Part 15

© _National Service Magazine._

Remembering Their Fallen Comrades

Members of the United States Marine Corps carving stones with which to mark the graves of their former brothers in arms.]

“But that soldier was not killed—he was blinded for life. He is myself.”

That is the story of Jesse A. Whaley, told by himself while an inmate of the Red Cross Institute for the Blind, where the blinded soldiers are aught trades and occupations in which the sense of touch serves for the lost eyes. To grip gun in a charge against the foe is possibly no more heroic than to grip life, resolutely to serve though blind.

THE “CLOUD OF BLACKS”

Terrible Effect of a Charge of Senegals Upon German Officer’s Sensibilities

Perhaps the most vivid and ecstatic description of a fight for trenches that was written in the course of the war or has been written since was from the pen of Rheinhold Eichacker, a German officer on the Western front. It was published in one of the German papers from which it was translated for the benefit of the New York _Times_. It deserves a permanent place in the historic record of desperate deeds of courage as an example of thoroughly adequate treatment, in literary form, of what may be styled “compound heroism.” The passionate frenzy of a personal experience could not be made more graphic with mere words as tools.

The occasion was less feelingly covered by the German Army report, which said:

“After a lengthy artillery preparation, white and colored Frenchmen attacked our positions in heavy force. They succeeded in getting a foothold in some of our most advanced trenches. A furious counter-attack drove them back again in a hand-to-hand encounter. Nothing else of importance.”

But let us have Rheinhold Eichacker:

“At 7.15 in the morning the French attacked. The black Senegal negroes, France’s cattle for the shambles. After a seven-hour suffocating drumfire that, according to all human reckoning, should not have left a mortal man alive. But we still lived—and waited. Six meters under the sod lay our ‘waiting rooms.’ Burrowed into the ground on a slant. ‘Courage bracers,’ they call them out there.

“At 7.15 the enemy shifted his fire backward upon our reserves. Our pickets sounded the alarm. We sprang to arms, with our gas masks in place. For a few seconds the trenches resembled an antheap. There was feverish hurrying, running, shouting, and shoving. Just for seconds. Then everybody was at his post. Everybody who was alive. Every one a rock in the seething waves. Every one determined to hold his position against hell itself.”

“LET THEM COME”

“A gas attack! Several hundred pairs of wide-open warriors’ eyes fixed their glances upon the ugly, smoking cloud that, lazy and impenetrable, rolled toward us. Hundreds of fighting eyes, fixed, threatening, deadly. Let them come, the blacks! And they came. First singly, at wide intervals. Feeling their way, like the arms of a horrible cuttlefish. Eager, grasping, like the claws of a mighty monster. Thus they rushed closer, flickering and sometimes disappearing in their cloud. Entire bodies and single limbs, now showing in the harsh glare, now sinking in the shadows, came nearer and nearer. Strong, wild fellows, their log-like, fat, black skulls wrapped in pieces of dirty rags. Showing their grinning teeth like panthers, with their bellies drawn in and their necks stretched forward. Some with bayonets on their rifles. Many only armed with knives. Monsters all, in their confused hatred. Frightful their distorted, dark grimaces. Horrible their unnaturally wide-opened, burning, bloodshot eyes. Eyes that seem like terrible beings themselves. Like unearthly, hell-born beings. Eyes that seemed to run ahead of their owners, lashed, unchained, no longer to be restrained. On they came like dogs gone mad and cats spitting and yowling, with a burning lust for human blood, with a cruel dissemblance of their beastly malice. Behind them came the first wave of the attackers, in close order, a solid, rolling black wall, rising and falling, swaying and heaving, impenetrable, endless.

“‘Close range! Individual firing! Take careful aim!’ My orders rang out sharp and clear and were correctly understood by all the men. They stood as if carved out of stone, their lips tightly pressed, the muscles of their cheeks swollen, and took aim. Just like rifle range work. The first blacks fell headlong in full course in our wire entanglements, turning somersaults like the clowns in a circus. Some of them half rose, remained hanging, jerked themselves further, crawling, gliding, like snakes—cut wires—sprang over—tumbled—fell.

“Nearer and nearer rolled the wall. Gaps opened and closed again. Lines halted and rolled on again. Whrr rratt—tenggg—ssstt—crack! Our artillery sent them its greeting! Whole groups melted away. Dismembered bodies, sticky earth, shattered rocks, were mixed in wild disorder. The black cloud halted, wavered, closed its ranks—and rolled nearer and nearer, irresistible, crushing, devastating! And the rifles were flashing all the time. A dissonant, voiceless rattle. The men still stood there and took aim. Calmly, surely, not wasting a single shot. The stamping and snorting of thousands of panting beasts ate up the ground between us.”

“HELL SEEMED LET LOOSE”

“Now the wave was only 300 paces from our defenses—from their remnants—now only 200—100—irresistible, seething and roaring—50 paces!—‘Rapid fire!’ I roared, I shrieked, through the swelling cracking of the rifles. A hurricane swallowed my voice! Hell seemed let loose at a single blow, raging, storming, obliterating all understanding! Shoving and stamping, shrieking and shouting, cracking and rattling, hissing and screeching. A heavy veil hung over the wall. In this cloud pieces of earth, smoke spirals, black, red, white, yellow flashes, quivered and flared. Rattling, rapping, pounding, hammering, crackling. And the shots fell unceasingly. Clear and shrill the rifles, heavy and roaring the shells.

“And now came the gruesome, inconceivable horror! A wall of lead and iron suddenly hurled itself upon the attackers and the entanglements just in front of our trenches. A deafening hammering and clattering, cracking and pounding, rattling and crackling, beat everything to earth in ear-splitting, nerve-racking clamor. Our machine guns had flanked the blacks!

“Like an invisible hand they swept over the men and hurled them to earth, mangling and tearing them to pieces! As an autumn storm roars over the fields they swept in full flood over the ranks and snuffed out life! Like hail among the ears of grain, their missiles flew and rattled and broke down the enemy’s will! Singly, in files, in rows and heaps, the blacks fell. Next to each other, behind each other, on top of each other. Hurled in heaps, in mounds, in hillocks. Fresh masses charged and fell back, charged and stumbled, charged and fell. And there were always fresh forces! They seemed to spring from the very earth!

“We had losses; heavy losses. Here a man suddenly put his hand to his forehead and swayed. There another sprang gurgling to one side and fell, as flat and heavy as a block of stone. S-s-s-t—it went above our heads. The French were throwing shrapnel against our trenches, hissing, cracking, and in volleys.

“Hell still rages. The blacks get reinforcements. Finally the whites themselves charge, a jerky, rolling, bluish-green mass! In a powerful drive they get over the first rise in the ground. Now they have disappeared. Now they bob up, as out of a trap door. Here and there the ranks shoot forward in great leaps, the officers ahead of all, with their swords swinging high in the air, just as in the pictures! A splendid sight. Now they reach the bodies of the blacks. They halt for a few seconds, as if in horror, then on they roll over the dead, jumping, wallowing, dozens falling.”

“WE STILL STAND FIRMLY”

“Our nerves are strained to the snapping point, gasping, bleeding, feverish! We dare not waver. ‘Steady, men! Steady!’ We must calmly let them come as far as the wire entanglements, as the blacks did. The blacks? Where are they? Disappeared! Only they left their dead behind. The same thing will happen to the whites. We are waiting for them. The death-spewing machine guns are lying over there. They lie there and wait until their time comes. Steady, steady! They lie there and wait impatiently—but yet they are silent— Now!—No—I am raving! ‘Rapid fire!’—I hiss—My neighbor staggers—I only listen and wait, wait and listen, for only one thing. Something that has to come, must finally come, has to come! Great God, otherwise we are lost! Be calm, be calm! Now they will begin reaping! Now they must begin to rattle, our machine guns, our faithful rescuers—now—at once! What can they be waiting for? Why, they are there in the wires already. Hell and Satan! No man can endure that! They are hesitating too long—the enemy is almost in the trenches! Ah! At last! A rattling—a hoarse crackling—Heaven help us, what is that?

“A devilish howling rises hoarsely from over there, lacerating, bestial, shrieking! The blacks, the devils! How did they reach our flank over there? That’s where our machine guns are. It cannot be. There! Hell! They are carrying hand grenades, are in their rear! Heaven help us! And the whites! They are at our breastworks. Already they are in the trenches, fighting like wild beasts. Horror makes them crazy. Help is coming to us from the left. The second company has fallen upon their flank. The French run like hunted animals. A shell bursts in their midst, catches twenty or thirty of them and throws them in the air like toys. They run still further, through the air, bowling along on their heads, gruesomely—and fall in heaps to the ground. Heads, legs, twitching bodies! The French run until back of the bodies. The rest of them are cut to pieces, or made prisoners. But now our men must come back.

“We struggle for breath. Wounded men writhe around and moan and groan heavily. The trench is bathed in blood. Far more than half of the company has been slain. We are only a handful. I assemble the valiant men and distribute them among the trenches. They stand resolutely, breathing hard and gasping.

“A furious rattling and buzzing and hissing calls us again to our posts. They are charging anew. Now the whites again, in front, on the side. They are on our flank! Back of them the blacks in frightful clusters. ‘Bring the sandbags!’ The sandbags fly from hand to hand. A wall rises in the midst of the trench. The other half was overrun long ago and is a knot of struggling men. A piece of wood hits me on the shoulder—crack—I cry out! A shot lands in the midst of our ammunition—it was our last. This way with the hand grenades! We have got to smoke them out!

“A roaring hurrah! Heaven help us, aid is at hand! The Fourth, and the Fifth—I know the men—and some of the First, too—all mixed up—dispersed troops rallied again. Now, up and at them! The French defend themselves furiously. They hold the trench. The dead are heaped up before their ramparts—but keep it up! A wild passion takes possession of me. My revolver and my dagger have been lost in the fighting. I seize a bottle. Hell sends it to me at the right moment. Like an animal mad with hate I rush forward. My bottle lands, crashing and splintering, on a wooly skull, with a distorted grimace. A hot shock rushes through my shoulder—a shock—a wrench—I grasp at the air—grasp something convulsively—throw myself in the air—and fall in a heap. A confused mist dances before my eyes.”

On November 11, 1918. the American Army had 80 fully equipped hospitals in the United States with a capacity of 120,000 patients.

There were 104 base hospitals and 31 evacuation hospitals in the American Expeditionary Force, and one evacuation hospital in Siberia.

Army hospitals in the United States cared for 1,407,191 patients during the war; those with the American Expeditionary Force cared for 755,354—a total of 2,162,545.

Up to the end of July about 15 per cent, of the entire civilian medical profession of the United States went into active duty as medical officers of the army.

HUBBELL BAGGED ’EM

A Lone Corporal Captures 31 of the Enemy in a Morning Frolic

One of the most spectacular of the valorous deeds in the Champagne engagement was the single-handed performance of Corporal Fred D. Hubbell, a Marine, from Toledo, Ohio. He captured and brought in for delivery nine German officers and twenty-two privates as the result of a morning’s pastime. It was during the attack on Blanc Mont, and in some way Hubbell got separated from his company, and in casting about to recover ground he saw the head of a German soldier pop from a dugout entrance and promptly duck down again. Hubbell felt a keen interest and determined to explore. But let him tell his own story, as he did in an interview reproduced by the _Marine’s Magazine_.

“It was in the morning that the —th Company went forward and had almost obtained their objective when they ran into a series of dugouts occupied by German artillery officers. A few prisoners were taken from one of the dugouts and one of them said that there were no more there. About half an hour later, the company having been under machine-gun fire from our left, I happened to be crouching alone behind the entrance to a dugout waiting for a counter-attack that was reported to be coming, when I saw a Heinie stick his head out of a dugout.

“I immediately told him to put up his hands, but he jumped back down the doorway and I heard him speak a few words of English and so called to him to come out, which he did. He said that there were at least thirty men in the dugout beside himself, whom he thought would surrender also, and a couple of officers. I told him that there were plenty of Americans around and that they might as well surrender because there was no chance for them to get away, and for them to leave their firearms all in the dugout and come out at once and they would not be harmed. He returned to the dugout and said he would go down and get them to come out. He went down but did not return.

“After a considerable length of time I yelled down and threatened to throw a hand grenade and waited for them to come up but none came. As there were several entrances to the series of dugouts I was afraid that they would catch me from behind, so I moved off to the left under some shelter where I could get a different view of the entrance and I had only been there a short time when another Heinie stuck his head up and I yelled at him, thinking they were all coming out. After waiting several minutes I became leary that I would be caught from behind and started for help.

“While on the way I passed another entrance to the series of dugouts and came upon one of the officers with his pistol in his hand evidently coming out looking for me. I yelled at him to throw up his hands, but he did not, instead, fell backward down the stairs in his haste to get away. Then I ran to the dugout entrance with a grenade in my hand and ordered them to come out or I would throw it down, and they came up at once. The German private who spoke English, whom I first caught showing his head out of the doorway, came up and stood by and passed on the orders to the officers and men to leave their firearms below and hold up their hands. Then they all filed out and gave themselves up. There was one major, one captain and seven lieutenants and twenty-two men in the party.

“The private told me on the way to the rear that when he told the officers there was only one American outside they were furious and refused to surrender, and therefore would not come up, and ordered the private to sneak out of one of the dugouts and shoot me, but the private refused. All the privates were willing to give up, but the officers were not so anxious. They evidently had been caught in their dugout by the barrage and could not get away without a great deal of risk.”

OTHER DOUGHTY CHAPS

But there were numerous single-handed exploits in that thrilling Champagne campaign, and among them are the following instances of the courage and initiative that characterized the American boys on the front.

Private John J. Kelley, of Chicago, Illinois, during the same attack as that in which Hubbell took part, crossed through the barrage of his own artillery, killed the operator of a machine gun which was firing into his line, wounded another with his pistol and took eight prisoners. Private Samuel S. Simmons, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with Private Lambert Bos, of Granite, Idaho, and Private Joe N. Viera, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, volunteered and attacked a machine-gun nest in advance of their front line. They killed the crew, then descended into an enemy dugout and captured forty prisoners.

Another instance is that of Corporal Horace P. Frye, of San Francisco, California. The position of his company on the hill east of St. Etienne was being continually swept by enemy machine-gun fire at apparently close range. Acting entirely upon his own initiative he determined to locate the source of the enemy fire and accordingly crawled forward unnoticed through 150 yards of open field, located the enemy guns and after throwing several hand grenades into their position he charged them and captured two machine guns and eleven men, with which he returned to his own lines through machine-gun fire.

WAS HE A COWARD?

The Singular Confessions of a Hollander Who Gave His Life for France

What is a coward? Is there any such thing as absolute bravery or absolute cowardice? When we characterize a particular person as a coward for failing to do, or refraining from doing, some specific thing are we quite sure that in the circumstances we would have acted differently? These are questions that suggest themselves when one reads what purport to be excerpts from the diary and letters of a confessed—or rather self-stigmatized coward, one Jan R——, a Hollander. He had lived in France some years, and soon after the outbreak of war became a naturalized citizen in order that he might join the French Army as a volunteer—not because he wanted to, but because he was ashamed to stay out.

The _Atlantic Monthly_ published all that was suitable of the available material in a long and intensely interesting article which is a curious record of psychological study and introspection. It is highly probable that the experience was by no means unique. A candid statement by the most daring of our heroes possibly would contain the admission that there were moments when the reflections of the Hollander were similar to his own.

Jan R—— tells of morning awakenings from troubled sleep with “the oppression that something horrible was about to enter into his existence.” He felt a pang in his breast that he “should have to take part in the fighting. There was no escape.” He suffered a fear, a shifting fear that he “could sometimes suppress but never drive out.” The life in the training camp somewhat eased his emotions as he mingled with so many others, and at times he even got “flickerings of a desire to fight,” but it was not the real thing, he assumed; it was “more in the nature of artistic imagination.” In the distance was the rumbling and thudding of heavy gun fire, and as he heard it he felt “a strange respect and admiration, mingled with fear for the men in the first line of trenches.”

“Before long our turn for the trenches will come. Most of the fellows are wishing for the time to come. At least that is what they say. I am dreading it. I am in earnest when I say that my life is of little value, even to myself. Yet I fear the trenches. Yesterday evening transports of wounded soldiers came past us repeatedly. Hearing the wailing and the groaning, seeing all the bloodiness made me sick.... The fear of the front suddenly overtook me. I violently reproached myself for having been so stupid as to enlist. There I was in the midst of this insane murder! And by my own free will!”

HE GOES TO THE FRONT

Finally his turn came for the front. One of his comrades was a youth named Gaston.

“The dear boy has become very much attached to me. He believes that I am a strong support for him! Must I weep at this, or laugh? Gaston has told me in great confidence that he gets occasional attacks of cowardice. And he asked me whether I did not despise him. He is terribly afraid that the fellows will notice it, but he did not mind confiding in me. Why in me? He says it is because he admires my imperturbable calmness so much. What could I reply? It seemed best not to tell him how things stood with me. Apart from the difficulties such a confession would cause me, I concluded that it would also be better for him to believe in my courage.”

THE BOY REGARDED HIM AS A HERO

“A hero! But there are real heroes and make-believe heroes; and they are not always easily distinguishable. I do not hide from myself that I belong to the make-believes. And yet, it is remarkable that I did not find the second week at the front as terrible as the first. It is not as bad there as it seems. When once you get accustomed to the idea that you may be dead in a day, or in an hour, or in a minute, and when you are clear as to your future, your mood is relieved from constant depression. Involuntarily you become kind and helpful to those about you, you do not get vexed over trifles, you are ready to make all sorts of sacrifices. Of course, if, in the midst of such a condition, a grenade suddenly drops into your trench, if you see three or four of your comrades getting killed, your misery returns, no matter how good an outward appearance you may keep up. At least, for a while. But then again the thought comes that getting wounded means rest and safety, and good care. And death? that is still less terrible. One boasts of reaching one’s destination along the shortest road! Is not death every one’s final destination?...

“It is peculiar that one can get so accustomed to danger.