rear, the assault regiment began to pass through the Fifth, at-1 tallon following battalion at 500- yard distances. A number of French "Baby" tanks started with the assaulting assault-ing waves, but it was an evil plac for tanks. Tank traps, trenches so wide that the little fellows went nose-down nose-down Into them and stuck, and direct fire from Boche artillery stopped the most of them. The battalion was out of the trench anil aitintr forward regulating Its pace on the battalion ahead. All at once there was a snapping and crackling crack-ling In the air a corporal spun round and collapsed limply, while bis blouse turned red under bis gas mask the man beside him stumbled and went down, swearing through grayish lips and over the company. More than a dozen shells were fired In all, the high sinister plane wheeling overhead the while. Then the company went forward with the battalion, very glad to move. (TO BE CONTINUED.) - . ., ,. i...t...TATAT.M4I4 ward uie i ''""- i - mated, and that point was one great bearded Frenchman, his body all a mass of bloody rags, who lay with his eyes fiercely open to the enemy and his outhrust bayonet almost In the emplacement where the Boche guns hsd been. The company, which had learned Its own bitter lesson In frontal attacks on machine-guns; gave passing tribute. "Them Frogs, they eat machine-guns up. FIghtta' sons o' guns, they are. Wonder If any chow Is comln' up today?" They made themselves comfortable com-fortable among the dead and waited the next move with equanimity. "Two hundred and thirty-one men, sir," reported the second-ln-coramand, sliding Into the shallow dugout where the captain was holed up. "Mighty lucky, so far. I'm goln' to sleep. There's some shellln', especially toward to-ward tne left, but most of the outfit is pretty well under cover." Gouraud's battle roared on to the left with swelling tumult The Americans, Amer-icans, In their sector, passed the day In ominous quiet They wondered what the delay was, speculated on the strategy of attack which Is a matter always sealed from the men who deliver de-liver the attack and wore through to the evening of October 2. At dark, food came up In marmlte cans beef and potatoes and a little coffee. "Put ours on that mess-tin there," directed the second-in-command, as his orderly slid in with his and the captain's rations. ra-tions. The captain sat up in his corner cor-ner a little later, when the attack orders came np. There was a brief penciled order from the major, and maps. The two officers bent over them eagerly. "RunnerPlatoon "Run-nerPlatoon commanders report right away . . . "What do you make of It John? Looks like General I.-Jeune I.-Jeune was goln' to split his division and reunite It on the field. . . . Hmmml Ain't that the stunt you claim only Robert K Lee and Napoleon Napo-leon could get away with? . . . AH here? Get around the tnap'a abont oriented "Here we are. In the Essen trench |