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Show Described In o Remawa Wtfa Jeries Dy en Officer of Ita '""yOT, CapUoWW 1ioma5on,Jr. -fel? (fllulrW bythelulhorfrcmT.- , " ' ' Hereafter I have written f t marines. In iho war with UermaQ; how they went Bp, and what they fi J there, and bow some of them cam out again. Being a marine, . I hav j tried to set forth simple tales without comment It Is unnecessary to writ what I think of my own peop' ner would It be, perhaps. In tits best taste. ," v ,- 1 . And I have written of murines ta this war been use they are the folks I know about myself. Those battle- , fields were very large, and a man 1 seldom saw much or very far beyond fata own unit. If he had a Job In ban. As a company officer, I always had Job. There Is no Intent to overlook those very gallant gentlemen, our friends, the army,5 Their story Is oura, V too. JOHN W. THOMA80N, JB. ; x CHAPTER I Attack. In the fields nesr Marlgny marine of the First Battalloa of the Ftftft found an amiable cow. There ha4 been nothing In the way of rations that day; there were do prospect All hands took thought and designated a robust Polish corpora) as excutloa-. er. He claimed to have been a botcher In a former existence. He was leading""" the cow decently away from the road when a long gray car boomed p, halt-ed halt-ed with the touch ef swank that Headquarters chauffeurs alwava t. from every sort of calling. There were oorthwestemera with straw-colored hair that looked white against their tanned skins, and delicately spoken chaps with the stamp of the eastern universities on them, There were large-boned fellows from Pacific coast lumber camps, and tall, lean southerners who swore amazingly in gentle, drawling voices. There were husky farmers from the corn-belt, and youngsters who had sprung, as It were, to arms from the necktie counter. coun-ter. ' And there were also number of diverse people who ran curiously to type, with drilled shoulders and a Editor's Note! This story Is a cross Motion of the war. As Csptaln Thomason Is a marine offloer, natur. ally the aotual names, dates, and places mentioned will bear a dtflnlte relation to marine activities In France) there Is no Intention, however, how-ever, to overshadow the rest of the fighting American units. This story Is a Marine story, because the author U only familiar with the combat ex. perlencea of his own men but every doughboy who saw service In the war will recognize these experiences and encounters as similar to his own. INTRODUCTION Seven yenrs after the war, across the world from France, I met a major of the American bone-deep sunburn, and a tolerant scorn for nearly everything on earth. Their speech was flavored with navy words, and words culled from all the folk who live on the seas and the ports where our warships go,. Tn easy hours their talk ran from the Tartar wall beyond Pekln to the southern Islands, down under Manila ; from Portsmouth Navy yard New Hampshire Hamp-shire and very cold to obscure bushwhacking bush-whacking In the West Indies, where Cacao chiefs, whimsically sanguinary, barefoot generals with names like Charlemagne and Chrlstophe, waged war according to the precepts of the French revolution and the Onlt of the 8nnke. They drank the een de vie of Hante-Mnrne, and reminisced on taki, and vino, and Bacardi rum strange drinks In strange cantlnas at the tar . I . . , f -; .&. "i ! At" -T " general staff, who was on the I'arlR-Meta road that last week In May, 1018, and Saw the boys going In. "They looked fine, coming com-ing In there," he aid. "Tall fellows, fel-lows, healthy and St they looked hard and competent compe-tent We watched vou - g o I n g In, hrough those little lit-tle tired Frenchmen, French-men, and we all feet, and disgorged a very . ngry colonel "Lieutenant, - what - are you doing- - " there "he yelled. . - , "Sir, you see, the men haven't hat; anything to eat, and I thought, sir we found this cow wandertn' around ; we couldn' And any owner we'd like to chip In and buy her we were goin' to" ; "I see, sir, I seel Tou were going to kill this cow, the property ef some worthy French family. Ton will bear ' In mind, lieutenant, that we are la France to protect the lives and prop- -erty of our allies from the Germans , Release that antinals at once I Tear rations will be distributed as sookvjtg possible carry on" The colonel te- . parted, and fonr or Ave 77s crashed ' Into a little wood two hundred yards . up the road. There were more shells In the same place "HI f Brother Boche " must think there's a battery erer ' there!" "Well, there ain't " the marines ma-rines set down In the wheat and ob- ; served tfie cow, abandoned by a van ' tsbed French family. j " "I was ' a . quartermasteV sergeant once, sir," said the platoon sorgear ; dreamllv... "I rememh it - cots, of beet , are."f uere'd l - lola on that cow-erltter, now. . , . Mr. Ashby (another flight of 77s burnt In the wood), If we was to take that cow over an'.Ue her In that brium she oughton to be out here In t' open, anyway might draw S- . shell'e liable to bit onj(l.l).-. know, sir T t . . "Sergeant, ' yon heard ' what t colonel said. But If you think t t be safer I'd sujrTiPt volnnfcern. '. j by the way, sergeant. I want a f.e-i of tenderloin the T-bone part" Th cow was. J'y secured ' In '" wood, men risking thctr lives i: by. The Boche shelled methods. for two hour's, and the martse . ends of the earth; and they spoke fondly of Milwaukee beer. Rifles were high and holy things to them; they also talked patronlslngly of the war, and were concerned about rations. They were the Leathernecks, the Old Timers; collected from ship's guards and shore stations all over the earth "I?f:In,fav1er-Ii?rtn brigade of marines, ma-rines, the tint rlfltTnrrMfr detscheAJ from the navy by order of the President Presi-dent for service with the American Expeditionary Forces. They were the old breed of , American regular, regarding re-garding the service as home and war as an occupation; and they transmitted transmit-ted their temper and character - and viewpoint to the high-hearted volunteer volun-teer mass which Sited the ranks of the Marine brigade. It Is a pleasure to record that they found good company In the army. The Second Divlalon (United States Regular was the official designation) was composed of the Ninth and Twenty-third Infantry, two old regiments regi-ments with names from nil of our wars on their battle-flags, the Second ! . felt better. We knew something was going to happen" hap-pen" and we were silent over 'Wil2ILw,ne. ,B 8 P,Bce on th Sooth I'nclflc, ThTnltiEg oJhoee days and those men. . .-. , rr'"- ' There Is no sight In all the pag-" ennf of war like yonng, trained men going to battle. The columns look solid and businesslike. Each battalion is nn entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are drab these days, but there are pnlats of light on the helmets and the bayonets, bayo-nets, find light In the quick, steady eyos and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There Is no singing-veterans singing-veterans know, and they do not sing much ond there Is no excitement at all;, they are schooled , craftsmen, going up to Impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows; and there is nothing to mnke a fuss about Battles are not snlubrlons places, and every , file knows tli at a great many more are going In than vlll come out again but that Is. along with the Job. And they have no Illusions about the Job. There Is nothing particularly glorious glori-ous about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight And yet-sucb a column represents a great deal .more than 28,000 Individual! mustered Into a division. All that ll behind those men Is In that column, too:; the old battles; long forgotten, that secured our nation Brawds wine reduced to s fenrful ature of cerrea "Is that dsra' heifer gmtta live fan. vert Two - of - three' kmmmma away fighting was going on. The I' m-tenaDt, m-tenaDt, with his glass, plckei a.- tut,' ' running figures on the slope of a bill. Too caught a flicker, points of lli 1 on the gray-gren fields baynntfc Occasional wounded Frenchmen wa' . ' ' dered back, weary, bearded saen, vry dirty. Tbey looked with Cull eyes at the AmericBUs Tves "manvalv hv ' bael Beanconp Boche, ta " The el 5 rlnes were not especially toteresfci Their regiment had been a "yar Ea France, training. Now they, too, wera dirty and tired and very hungry. Tie war would - get along j , lt always bad. . , . ' ' , - ' ' . J..,:: A week ago, Mernortul day, tra had been no drilla The flecond DUS. slon, op from a tour tn the quiet Ver dun trenches, . rested . pleasant' around Bourmont . Rumors of an attack at-tack by the First division, at Caax'ij-ny, Caax'ij-ny, altered ln.s Cantigny was a town Up toward Montdidler. Notions of graphy Were the vaguest but It was In the north, wbwe all the heavy lighting was. , It appeared that .the ' Second was going up to relieve th$ First . .."Sure I we'll : relieve , But if they wanted a fight why didn't they let W know In the flrt placet We'd a-showed 'em what slio.'t-troopa slio.'t-troopa cun do 1" ; ' , -. The division set out tn camions; !a the neighborhood of Meaux the? were turned around end sent out the Pads. Meta road, along which the civilian ' J' ' ' ' ' ' ' " 1 -' - Qolng Over. regiment of engineers and engineers are always good and the Twelfth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth field artillery.' artil-lery.' It was a divlalon dlatljigulsbed by the quality of dash and animated by 'an especial pride of service. It carried to a high degree esprit de corps, which some Frenchman has defined de-fined as - esteeming your own corps and looking down on all the other corps. And although It paid heavily In casualties for the things It did In five months about 100 per cent the Second division never lost Its professional pro-fessional . character. ; , In 1017, when trained soldiers Is the United States were at a premium, the navy offered -a brigade of marines for service in France; it was regarded regard-ed desirable for marine offleeri to and ; Trenton and York town. Ban Jacinto and ChapuKepec, Gettysburg, Chlckamaugo. Antletnm, El Caney; scores 'of ' skirmishes nearly, every year In which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chop was In the Argoruie; traditions of things endured and Ihlngs nccompllnhed, such as regiments reg-iments hnnd down forever; and the faith of men end the love of women; nnd that abstract thing culled patriotism, patriot-ism, which I never heard eoiubnt soldiers, sol-diers, mention all this passes Into the forward r.one, to the point of contact where war Is girt with horrors. And common men endnre ' these horrors and overcome tnom, along with the Insistent yearnings of the belly ' and the reasonable promptings of fear; and In this, I think, Is glory. They tell the tule of an American lady of notable good works, much esteemed es-teemed by the French, who, at the end of June, 1018, visited one of the field - hospltnls behind Degoutte's Sixth Frenrh army. Degoutte was fighting on the f:tce of the Mnrne salient sal-ient and the second American- division, then In action around the Bois de Belleau, northwest - of - Chateau Thierry, was under bis orders. It happened hap-pened that ocinalonol casualties of the Marine brigade of the Second American division, wounded toward the flnnk where Degoutte's own hori-con-blue Infantry Joined on, were picked up by French stretcher bearers bear-ers and evacuated to French hospitals. And this lody, looking down a long, crowded ward, saw on a pillow a face unlike the fiercely whiskered Gallic heads there displayed In rows. ' " "Oh," she said, "surely you are an American r , "No, ' ma'am," the casualty an-swerd, an-swerd, ' "I'm a marine." The men who marched up the Paris-Mets Paris-Mets road to meet the Boche In that spring of 1918, the Fifth and Sixth regiments ef United States marines, were gathered from various places. In the big war companies, 250 strong; yon could find every sort of man, population from the country between the Chetula ties" Dames' and tha Marne, together with the dooria of a French army, was coming back. The civilians ' walked with their facet much on their shoulder, and Uiest was horror in their eyes. The irarlny took notice of another s!!o of wur. , , .."Hard on poor folks, war is." "Tou eald Itl" ?iy think ab-t t my folks, an' your folks, out on t rond like that l . . ," . "Teh. I ui fhlnktn about It. An' when wa n.'-.-l that Boche, Ym -gonna fi s,h-i-3 about ft1 Look right nlce-looklu' ghi, I yonder r - 1 There were French soldiers In ft rout too. Nearly all were wounds.!, or In the last stages of xi''!- They did not appear to ta ft!t l:i troops; they were old b'.J.rdr-! f low of forty and forty-five, t kit; or mean, unpleasant t gerlans, such troops es a-f ; : . hold a quiet sctor. Feri er ".. divisions of them had tu n la t -; (Continued en pb,;s t) have . experience In large' cperationi with the army ; for it It certain, that close co-operation between the army and the navy la a necessary thing in these day of far-flung battle lines. The British distress at GalltpoU Is t crying witness to this principle. In t navy transport, therefore, TJniteo 8tatet Ship Henderson, the Fifth reg-tment, reg-tment, of marines embarked ; fot France In June, 1017, with the first armed American forces. . The Sixth marines followed. Th two regiment! constituted the Fourth brigade, and served in the Second division. United States Regular, until the division came home, in August, 1019. About 80,000 marines were seBt to France; tome 14,000 of these went as replacement) replace-ment) te maintain the two regiment: of the Fourth brigade. A brlgadai musters tome 7,500. off.virt and men;) thla brigade took part in aam very! Interestlsg events. the trees upon a gentle slope of wheat that mounted to a crest of orderly pine, black against the sky. A three-cornered three-cornered coppice this side of the pines commanded the slope; now it biased with machine-guns and rifles; the air was populous with wicked keening noises. Most of the front wares went down; all hands, very sensibly, flung themselves prone. "Cant walk up to these babies" "Nowont be enough of us left to get on with the war " pa8g the word : crawl forward, for-ward, keepln' touch with the man on your right I Fire where you can " Sweating, hot, and angry with bleak, cold anger, the marines worked forward. They were there, and the Germans were there. An officer, offi-cer, risking his head shore the wheat, observed progress, and detached a corporal with his squad to get for- - FIX BAYONETS! (Continued from page I) between Solssons and Rbelms, which wm. until May 2T. a quiet sector , On that day forty-odd divisions, a tidal wave of fighting Germans, with the greatest artillery concentration the Boche ever effected, were flung upon them, and they were swept way, as a levee goes before a flool They had fought; they had come back, fighting, thirty-five miles In three days; and the Boche, though lowed up, was still advancing. They were holding him along the Marne. and at Chateau-Thierry a machine-gun machine-gun battalion of the American Third division was piling up his dead In heaps around the bridge-beads but to the northwest he was still coming. And to the northwest the Second Division Di-vision was gathering. During the second, third and fourth of June It grouped Itself, first the Fourth brigade bri-gade of marines, with some guns, and then the regular Infantrymen of the Kinth and Twenty-third. Already, around Hauteveanes, there bad been I An Engineer of the Second. ward by the flank. "Get far enough pest the flank gun, now, close as you can, and rush ltr-we'll keep It busy." . . . Nothing sounds as mad as rifle-fire, rifle-fire, staccato, furious The corporal judged that he was far enough, and raised with a yell, his squad leaping with him. He was not past the flank ; two guns swung that way, and cut the squad down like a grass-hook levels a clump of weeds. . '. . They lay there for days, eight marines In dozen yards, face down on their rifles. But they had done their Job. The men In the wheat were close enough to use the split-second Interval Inter-val In the firing. They got In, cursing curs-ing and stabbing. a brusb with advancing Germans, and the Germans were given a new experience: rlfle-flre that begins to kill at 800 yards; they found It very Interesting. This was June 6; the battalion bat-talion near Marigny, on the left of the Marine Brigade, had a feeling that they were going In tomorrow. . . . The men thought lazily on events, and lounged In the wheat, and watched that clump of trees and at last an agonized bellow came on the echo of a bursting shell "Well-she's "Well-she's stopped one I Thought she musta dug In "Le's go get It Presently there was lots of steak, and later a bitter lesson was repeated mustn't build cooking-Area with dltton 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 heref he said to the marine officer. "I'm Lieutenant Lieuten-ant Wythe of the Second Engineers, with a detachment I'm to report to you for orders." "Well captain's right up yonder how many men you gotr "Twenty-two, sir " "Fine I That makes thlrty-stx of us, lndudln' 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 V Those engineers, their packs went one way and their tools another, and they cast themselves down happily. "What range, buddy! usln' any windage V 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 I Boy, they dig trenches and mend roada all night and tbey fight all dayt An' when us guys get all killed off, they Just come up an' take over the war I Theyg no better folks anywhere than the engineers. en-gineers. . . Meanwhile, to the left a little group of men lay in the wheat under the very muzzle of a gun that clipped the stalks around their ears and riddled rid-dled their combat packs firing high by a matter of Inches and the mercy of God. A man can stand Just so much of that life presently ceases to be desirable; the only desirable thing Is to kill that gunner, kill him with your hands! One of them, a corporal named Geer, said: "By God, let's get him!" And they got him. One fellow seized the spitting muzzle muz-zle and up-ended It on the gunner ; he lost a hand In the matter. Bayonets flashed In, and rifle-butt rose and fell The battle tore through the coppice. cop-pice. The machine-gunners were brare men, and many of the Prussian infantry were brare men, and they green wood, where the Boche can see the smoke. But everybody lay down on full bellies. Before dark the last French were falling back. Some time during the night Brigade sent battle orders to the First battalion 'of the Fifth marines, and at dawn they were In a wood near Champillon. Nearly every man bad steaks In his mess-pan, and there was hope for cooking them for breakfast Instead. . . . The platoons came out of the woods ss dawn was getting gray. The light was strong when they advanced Into the open wheat now all starred with dewy popples, red as blood. To the east the sun appeared, Immensely red and round, a bandbreadth above the horizon; a German shell burst black across the face of It Just to the left of the line. Men turned their heads to see, ana many there looked no more upon the sun forever. "Boys, It's a fine, clear mornln'l Guess we can chow' after we get done molestln' these here Helnies, heyf One old non-com was It Jerry Flnnegan of the Forty-ninth? bad out a can of salmon, hoarded somehow against hard times. He haggled It open with his bayonet, and went forward So, eating chunks of goldfish from Off that wicked knife. Two hours later Sergeant Jerry Flnnegan lay dead across a Maxim gun with his bayonet In the body of the gunner. ... died. A few streamed back through the brush, and hunters and . hunted burst In a frantic medley on the open at the crest of the hllL Impartial machine-guns, down the hill to the left, took toll of both. Presently the remnants rem-nants of the assault companies were panting In the trees on the edge of the bill. It was the 'objective of the attack, but distance had ceased to have any meaning, tune was not, and the country was full of square patches of woods. In the valley below were more Germans, and on the next hill. Most of the officers were down, and all hands went on. They went down" the brushy"sIope, across a little run, across a road where two heavy Maxima were caught sitting, and mopped up and up . the next long, smooth slope. Some marines branched off down that road and went Into the town of Torcy. There was fighting In Torcy, and a French avion reported Americans Ameri-cans In It, but they never came out again ... a handful of Impudent fellows against a battalion of Sturm-truppen. Sturm-truppen. . . . Then the men who mounted the slope found themselves In a cleared area, full oil orderly French wood plies, and apparently there was a machine-gun In ever I It was a beautiful deployment, lines all dressed and guiding true. Such matters were of deep concern to this outfit The day was without a cloud, promising heat later, but now It was pleasant In the wheat, and the woods around looked blue and cool Across this wheatfleld there "were more woods, and in the edge of these woods the old Boche, lots of him, Infantry In-fantry and machine-guns. Surely he had seen the platoons forming a few hundred yards away it is possible that he did not believe his eyes. He let them come close before he opened fire. The American fighting man has his fallings. He Is prone to many regrettable re-grettable errors. But the saeadous woodpile; Jerry Flnnegan died here, sprawled across one of them. Lieutenant Soraers died here. One lieutenant found himself behind a woodpile, with a big auto-rifleman. Just across from them, very near, a machine-gun behind another woodpile wood-pile was searching for them. The lieutenant, all his world narrowed to that little place, peered vainly for a loophole; the sticks were pumping and shaking as the Maxim flailed them; bullets rang under his helmet "Here, Morgan," he said, "111 poke my tin hat around this side, and you watch and see If yon can get the chaut-chaut on them " He stuck the helmet on his bayonet, and thrust It out. Something struck It violently from the point, and the rifle made bis fingers tingle. The chaut-chaut went off, once. In the same breath there was an odd noise above him. . . the machine-gun ... be looked up. Morgan's Mor-gan's body was slumping down to Its knees; It leaned forward against the wood, the chaut-chaut, still grasped In a clenched hand, coming to the ground butt first The man's head was gone from the eyes up; his helmet hel-met slid stickily back over bis combat com-bat pack and lay on the ground. . , . "My mother," reflected the lieutenant "will never find my grave In this place!" He picked up the chaut-chaut, chaut-chaut, and examined It professionally, noting a spatter of little red drops on the breech and the fact that the clip showed one round expended. The charging handle was back. He got to his feet with deliberation, laid the gun across the woodpile, and sighted . . . three Boche wttb very red faces; their eyes looked pale under their deep helmets. ... He gave them the enemy will never let him get close enough to see whom he Is attacking. When he has seen the enemy, the American regular will come on In. To stop him you must kill him. And when be is properly trained and has somebody to say "Come onl" to htm, he will stand aa much killing as anybody any-body on earth. The platoons, assailed now by a fury of small-arms fire, narrowed their eyes and Inclined their bodies forward, like men In heavy rain, and went on. Second waves reinforced the first fourth waves the third, as prescribed. Officers yelled "Battle-sight "Battle-sight I fire at will" and the leaders, making out green-gray, clumsy uniforms uni-forms and round pot-helmets In the gloom of the woods, took It up with Sprtngfields, aimed shots. Automatic riflemen brought their chaut-chauta Into action from the hip a chaut-chaut chaut-chaut is as accurate from the hip as It ever Is and wrangled furiously with their ammunition-carriers "Come on, kid bag o' clips 1 " "Aw I lent it to Ed to carry, last night didn't think" "Teh, and Ed lent It to a fence-post when he got tired get me some off a casualty, before I A very respectable volume of fire came from the advancing platoons. pla-toons. There was yelling and swearing swear-ing In the wheat, and the lines, much thinned, got Into the woods. Some grenades went off; there was screaming scream-ing and a tumult and the "taka-taka-taka-taka" of the Maxim guns died down. "Hit Sergeant I hold onl Major said he wanted some prisoners" prison-ers" "Well, sir, they looked like they was gonna start omethtn' "All right I All right t but you catch some alive the next place, you whole clip, and they appeared to wilt Then he came away from there. Later be was In the little run at the foot of the hill with three men, all wounded. wound-ed. He never knew how he got there. It Just happened. Later In the day 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 Boche was filtering cleverly and forming somewhere some-where on the Torcy road, In cover. The marines were prone, slings ad-Justed, ad-Justed, killing him. "It's a quarter-point quarter-point right windage " "New! not a breath of air 1 Vne sero " A file of sweating soldiers, burdened bur-dened with picks and shovels In ad- f heart "Quickly, now get some kind of a line" "Cant make four waves" "Well, make two an' put the chaut-chauta In the second no use gettln' 'em bumped oft before we can use 'em " The attack went on, platoons much smaller, sergeants and cerporals commanding many of them. A spray of fugitive Boche went before be-fore the attack, holding where the ground offered cover, working his light machine-guns with devilish sUlL retiring, on the whole, coramendnbly. He had not expected to fight a defensive defen-sive battle here, and waa not heavily Intrenched, but the place was stiff with his troops, and be was in good quality, as marine casualty lists were presently to show. There waa more wheat, and more woods, and obscure savage fighting among individuals In the brushy ravine. ra-vine. The attack, especially the inboard in-board platoons of the Forty-ninth and pixty-seventh conipunles, burst from |