AMERICANS IN THE FOREIGN LEGION
Showing type of hand-grenades
Our line was wearing thin. Halfway to the third trench we were reinforced by Battalion E coming from behind. The ground in our rear was covered with our men.
All at once came a change. The German artillery in front ceased firing, and the next second we saw the reason why. In the trench ahead, the German troops in black masses were pouring out and advancing toward us at a trot. Was it a counter-attack? "Tant mieux," said a man near me; another, of a different race, said, "We'll show them!" Then as suddenly our own artillery ceased firing, and the mystery became plain. The Germans were approaching in columns of fours, officers to the front, hands held in the air, and, as they came closer, we could distinguish the steady cry, "Kameraden! Kameraden!"
They were surrendering. How we went at our work! Out flew our knives, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, we had mingled among the prisoners, slicing off their trousers buttons, cutting off suspenders, and hacking through belts. All the war shoes had their laces cut, according to the regulations laid down in the last French "Manual," and thus, slopping along, hands helplessly in their breeches pockets to keep their trousers from falling round their ankles, shuffling their feet to keep their boots on, the huge column of prisoners was sent to the rear with a few soldiers to direct rather than to guard them. There was no fight left in them now. A terror-stricken group; some of them, temporarily at least, half insane.
As the Germans left the trenches, their artillery had paused, thinking it a counter-attack. Now, as file after file was escorted to the rear and it became apparent to their rear lines that the men had surrendered, the German artillery saw its mistake and opened up again furiously at the dark masses of defenseless prisoners. We, too, were subjected to a terrific fire. Six shells landed at the same instant in almost the same place, and within a few minutes Section III of our company had almost disappeared. I lost two of my own section, Casey and Leguen, both severely wounded in the leg. I counted fourteen men of my command still on their feet. The company seemed to have shrunk two thirds. A few minutes later, we entered the trench lately evacuated by the Prussians and left it by a very deep communication trench which we knew led to our destination, Ferme Navarin. Just at the entrance we passed signboards, marked in big letters with black paint, Schützengraben Spandau.
This trench ran zigzag, in the general direction north and south. In many places it was filled level with dirt and rocks kicked in by our big shells. From the mass of débris hands and legs were sticking stiffly out at grotesque angles. In one place, the heads of two men showed above the loose brown earth. Here and there, men were sitting, their backs against the wall of the trench, quite dead, with not a wound showing. In one deep crater, excavated by our 320-millimetres, lay five Saxons, side by side, in the pit where they had sought refuge, killed by the bursting of a single shell. One, a man of about twenty-three years of age, lay on his back, his legs tensely doubled, elbows thrust back into the ground, and fingers dug into the palms; eyes staring in terror and mouth wide open. I could not help carrying the picture of fear away with me, and I thought to myself, That man died a coward. Just alongside of him, resting on his left side, lay a blond giant stretched out easily, almost graceful in death. His two hands were laid together, palm to palm, in prayer. Between them was a photograph. The look upon his face was calm and peaceful. The contrast of his figure with his neighbor's struck me. I noticed that a paper protruded from his partly opened blouse, and, picking it up, I read the heading, "Ein' Feste Burg ist Unser Gott." It was a two-leaved tract. I drew a blanket over him and followed my section.
The trench we marched in wound along in the shelter of a little ridge crowned with scrubby pines. Here the German shells bothered us but little. We were out of sight of their observation posts, and, consequently, their fire was uncontrolled and no longer effective. On we went. At every other step our feet pressed down upon soldiers' corpses, lying indiscriminately one on top of the other, sometimes almost filling the trench. I brushed against one who sat braced against the side of the trench, the chin resting upon folded arms naturally—yet quite dead. It was through this trench that the Germans had tried to rush reinforcements into the threatened position, and here the men were slaughtered, without a chance to go back or forward. Hemmed in by shells in both front and rear, many hundreds had climbed into the open and tried to escape over the fields toward the pine forest, only to be mown down as they ran. For hundreds of metres continuously my feet, as I trudged along, did not touch the ground. In many of the bodies life was not yet extinct, but we had to leave them for the Red Cross men. We had our orders. No delay was possible, and, at any rate, our minds were clogged with our own work ahead.
Making such time as we could, we finally arrived at the summit of the little ridge. Then we left the cover of the trench, formed in Indian file, fifty metres between sections, and, at the signal, moved forward swiftly and in order.
It was a pretty bit of tactics and executed with a dispatch and neatness hardly equalled on the drill-ground. The first files of the sections were abreast, while the men fell in, one close behind the other; and so we crossed the ridge, offering the smallest possible target to the enemy's guns. Before us and a little to our left was the Ferme Navarin, our goal. As we descended the slope, we were greeted by a new hail of iron. Shells upon shells, fired singly, by pairs, by salvos, from six-gun batteries, crashed and exploded around us.