LA MARCHE
September 26th
On September 17th our regiment was relieved by the Alabamas and the men were encamped altogether in the town of La Marche, which consists of one large ferme with a few extra stone buildings and a number of wooden shacks which were constructed by the Germans. In the big farm house we are a happy party. Colonel Mitchell likes to have his officers around him and they share his feelings to the full. We have plenty of provisions, a good many of them German, and Staff and Field Officers are messing together. At table are Colonel Mitchell, Lieutenant Colonel Donovan, Majors Reilley, Anderson, Kelly and Lawrence, Captain Meaney, Adjutant, Captain Merle-Smith, Operations Officer, Lieutenant Rerat, Lieutenant Spencer and myself. If my fancy leads me to the open air I can walk down the road to Pannes where Captain Mangan with Kinney and Frank Smith are working away with their doughty mule-skinners, unless perchance the German shells chase them underground; or across the open field to the woods where our men are leading a lazy though muddy existence.
Various incidents, amusing or tragical as is the way of war, broke the comparative monotony of these ten days. There was a captive observation balloon just outside the village which evidently must have had a good view of the enemy because they were most anxious to get it down. No aeroplane succeeded in setting fire to it, so the Germans got after it with long range guns. One afternoon the fire got so hot that the chauffeur of the truck to which it was attached started down the road to get out of range with the big sausage still floating in the air at the end of its cable, the Germans increasing their range as their target moved. Sergeant Daly, the mess sergeant of the Machine Gun Company, was peacefully crossing the field on a lazy going mule unaware of what it was all about, when a German shell aimed at the aeroplane down the road passed with the speed and noise of a freight train about twenty feet above his head. The mule gave one leap forward, and Daly was not trying to stop him; and two thousand soldiers who had been watching the flight of the balloon burst into a tremendous laugh.
On the night of September 23rd, a large calibre German shell made a direct hit right into a shelter pit in the woods where five of the best men in our machine gun company were lying asleep; Sergeant Frank Gardella, who had won the D. S. C., Sergeant Harry P. Bruhn and Sergeant J. F. Flint, with Privates H. McCallum and William Drake, who was one of three brothers in the company. All five were blown out of the hole by the concussion as high as the lower branches of the trees. Sergeant Flint landed, bruised and stunned, but untouched by the fragments. He gathered himself together and found Gardella killed instantly and the other three terribly wounded. He bound them up, calling for help, which was brought by Lieutenant De Lacour, and the three wounded men were gotten back to the hospital by Major Lawrence and Captain Dudley, but we had little hopes for them, and have since heard that they died of their wounds.
Jim Cassidy, Frankie Maguire and Jimmy Kelly found some German flour which they brought into the Headquarters Kitchen. They are a guileless looking trio and I cannot say to this day how deep a part they played in this affair. They gave the flour to Joe De Nair. Now Joseph Patrick De Nair has knocked around this world for more years than he will acknowledge to anybody—long enough at any rate, to have learned how to turn his hand to anything; and he announced his intention of making pancakes for all hands, especially me. Everybody was set to work under Joe’s direction. Fred Miller and Anderson salvaged some molasses. Al Ettinger was hustled off on his motorcycle to Pannes to use my name with Lieutenant Scheffler for some oleo, of which we were short. Pat Sharkey rustled wood; Frank Clason built a fire and John Brickley flattened and polished a tin for Joe’s cooking. Bill Hanley and Humphrey were appointed assistant chefs. There was a group around me consisting of Proctor, Holt, Katz and Proudfoot, and Joe came over: “All you ginks have got to work. There are no guests around here except Father Duffy.” I told him they had been reading an article in the “Daily Mail” on the Irish question and were asking me about it. That saved them, for Ireland counted more with Joe than even the success of his pancakes.
The bustling preliminaries were finally completed and Joe proceeded to make his batter. He poured it on the tin and waited, turning-spoon in hand until, like St. Lawrence, it should be done on one side. Then with the air of an artist, he turned his first pancake with a flourish. It landed on the pan with a bang like a shell striking an elephant hut. “What the——,” muttered Joe, as he picked up the results of his labor. “Well I’ll be——!” “What’s the matter Joe?” I asked, conscious that something was going wrong and that my presence deprived him of the normal outlet for his feelings. “What’s the matter. Where’s those dummed kids?” “Well, what is the matter?” “What’s the matter. What’s the matter? The stuff they gave me for flour is plaster of Paris. That’s what’s the matter. Where the—— Oh for Heaven’s sake, Father, go inside until I can let myself spill.”