Chapter 20

Bang--bang, it went again. From the rear came the deep bass of a big gun and close by sounded the sharp bang--bang--bang of a little balloon-gun in the second trench. There was a burst of flame up in the air, followed by a hail of metal splinters. "Cut that out. You're shooting at us!" roared Captain Lange across to the battery.

"Stop firing!" came a quick order from there. A few cannon shots were heard coming from the rear.

Suddenly a bright light appeared up in the air and a white magnesium cluster descended slowly, lighting up all the trenches in a sudden blaze which made the pioneers look like ghosts peering over the black brink of the pits. Then the light went out, and the eyes trying in vain to pierce the darkness saw nothing but glittering fiery red circles. The Japanese batteries on the other side opened fire. The air-ship had entirely disappeared, and no one knew whether the uncanny night-bird had been friend or foe.

* * * * *

The assault on Hilgard was to be begun by the 28th and 32d Volunteers: General MacArthur had originally planned to have the attempt made at dawn on August 15th; but as one brigade of Wood's Division had not yet arrived, he postponed the attack for twenty-four hours, to the sixteenth of August, while the fifteenth was to be taken up with heavy firing on the enemy's position, which seemed to have been somewhat weakened. As soon, therefore, as day broke, the Americans opened fire, and all the time that almost sixty American guns were bombarding Hilgard and sending shell after shell over the town, and the white flakes of cotton from the bursting shrapnels hovered over the houses and almost obscured the view of the mountains and the shells tore up the ground, sowing iron seed in the furrows, the 28th and 32d Volunteers lay in the trenches without firing a single shot.

The commander of the 16th Brigade, to which the two regiments belonged, was in the first trench during the morning, and, in company with Colonel Katterfeld, inspected the results of the bombardment through his telescope, which had been set up in the trench. A shrapnel had just destroyed the top of the copper church tower, which the Japanese were using as a lookout.

Although the American shells had already created a great deal of havoc in Hilgard, the walls of the houses offered considerable resistance to the hail of bullets from the shrapnels. The brigadier-general therefore sent orders to the battery stationed behind and to the right of the trenches to shell the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard.

"Shell the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard! Shell the houses on both sides of the street leading into Hilgard--Shell--Hilgard," was the command which was passed along from mouth to mouth through the trenches, until it reached the battery amid the roar of battle.

"--Shells--we have no shells--shrapnels--the battery has no shells, only shrapnels--" came back the answer after a while.

"No shells, I might have known it, only those everlasting shrapnels. How on earth can I shoot a town to pieces with shrapnel!" growled the brigadier-general, going into the protected stand where the telephone had been set up.

"Send two hundred shells immediately by automobile from Union to the 8th Battery Volunteers stationed before Hilgard," ordered the general through the telephone-- "What, there aren't any shells at Union? The last have been forwarded to Longworth's Division?-- But I must have at least a hundred; have them brought back at once from the right wing-- No automobile, either?" It was a wonder that the telephone didn't burst with righteous indignation at the vigorous curses the brigadier-general roared into it.

But unfortunately the statement made at Union, where the field railway built from Monida for the transport service terminated, was correct. Just as in most European armies, the number of shells provided was out of all proportion to the shrapnel, and the supply of shells was consequently low at all times. Besides, most of the ammunition-motors had been put out of commission early in the game. The advantage of higher speed possessed by the automobiles was more than offset by their greater conspicuousness the moment they came within range of the enemy's guns. The clouds of dust which they threw up at once showed the enemy in which direction they were going, and as they were obliged to keep to the main road, the Japanese had only to make a target of the highway and do a little figuring to make short work of these modern vehicles. The great number of wrecked motor cars strewn along the road proved rather conclusively that the horse has not yet outlived its usefulness in modern warfare.

The officers, including the generals, had willingly dispensed with such a dangerous mode of locomotion after the first fatal experiences, for the staring fiery eyes of the motor betrayed its whereabouts by night, and the clouds of dust betrayed it by day. The moment an auto came puffing along, the enemy's shots began to fall to the right and left of it, and it was only natural, therefore, that the horse came into its own again, both because the rider was not bound to the main road and because he did not offer such a conspicuous target for the enemy's shots.

Towards noon the Japanese batteries entrenched before Hilgard began bombarding the 28th Regiment with shrapnel. Colonel Katterfeld therefore ordered half his men to seek protection under the stands.

The howling and crashing of the bursting shrapnel of course had its effect on those troops who were here under fire for the first time. But the shrapnel bullets rained on the wooden roofs without being able to penetrate them, and after half an hour this fact imbued the men in their retreats with a certain feeling of security. The enemy soon stopped this ineffective fire from his field-guns, however, and on the basis of careful observations made from a captive balloon behind Hilgard, the Japanese began using explosive shells in place of the shrapnel.

The very first shots produced terrible devastation. The long planks were tossed about like matches in the smoke of the bursting Shimose shells, and the slaughter when one of them landed right in the midst of the closely packed men in one of these subterranean mole-holes was absolutely indescribable. Back into the trenches, therefore! But the enemy had observed this change of position from his balloon, and the shots began to rain unceasingly into the trenches. And so perfect was the Japanese marksmanship that the position of the long line of trenches could easily be recognized by the parallel line of little white clouds of smoke up above them. There was nothing more to be concealed, and accordingly Colonel Katterfeld ordered his regiment to open fire on Hilgard and on the hostile artillery entrenched before the town.

Captain Lange lay with his nose pressed against the breastworks, carefully observing the effect of the fire through his field glasses. Although this was not his first campaign, he had nevertheless had some trouble in ridding himself of that miserable feeling with which every novice has to contend, the feeling that every single hostile gun and cannon is pointed straight at him. But the moment the first men of his company fell and he was obliged to arrange for the removal of the wounded to the rear, his self-possession returned at once. It was his bounden duty, moreover, to set an example of cool-headed courage to his men, so he calmly and with some fuss lighted a cigarette, yet in spite of the apparent indifference with which he puffed at it, it moved up and down rather suspiciously between his lips.

A volunteer by the name of Singley, the war-correspondent of the _New York Herald_, worked with much greater equanimity, but then he had been through five battles before he gained permission to join the 7th Company for the purpose of making pencil sketches and taking photographs of the incidents of the battle.

He now arranged a regular rest for his kodak in the breastwork of the trench and stooped down behind the apparatus, which was directed towards the six Japanese guns to the left in front of the houses at Hilgard, the position of which could only be recognized by the clouds of smoke which ascended after each shot was fired. Just then he heard the order being passed along to the 8th battery to give these guns a broadside of shrapnel, and as it would probably take a few minutes before this order could be carried out, Singley pulled out his note-book and glanced over the entries made during the last hour:

No. 843. Japanese shell bursts through a plank covering. " 844. Trench manned afresh. " 845. Captain Lange smoking while under fire. " 846. Japanese shrapnels indicate the line of our trenches in the air.

Then he put his note-book down beside him and crept under his kodak again, carefully fixing the object-glass on the battery opposite. Now then! A streak of solid lightning flashed in front of the second gun, and a black funnel of smoke shot up. Click!

No. 847. Firing at the Japanese battery before Hilgard.

Singley exchanged the film for a new one, and then looked about for another subject for his camera. He took off his cap and peeped carefully over the edge of the trench. Could he be mistaken? He saw a little black speck making straight for the spot where he was. "A shell" rushed through his thoughts like a flash, and he threw himself flat on the bottom of the trench.

With a whirring noise the heavy shell struck the back wall of the trench. "An explosive shell!" shouted Captain Lange, "everybody down!"

The air shook with a tremendous detonation; sand and stones flew all around, and the suffocating powder-gas took everybody's breath away; but gradually the soldiers began to recognize one another through the dust and smoke, thankful at finding themselves uninjured.

"Captain!" called a weak voice from the bottom of the trench, "Captain Lange, I'm wounded." The captain bent down to assist the war-correspondent, who was almost buried under a pile of earth.

"Oh, my legs," groaned Singley. Two soldiers took hold of him and placed him with his back against the wall of earth. The lower part of both his thighs had been smashed by pieces from the shell. "Will you please do me a last service?" he asked of Captain Lange.

"Of course, Singley, what is it?"

"Please take my kodak!"

Singley himself arranged the exposure and handed the camera to the captain, saying: "There, it is set at one twentieth of a second. Now please take my picture-- Thank you, that's all right! And now you can have me removed to the hospital!"

Before the men came to fetch him, Singley managed to add to his list:

No. 848. Our war-correspondent, Singley, mortally wounded by a Japanese shell. Hail Columbia!

Then he closed his book and put it in his breast pocket. Five minutes later two ambulance men carried him off to have his wounds attended to, and in the evening he was conveyed to the hospital.

A week later Captain Lange's snapshot of the war-correspondent was paraded in the _New York Herald_ as the dramatic close of Singley's journalistic career. In his way he, too, had been a hero. He died in the hospital at Salubria.

He could claim the credit of having made the war plain to those at home. Or was that not the war after all? Were the black shadows on the photographic plate anything more than what is left of a flower after the botanist has pressed the faded semblance of its former self between the leaves of his collection? Certainly not much more.

No, that is not war. Just a bursting--silently bursting shell, the scattering of a company--that is not war.

Thousands of bursting shells, the howls of the whizzing bullets, the constant nerve-racking crashing and roaring overhead, the deafening cracking of splitting iron everywhere--that is war. And accompanying it all the hopeless sensation that this will never, never stop, that it will go on like this forever, until one's thoughts are dulled by some terrible, cruel, incomprehensible, demoralizing force. Those bounding puffs of smoke everywhere on the ground, rifle shots which have been aimed too short and every one of which-- That abominable sharp singing as of a swarm of mosquitoes, buzz, buzz, like the buzzing of angry hornets continually knocking their heads against a window-pane. Bang! That hit a stone. Bang! two inches nearer, then--"Aim carefully, fire slowly!" calls the lieutenant in a hoarse, dry voice. You aim carefully and fire slowly and reload. Buzz-- And then you fume with a fierce uncontrollable rage because you must aim carefully and fire slowly. And the whole space in front of the trenches is covered with infantry bullets glittering in the sunlight. Will it ever stop? Never! A day like that has a hundred hours--two hundred. And if you had been there all by yourself, you would never have dreamed of shooting over the edge of the trenches--you would most probably have been crouching down in the pit. But as you happen not to be alone, this can't be done. Will the enemy's ammunition never give out? It's awful the way he keeps on shooting.

And that terrible thirst! Your throat is parched and your teeth feel blunt from grinding the grains of sand which fly into your face whenever an impudent little puff of smoke jumps up directly in front of you. Sssst. The mosquitoes keep on singing, and the bees buzz perpetually. Those dogs over there, those wretches, those-- Buzz, buzz, buzz--it never stops, never. Over there to the right somebody cracks a joke and several soldiers laugh. "Aim carefully, fire slowly!" sounds the warning voice of the lieutenant. And it's all done on an empty stomach--a perfectly empty stomach.

Just as the field-kitchen wagon had arrived this morning, a shell had exploded in the road and it was all over with the kitchen-wagon. How long ago that seemed! And the bees keep on humming. Bang! that hit the sergeant right in the middle of the forehead. Is this never going to stop? Never? You chew sand, you breathe sand, burning dry sand, which passes through your intestines like fire. And then that horrible, faint, sickening feeling in the stomach when you feel the ambulance men creeping up behind to take away another one of your comrades! How terrible he looks, how he screams! You are quite incensed to think that anybody can yell like that! What a fool! "Aim carefully, fire slowly," warns the lieutenant. Bouncing puffs of smoke again! And sand in your mouth and fire in your intestines. You think continually of water, beautiful, clear, ice-cold water, never-ending streams of water-- A roaring, howling and crashing overhead, the clatter of splinters, a sharp pain in your brain and a horrible feeling in your stomach and all the time it goes buzz, buzz, buzz--ssst--ssst--buzz, buzz, buzz----

That is war, not the pictures that people see at home, all those lucky people who have lots of water, who can go where they like and are not forced to stay where the bees keep up a continual buzz, buzz, buzz----

Colonel Katterfeld was kneeling on the ground examining the map of Hilgard and marking several positions with a pencil. He could overhear the conversation of the soldiers under the board-covering next to his own.

"Do you think all this is on account of the Philippines?" asked one.

"The Philippines? Not much. It would have come sooner or later anyhow. The Japs want the whole Pacific to themselves. We wouldn't be here if it were only for the Philippines."

"We wouldn't? It's on account of imperialism, then, is it?"

"Don't talk foolish. We know very well what the Japs want, imperialism or no imperialism."

"Well, why are the papers always talking so much about imperialism?"

"They write from their own standpoint. Imperialism simply means that we wish to rule wherever the Stars and Stripes are waving."

The colonel peeped into the adjacent cover. It was Sergeant Benting who was speaking.

"Right you are, Benting," said the colonel, "imperialism is the desire for power. Imperialism means looking at the world from a great altitude. And the nation which is without it will never inherit the earth."

Then the colonel gave the order to fire at a house on the right side of the street, in which a bursting shrapnel had just effected a breach and out of which a detachment of infantry was seen to run.

Once again, just before twilight, the battle burst out on both sides with tremendous fury. The whole valley was hidden in clouds of smoke and dust, and flashes of fire and puffs of smoke flew up from the ground on all sides. Then evening came and, bit by bit, it grew more quiet as one battery after the other ceased firing. The shrill whistle of an engine came from the mountain-pass. And now, from far away, the Japanese bugle-call sounded through the silent starry night and was echoed softly by the mountain-sides, warming the hearts of all who heard it:

[line of music]

_Chapter XIX_

THE ASSAULT ON HILGARD

It was three o'clock in the morning. Only from the left wing of Fowler's Division was the booming of cannon occasionally heard. From the mountain-pass above came the noise of passing trains, the clash of colliding cars and the dull rumble of wheels. On the right all was still.

A low whistle went through all the trenches! And then the regiments intended for the assault on Hilgard crept slowly and carefully out of the long furrows. The front ranks carried mattresses, straw-bags, planks and sacks of earth to bridge the barbed wire barricades in case they should not succeed in chopping down the posts to which the wires were fastened. A few American batteries behind La Grande began firing. The other side continued silent.

Suddenly two red rockets rose quickly one after the other on the right near the mountain, and they were followed directly by two blue ones; they went out noiselessly high up in the air. Was it a signal of friend or foe? The regiments came to a halt for a moment, but nothing further happened, except that the two searchlights beyond Hilgard kept their eyes fixed on the spot where the rockets had ascended. A dog barked in the town, but was choked off in the middle of a howl. Then death-like stillness reigned in front once more, but several cannon thundered in the rear and a few isolated shots rang out from the wooded valleys on the left.

The front ranks had reached the wire barricades. Suddenly a sharp cry of pain broke the silence and red flames shot forth from the ground, lighting up the posts and the network of wires. Several soldiers were seen to be caught in the wires, which were apparently charged with electricity. Now was the time! The pioneers provided with rubber gloves to protect them against the charged wires went at it with a vengeance, and were soon hacking away with their axes. Loud curses and cries of pain were heard here and there. "Shut up, you cowards!" yelled some one in a subdued voice. The black silhouettes of the men, who were tossing long boards and bags of earth on top of the wires, stood out sharply against the light of the explosives with which the Americans were attempting to loosen the supporting posts.

The light of the dancing flames fell on swaying, leaping figures. Shots rang out constantly, millions of sparks flew all around and through all the din could be distinguished the short, sharp rattatattatt--rrrrr--rattatattatt of the machine-guns, sounding more like cobble-stones being emptied out of a cart than anything else.

Hell had meanwhile broken loose on the other side. The attacking regiments were exposed to a perfectly terrific rifle-fire from the houses and streets of Hilgard, which was accompanied by a destructive cannonade. But on they went! Over the corpses of the slain who had breathed their last jammed in among the deadly wires, over the swaying planks and through the gaps made by the exploding bombs, the battalions swept on with loud shouts of Hurrah! What mattered it that the machine-guns, which they had brought along, were sometimes dragged through furrows of blood! On they went! The field-batteries to the right and left of the first houses and two of the enemy's machine-guns just in front of the barricade were in the hands of the 28th Regiment, and now they advanced against the houses themselves. But it was utterly impossible to get a foot further. A whole battalion was sacrificed before the high barricade at the entrance to the main street, but still they went on! There were no storming-ladders, and after all they were hardly needed, for human pyramids were speedily run up against the walls, and up these soldiers scrambled, assisted from below, until at last they were high enough to shoot into the loop-holes. Others aided in the work with axes and the butt-ends of their guns, and before long the Americans had gained possession of several houses. All of the enemy's searchlights concentrated their glare on the town, so that the fighting was done in a brilliant light. The white top of the church-tower seemed strangely near, while reddish-gold reflections played on the torn copper roof.

But no reënforcements came from the rear, and it was no wonder, for a furious fire from the enemy's artillery and machine-guns swept across the space in front of Hilgard, raining bullets and balls upon the trenches, out of which new battalions climbed again and again; the shots plowed up the land into glowing furrows and created an impassable fire-zone between the trenches and the nearest houses of Hilgard, whence shrieking bugle-calls begged for immediate assistance. If the enemy should succeed in throwing reënforcements into Hilgard, he would have no difficulty in dislodging the Americans from the positions they had won. Suddenly an attack from the wooded valley on the left at last brought relief. It was the Irish brigade under General O'Brien that came on like a whirlwind, quite unexpectedly, and joined in the fight.

This attack threw back the advancing Japanese reënforcements. The regiments could be seen retreating in the pale light of dawn, and then they were seen to form in line on the rising ground behind. Between them and the rear of the town lay the Irish sharpshooters, who went forward by leaps and bounds. But the furious artillery fire from the enemy brought the fighting temporarily to a stand-still.

Wild confusion reigned on all sides as dawn broke. The 17th Japanese Infantry Regiment was still battling with the two American regiments for the possession of the front houses of Hilgard, and the two Japanese battalions in the rear of the town directed their fire on the compact columns of the Third Irish Regiment, which had not yet been formed into line for shooting. It was a critical moment, and everything depended upon the rapidity with which the Japanese resistance in Hilgard could be overcome.

In the houses and on the illuminated streets a furious hand-to-hand encounter was going on, the men rushing at one another with bayonets and the butt-ends of their guns. No effort was made to keep the men or regiments together. Where the weapons had been destroyed or lost in the mad scramble, the soldiers fought like gorillas, tearing one another's flesh with teeth and nails. On all sides houses were on fire, and the falling beams and walls, the bursting flames, the showers of descending sparks, and the bursting shrapnels killing friend and foe alike, created an indescribable jumble.

At last reënforcements arrived in the shape of a regiment which had lost more than half its men in passing through the fire-zone in front of Hilgard.

"Where is Colonel Johnson?"

"Over there, on the other side of the street."

"A prisoner?" asked some one.

"I guess not, they're not making prisoners and we aren't either."

Slowly it grew lighter.