The German planes flying high over Villers-Cotterets Forest all day during the 17th, had seen nothing. The appearance of all the myriad roads that cross and recross the forest in all directions was normal. But that night things began to happen in the forest.
For once at least, the elements were favourable to our cause. There was no moon. The night was very dark and under the trees the blackness seemed impenetrable. A heavy downpour of rain began and although it turned most of the roads into mud, the leafy roof of the forest held much of the moisture and offered some protection to the thousands of men who spent the night beneath it. Thunder rolled as I had never heard it roll in France before. The sound drowned the occasional boom of distant cannon. At intervals, terrific crashes would be followed by blinding flashes of lightning as nature's bolts cut jagged crevices in the sombre sky and vented their fury upon some splintered giant of the forest.
The immediate front was silent—comparatively silent if one considered the din of the belligerent elements. In the opposing front lines in the northern and eastern limits of the forest, German and Frenchmen alike huddled in their rude shelters to escape the rain.
Then, along every road leading through the forest to the north and to the east, streams of traffic began to pour. All of it was moving forward toward the front. No traffic bound for the rear was permitted. Every inch of available road space was vitally necessary for the forces in movement. The roads that usually accommodated one line of vehicles moving forward and one line moving to the rear, now represented two streams—solid streams—moving forward. In those streams were gun carriages, caissons, limbers, ammunition carts and grunting tractors hauling large field pieces.
In the gutters on either side of the road, long lines of American infantry plodded forward through the mud and darkness. In the occasional flash of a light, I could see that they were equipped for heavy fighting. Many of them had their coats off, their sleeves rolled up, while beads of sweat stood out on the young faces that shown eager beneath the helmets. On their backs they carried, in addition to their cumbersome packs, extra shoes and extra bandoliers of cartridges.
From their shoulders were suspended gas masks and haversacks. Their waists were girded with loaded ammunition belts, with bayonet hanging at the left side. Some of them wore grenade aprons full of explosives. Nearly all of them carried their rifles or machine gun parts slung across their backs as they leaned forward under their burdens and plunged wearily on into the mud and darkness, the thunder and lightning, the world destiny that was before them. Their lines were interspersed with long files of plodding mules dragging small, two-wheeled, narrow gauge carts loaded down with machine gun ammunition.
Under the trees to either side of the road, there was more movement. American engineers struggled forward through the underbrush carrying, in addition to their rifles and belts, rolls of barbed wire, steel posts, picks and shovels and axes and saws. Beside them marched the swarthy, undersized, bearded veterans of the Foreign Legion. Further still under the trees, French cavalry, with their lances slung slantwise across their shoulders, rode their horses in and out between the giant trunks.
At road intersections, I saw mighty metal monsters with steel plated sides splotched with green and brown and red paint. These were the French tanks that were to take part in the attack. They groaned and grunted on their grinding gears as they manœuvred about for safer progress. In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread of this modern Juggernaut.
There was no confusion, no outward manifestations of excitement. There was no rattle of musketry, shouting of commands or waving of swords. Officers addressed their men in whispers. There was order and quiet save for the roll of thunder and the eternal dripping of water from the wet leaves, punctuated now and then by the ear-splitting crashes that followed each nearby flash of lightning.