CHASSEURS
June 10th, 1918
Our Division has taken over a new sector from the French just to the right of our line bordering on the sector occupied by the Iowas and it is at present occupied by Major Donovan with Companies A and B of his battalion. It has a picturesque name, “The Hunter’s Meeting Place—Rendezvouz des Chasseurs,” and is even more picturesque than its name. There is a high hog-back of land jutting out towards the German line between deep thickly-wooded valleys. When this was a quiet sector the French soldiers in their idle time put a great deal of labor on it to make it comfortable and attractive, and when I came out here a few days ago I could easily have believed it if told there was no such a thing as war, and that this whole place had been designed as a rustic semi-military playground for the younger elements on some gentleman’s country estate. The officers’ dugouts are against the side of the steeply sloping hill so that only the inner portion is really under ground, windows and doors on one side opening on terraces which have flower beds, strawberry plots, and devices made of whitewashed stones.
We dine al fresco under the trees. An electric light plant is installed and I spent last night on the Major’s bunk indulging an old habit of reading late. Donovan, like McCoy, always has some books with him no matter where he goes; and I got hold of a French translation of “Cæsar’s Commentaries,” with notes by Napoleon Bonaparte.
I enjoy being with Donovan. He is so many-sided in his interests, and so alert-minded in every direction, and such a gracious attractive fellow besides, that there is never a dull moment with him. His two lieutenants, Ames and Weller, are of similar type; and as both are utterly devoted to him, it is a happy family. Ames takes me aside periodically to tell me in his boyish, earnest way that I am the only man who can boss the Major into taking care of himself, and that I must tell him that he is doing entirely too much work and taking too great risks, and must mend his evil ways. I always deliver the message, though it never does any good. Just now I am not anxious for Donovan to spare himself, for I know that he has been sent here because, in spite of its sylvan attractiveness, this place is a post of danger, so situated that the enemy could cut it off from reinforcements, and bag our two companies unless the strictest precautions are kept up.
Major Allen Potts, a genial and gallant Virginian, who is now in charge of the military police, has obtained permission to bring up one company of his M. P.’s to help our fellows hold the line. It is a good idea. The M. P. have a mean job as they have to arrest other soldiers for breach of regulations; and they are exposed to resentful retorts of the kind, “Where’s your coat?” “Where you’ll never go to look for it—out in No Man’s Land.” Nobody can talk that way to Major Potts’s outfit.
There was a gas attack last night on the French sector called Chapellotte on the edge of the bluff to our immediate right, and Donovan and I went over this morning to see the extent of the damage. As we climbed the steep hill to reach the French positions we met Matthew Rice of Company A, who was in liaison with the French; and he told us in the coolest way in the world a story of a sudden gas attack in the middle of the night, which put out of action nearly two hundred men, leaving himself and four or five Frenchmen the only surviving defenders of the hill. If the same thing were to happen at Chasseurs the Germans could easily follow it up and capture the whole outfit; and I can see the reason for Major Donovan’s ceaseless precautions.