CHAPTER V

THE CHAMPAGNE DEFENSIVE

VADENAY FARM, CAMP DE CHALONS

_July_ 2nd, 1918

I like this spot, but it was a terrible place to get to. We got hurry-up orders to leave our pleasant villages on the Coole on June 26th. It was payday and some of the fellows had hiked it into Chalons and back to find something to spend their money on. But it was “pack your kits and trek” for everybody.

It was a beautiful soft June night. No moon, but the French highway rolled out before us dull white in the gloom, as if its dust were mingled with phosphorus. The men trudged along behind—joking and singing—it was the beginning of the march. After a couple of hours we entered Chalons, a dream city by night. Not a light was visible, but the chalk stone buildings showed dimly on either hand, and the old Cathedral, with the ravages of the French Revolution obscured by darkness, was more beautiful than in the day. But before we left that town behind, all the poetry had departed from it. It seemed to take hours and hours of hard hiking on uneven pavements before the wearying men found their feet on country roads once more. Nobody knew how far the column had to go, and every spire that marked a village was hailed with hope, and, I fear, cursed when the hope was unrealized. They had a weary night ahead before they reached their destinations. The headquarters found itself with Division Headquarters in the Ferme de Vadenay, which is not a farm at all, but some long low barracks on the Camp de Chalons. The nearest approach to a farmer I saw there was a French soldier, who carefully nursed a few cabbages to feed his rabbits. He was a Breton fisherman, who had gone to the war, and the war had touched his wits. As a younger man he had fished in the North Sea and was the only person I ever found who could confirm the existence of Captain George MacAdie’s native town of Wyck. It was a great triumph for George, for my geographical skepticism had aroused a doubt as to whether he had ever been born at all.

The Chalons plains set all of us old Border veterans going again. The first comment was “Just like Texas.” A broad expanse of flat brookless country with patches of scrimpy trees that surely must be mesquite. But I delight in it. There is a blue sky over it all, and the long reaches for the eye to travel are as fascinating and as restful as the ocean. In Texas the attraction is in the skies. Half of it is beautiful. The half you see by gazing at the horizon and letting the eye travel up and back till it meets the horizon again. But here the flat earth has beauties of its own. It is God’s flower garden. The whole ground is covered with wild flowers—marguerites and bluets by millions and big clumps of violets as gorgeous as a sanctuary of Monsignori, and poppies, poppies everywhere. Colonel McCoy gave me a copy of Alan’s Seegar’s poems with one marked Champagne, 1915. Two lines of it are running through my head all day.

The mat of many colored flowers That decks the sunny chalk fields of Champagne.

Champagne. The word is a familiar one with other associations. We had thought that the bottles grew on trees and that the thirsty traveler had but to detach the wire that held them. And behold it is a land as dry as Nebraska. There are no such vivifying trees, nor lowly vines, nor even abundant water. A vastly over-advertised country in the opinion of the present collection of tourists.

BOIS DE LA LYRE

_July_ 7th, 1918

Bois de la Lyre—Harp Woods since the 69th got here. We have arrived in two stages. We were to celebrate the 4th of July in proper fashion with games and feasting. But there was not much with which to hold high revelry, and the games were practically spoiled by an order to move. Anyway, our minds are on other things. I came on Terry O’Connor, sitting with his shirt open on account of the heat, busily cleaning his rifle. “Man dear,” I said, “Where is your patriotism? Every man home has a flag in his button-hole. I’m ashamed of you.” “I’ve got me roifle” (patting it) “an’ me Scafflers” (pointing to the brown string showing on his bared neck); “what more does a pathriot need?”

We moved by night, as usual, but not far, to the École Normale de Tir. The Normal School sounded big and fine. One expected a square two-story red brick building with white sandstone trimmings—but we found a collection of half underground iron covered dugouts, and all overground rough little board shacks. We would be happy there now for we find that this poetically named spot is some degrees less attractive. It looks as if somebody had put it up in a hurry because the cattle were out in bad weather. The Officers are in the sheds, the men out in what they call the Bois—which are probably thick enough for concealment from an inquisitive aeroplane. But that is all we need while this blessed weather holds. Sunny France had ceased to be the joke it was.

And then, something seems to be doing at last. We who are in the know have been hearing tales of plans afoot—an attack on the Chateau Thierry salient at Chatillon-sur-Marne seemed to be the plan when we first reached these parts. The indications are now that the Germans are due for another inning and we are to meet them here. Anderson has gone up with the 2nd Battalion to hold the trenches with the French. Donovan and McKenna are in support. There is a big dugout in a knoll ahead of us—they call it a hill, just as in Atlantic City any place four feet above tide water is called a height—and we are to move there when action begins. I am sitting on top of it—have been here all this sunny afternoon reading a book the Colonel gave me, Gabriel Hanotaux on France under Henri Quatre—and I certainly do not like the idea of spending my young life in a dugout P. C. during action. I am going to tell Colonel McCoy that my spiritual duties demand that I visit Anderson’s Battalion. He says that he wants his Officers to enjoy this war—the only war most of them can hope to have. And I hate dugouts anyway.

To get from Harp Woods to Chapel Woods you go north for about four miles through Jonchery to St. Hilaire le Grand—a bit of a village which to borrow from Voltaire’s remark about the Holy Roman Empire does not look particularly saintly nor hilarious nor grand. The Ohios are on the right of it, and our Company E just to the west with patches of blue Frenchmen dotted all around. Follow the Ancient Roman Way for a kilometer or two and you get to a patch of woods with tops of mounds showing through them as if large sized moles had been working there. It is marked on the map as Subsector Taupinière in the Auberive sector. But we carry our names with us, and these bits of the soil of France are to be called while we inhabit them P. C. Anderson, P. C. Kelly, P. C. Prout and P. C. Finny; P.C., meaning “Post of Command.”

I have spent the week with Anderson. He has his P. C. in an elephant hut—a little hole about five feet underground with a semi-circular roof of corrugated iron piled over with sand bags and earth,—enough to turn the splinters of a shell. I passed a couple of days with Captain Charles Baker of Company E, who is over to the right, along the Suippes. Charles is all energy and business, as usual. And Lieutenant Andy Ellett came in one night quite peevish because the French had countermanded the orders for a patrol. Andy likes the scent of danger. At P. C. Baker I saw Jim Murray, whom I once started out for the priesthood. I spent a pleasant day wandering about on my lawful occasions among the men in the different positions, one of which I found very popular, as just there the Suippes had actually enough water for a man to take a decent bath in. At the proper time I did not fail to discover the Company Kitchen, located on the river bank in a charming spot. While doing justice to a good meal I discussed Mt. Vernon politics with Carmody and Vahey.

The battalion is under French command. Colonel Arnoux of the 116th Infantry has us in immediate charge with General Gouraud in high command. Arnoux is an elderly patient kindly man with a lot of seasoned young veterans for officers and for Chaplain a big jolly Breton, whom the men adore. The regiment is not much higher in strength than our one battalion. Like all the regiments over here it has been worn down by constant fighting and the difficulty of finding replacements. During the week they got something to show for the good work they have been doing the past three years—the much desired Fourragère, a bunch of knotted cords worn hanging from the left shoulder. Our fellows call them “pull-throughs,” after the knotted cords they pull through their rifles when cleaning them. It was a very interesting ceremony. Our officers were invited to it and those of our enlisted men who wore the French Croix de Guerre. General Gouraud, a remarkable military figure with an added touch of distinction from his empty hanging sleeve and stiff leg—decorated the regimental colors while the officers invested the men with the coveted mark of distinction. The General reviewed his American Allies, each of the officers being introduced by Major Anderson. It was a formal affair until he came to our bunch of husky soldiers who wore no silver or gold insignia on their shoulders but carried on their breasts the red and green ribbon of the Croix de Guerre. Then you can see why every man in his army swears by him. No cannon fodder here, but interesting human beings. I liked him for it, and felt very proud of the men we had to show him—Corporals Hagan and Finnegan of Company F, Sergeants Coffey, Murray and Shalley of Company G, and Sergeants Jerome O’Neill and Gunther and Corporal Furey of Company H.[2] I was saying to myself, “General, you’re an old soldier but you never saw better men.”

It was a good thing for all of us to have met the General—a man that any soldier would be proud to fight under, but we were mighty careful not to tell him that a phrase from a famous order of his was a by-word amongst the American Officers under him. He had issued an address couched along the lines of the Napoleonic tradition in vigorous staccato phrases, preparing the hearts of his soldiers for resistance unto death. The translator had turned his last hopeful phrase, which promised them it would be a great day when the assault was broken, into English as “It will be a beautiful day.” Many of the high-ups, both French and American, seem to think that the idea of a general assault along these lines in a direction away from Paris is a mare’s nest of Gouraud’s, but the debate always winds up with the unanimous chant, “Oh, it will be a beautiful day.” At present we are not in the front line trenches, but in what are called the intermediate ones. The General’s idea is to hold the front line with a few French troops who will make themselves as safe as possible against the vigorous shelling expected and withdraw behind our lines when the German Infantry make their attack. Then our fellows are to have the task of keeping goal. It’s going to bring the battle right down to our doors, as the battalion and company headquarters are only one or two city blocks from where the hand to hand fighting will have to take place.

I spend most of my time amongst the men and am very much interested in finding out how their minds react at the prospects of their first big battle. The other German drives against the British and the French have been so overwhelmingly successful that I was afraid the soldiers might think that whenever the Germans get started they were just naturally bound to walk over everything. I am delighted to find that these bits of recent history have not affected our fellows in the slightest. Jim Fitzpatrick of E Company expressed the feeling of everybody when he said: “Why would I be afraid ov thim? They’re just Dootchmen, a’int they? and I never in me loife seen any four Dootchmin that I couldn’t lick.” I have often read statements by reporters about men being anxious to get into a battle. I never believed it. But I find now at first hand that here at least are a lot of men who are anxious to see Heinie start something. I tell them that I am desirous of getting into our first mix-up right here. This Division has started out hunting trouble and if we don’t find it here they will keep us sloshing all over France until we run into it somewhere.

They will have need of all their courage, for if this general attack is made it’s going to be a tremendous one. The opinion of the French General staff seems to be that this line will not be able to hold. At any rate they have been making preparations with that contingency in view. The whole plain behind us is organized for defense with our other two battalions in rough trenches and the Engineers in reserve. I hear they are bringing up also a Polish Legion to take part in the support. They have Seventy-fives in position for direct fire on German tanks, and machine guns stuck everywhere with beautiful fields of fire across the sloping plain. Everything is so charmingly arranged, that I have a feeling that some of the people behind us have a sneaking hope that the Germans will sweep across the first lines so that they can be met by the pleasant little reception which is being prepared for them further back. However, I think that our friends back there are going to be disappointed unless the Germans can spare a Division or two to smother this battalion. Their orders are “Fight it out where you are,” which is Anderson’s translation of Gouraud’s phrase, “No man shall look back; no man shall retreat a step.”

Gouraud means it; and Anderson means it. I take great pleasure in observing him these days. A young fellow yet, just 29, and fresh from civil life—but a born soldier, with the carefulness of a soldier in making plans and in looking after his men, and the hardness of a soldier in ruling and using men, and a streak of sentiment carefully concealed which is a part of the soldier’s make-up. He has some Scotch in him by his name—a good thing for the Irish if it doesn’t make them Scotch-Irish—but the military tradition in his bringing-up is on the Duffy side. It is interesting to me to see the elements of school training showing in a man’s character and views. In his views of life, discipline and self-sacrifice, Anderson is a Christian Brothers’ boy. I sometimes feel that old Brother Michael had more to do with the making of Major Anderson as I know him, than his own parents had. One result of his education had been what most people nowadays would consider a detriment—his devotion to duty is so sincere that it has produced the effect of despising publicity; this he carries to an extreme. Well, he may or may not win fame in this war, but one thing I know, that the soldiers of his Company or of his Battalion who alternately cursed and admired him during the period of training are delighted to have him over them in a fight and will unanimously rank him as one of the greatest soldiers this regiment has ever produced.

Last night he and I made the rounds of all the trenches. General Gouraud had picked it as a probable night for the big attack, so we started around to get the men in right spirits for it. The Major’s method was characteristic. As the bright moonlight revealed the men in their little groups of two or threes, the Major would ask, “What are your orders here?” The answer always came, quick as a flash, though in varying words, “To fight it out where we are, sir.” “To let nothing make me leave my post, sir,” and one, in a rich Munster brogue, “To stay here until we’re all dead, sir.” “Then, will you do it?” “Yes, sir.” Soldiers are not allowed to make speeches, but there’s the most wonderful eloquence in all the world in the way a good man carries his shoulders and looks at you out of his eyes. We knew they would stick. I had my own few words to say to each of them, whether they were of the old faith or the new or no faith at all. We were two satisfied men coming back for we knew that the old regiment would give a good account of itself if the assault were made. The night passed uneventfully and this morning I was happy to have another Sunday for my own work. A French priest, a soldier in uniform (a _brancardier_), said Mass for Company F in the picturesque little soldier’s chapel that gives the woods its name, and gave General Absolution and Communion, while I did the same in successive Masses for Company G and Company H, and the Wisconsin fellows.

I have served notice on Anderson that unless he produced some kind of a war in the next twenty-four hours I shall have to quit him. I had not been back to the Regimental P. C. for nearly a week, so on Friday I told Joe Hennessey that I wanted him to come up with a side car and bring me down. The side car arrived yesterday morning but with young Wadsworth running it. He had gotten impatient hanging around back there with prospects of a fight up front and he secured the privilege of coming up for me so as to get nearer for a while at least to the front line. It was a great pleasure to be at mess with Colonels McCoy and Mitchell once more—a mutual one evidently, for they both said that I had been too long away and would have to come back. I begged off until after Sunday.

Starting back on foot I ran into Major Donovan, who as usual walked me off my feet. I had to visit every foot of his position on both sides of the Jonchery road and I was glad when Major Grayson Murphy came along in a staff car and offered me a lift any place I wanted to go. Donovan and I are both fond of Major Murphy, so I told him I would go anywhere in the world with him so long as he delivered me from D.

On our way back to P. C. Anderson the Corps Officer who was with him gave his opinion that judging by past performances the Germans should be able to advance at least one kilometer in the massed attack that was threatened. I didn’t say anything but it gave me a shivery feeling, especially when I measured out a kilometer on one of Anderson’s maps and wondered just what would have happened to poor me by the time the gray mass of Germans would reach the point that the gentleman from the Staff had conceded them in his off-hand way. I needed the trip around the trenches for my own reassurance and I stretched myself out last night for a sleep with the comfortable feeling that the decision in this matter was in the hands of an aggregation of Irish stalwarts who care little for past performances or Staff theories.

We are going to celebrate tonight. Lieutenant Rerat is to bring over a few of the French Officers and the admirable John Pleune is off scouring the countryside and the French canteens for something to celebrate with.

_July_ 14th, 1918 11:00 _p. m._

We are here in Kelly’s iron shack. Lieutenant Tom Young, a thorough soldier and a good friend of mine, and old boy Finnerty and Harry McLean are waiting for the bombardment. Everything that can be done for the men has been done. There remains the simplest task in the world, though often the hardest—waiting.

Our little Hands Across the Seas dinner was a jolly affair. Anderson had Kelly and myself for guests with his own staff; Keveny, Fechheimer and McDermott (Buck Philbin—God bless him for a fine youth—was just ordered back to the States and we miss him); and Lieutenant Rerat brought along two good fellows like himself—a French-Irish Frenchman named DeCourcy (his ancestors left France, on their mission to teach the English manners and become good Irishmen themselves, somewhere around 1066, and one of their descendants came back to France with the Wild Geese after the Broken Treaty of Limerick) and a plump merry doctor whose name escapes me. The viands were excellent—considering. And Dan Mellett had done his noble best. Anyway, we made it a feast of song, that is, the others