When I went up to "mess" that day, an orderly pointed out to me through a crack in the camouflage a ruined plane a kilometer away in the open and under constant observation from both lines. In it was the body of a famous German flier. Things had been too hot for our men to go out and bring in the remains. Mt. Sec towered above us, nine hundred feet high. We knew that it was a vast nest of German guns. Like Gibraltar it stands in front of Metz. But it is not impregnable. Twice the French have demonstrated that; and, when the hour strikes, Mt. Sec will not turn these allied armies back.
I felt something cold touch my hand, and, looking down, saw a kindly-eyed, well-fed dog inspecting me. These dogs are the only "original settlers" left on the line. They were lost in the first rush, I suppose; and now, cared for by the fighting men, they watch the walls that daily dwindle, and wait with dumb loyalty for the return of their masters.
One of the men brought me a "beautiful" fragment of a mustard-gas shell. His little gift helped a lot, for it told me that I was beginning to "arrive." Later I received the nose of a shrapnel "made in Germany"; the shrapnel broke above the dugout, and the nose dropped "dead" in the entrance. Another fellow, a youngster who must have fibbed a lot to get into the army, pulled a Testament out of his upper left-hand pocket to replace it with something else, and then said, as he thought out loud, "Nope," and back went the book. There is an unadmitted tradition that the "book" keeps German steel away from the heart, and it does in more ways than one.
That evening I had plenty of assistance, and things moved like clockwork. There was nearly a catastrophe, though. Two of the men were trying to fix a carbon lamp that had been useless for several days, and it caught fire. The way that dugout emptied itself was a sight to behold.
After eight o'clock we had a "home-talent" frolic, and it was some show. There was no room for acrobatics, but practically everything else that a well-ordered minstrel show should have we had.
"At midnight in his guarded tent"—that doesn't really fit here, but at midnight the Pierce-Arrow arrived with oranges, blood-oranges from Italy. We were out of everything but tobacco, and I was desperate before the oranges came. What fellows they are who keep the supply lines open for the Y. M. C. A.! Day and night they work, with a smile. Every risk the ammunition drivers run, they accept, and without complaint. They left me fifteen boxes of oranges, and a good word that sang me to sleep. This night I slept better, and there was no gas alarm.
The third day it rained—shells! At ten the entrance suddenly darkened as if the gas-curtain had been dropped. It looked as if every man of General Pershing's army was trying to come to see me in a great hurry, and ahead of every other man who was bound in the same direction. For several minutes I had noticed the quickened firing and that the explosions were unusually close; but, feeling safe myself and being busy, I had paid little attention to the noise. The Germans were trying to muss up the batteries just behind us, and a torrent of shells was now falling. The big outdoors had suddenly become too small, and the men were taking cover.
One chap, longer and louder than the rest, came in waving one boot above his head, and in his sock feet. When I inquired solicitously after the other shoe, he sang out, "Left it; didn't need it, anyhow."
Y. M. C. A. SERVING SOUP AND HOT COFFEE TO WOUNDED MEN
One hundred yards from the front line.