I stepped inside and made my report to Lieutenant Young, who was busy writing. He called for a liaison man. Harry McLean—just a boy—stepped out of the gloom into the candle light. He looked pale and uneasy—no one of us was comfortable—but he saluted, took the message, made a rapid Sign of the Cross, and slipped out into the roaring night. A liaison man has always a mean job, and generally a thankless one. He has neither the comparative protection of a dugout or fox-hole under shelling, nor the glory of actual fight. Our lads—they are usually smart youngsters—were out in all this devilment the whole night and I am glad to say with few casualties. Every last man of them deserves a Croix de Guerre.
I wanted to see Anderson. He was only 40 yards away by a short cut over ground. I took the short cut—we were not allowed to use it by day—and had the uncomfortable feeling that even in the dark I was under enemy observation. It was the meanest 40 yards I had ever done since as a lad of 12 I hurried up the lane to my father’s door pursued by an ever-nearing ghost that had my shoulder in its clutches as I grasped the latch. But I went in now as then, whistling. Anderson and Rerat were there. They had a word of comfort to tell; that General Gouraud had planned to meet artillery with artillery and that our fire was bursting on the enemy forces massed to attack us in the morning. Just then a nearer crash resounded. The major spun in his chair and fell; Rerat clasped his knee and cried, “Oh, Father, the Major is killed.” The Major picked himself up sheepishly as if he had committed an indiscretion; Rerat rubbed a little blood off his knee apologetically as if he had appeared with dirt upon his face at drill; and I expressed jealousy of him that he had gotten a right to an easy wound stripe.
Just then a gas-masked figure opened the door and announced that there were two wounded men outside. That came under my business and it was a relief to find something to do. I followed the messenger—it was Kenneth Morford—one of two good lads the Morford family gave to the service. Around the corner I came on Jim Kane badly hurt in the legs. Kenneth and I lifted him and carried him with difficulty through the narrow winding trench to the First Aid Station where we left him with the capable Johnny Walker and went back for the second man. It was Schmedlein—his folks were parishioners of mine—and he had it bad. I was puffing by now and blaming myself that I had not followed Major Donovan’s rules for keeping in condition. As I bent to the task I heard Phil McArdle’s voice, “Aisy now, Father. Just give me a holt of him. Slither him up on my back. This is no work for the likes of you.” I obeyed the voice of the master and slithered him up on Phil’s back with nothing to do but help Jim Bevan ease the wounded limb on our way to the dressing station.
Corporal Jelley of H—a fine soldier—and Private Hunt of E—he had a cablegram in his pocket announcing the birth of his first born—had been killed by the shell that struck in front of our dugout, and my friend Vin Coryell wounded. We found later that some men of Company H who had been sent to the French for an engineering detail, had been killed—Corporal Dunnigan, whom I married at Camp Mills; Patrick Lynn, Edward P. Lynch, Albert Bowler, Russell W. Mitchel, Patrick Morrissey, James Summers, Charles W. O’Day and Walter M. Reilley. Company G had also suffered losses during the bombardment: Paul Marchman, Theodore Sweet, Harold Cokeley, Patrick Grimes, Patrick Farley, killed; with Corporal Harvey J. Murphy and Charles J. Reilley fatally wounded.
Around P. C. Anderson there was plenty of shelling but no further casualties until morning broke. At 4:30 the firing died down after a last furious burst over our immediate positions. The French soldiers in front began to trickle back down the boyaus to the defensive positions. Our men crawled out of their burrows, eager to catch the first sight of the enemy. A few wise old French soldiers stood by to restrain them from firing too soon, for in the half lights it is hard for an unaccustomed eye to discern the difference between the Poilu’s Faded-coat-of-blue and the field gray of the Germans. Nearly an hour passed before one of them suddenly pointed, shouting, “Boche, Boche!” The enemy were appearing around the corners of the approach trenches. Rifle and machine gun fire crackled all along the front. The Germans, finding that this was the real line of resistance, went at their job of breaking it in their usual thorough fashion. Their light machine guns sprayed the top of every trench. Minenwerfer shells and rifle grenades dropped everywhere, many of them being directed with devilish accuracy on our machine gun positions. Many of ours were wounded. Sergeant Tom O’Rourke of F Company was the first man killed and then one of the Wisconsins.
That day the Badgers showed the fighting qualities of their totem. Several of their guns were put out of action at the outset of the fight, and practically all of them one by one before the battle was over. In each case Captain Graef, Lieutenant Arens and the other officers, together with the surviving gunners, set themselves calmly to work repairing the machines. Corporal Elmer J. Reider fought his gun alone when the rest of the crew was put out of action, and when his gun met the same fate he went back through a heavy barrage and brought up a fresh one. Privates William Brockman and Walter Melchior also distinguished themselves amongst the brave, the former at the cost of his life. There were many others like Melchior, who, when their gun was made useless, snatched rifles and grenades of the fallen Infantrymen and jumped into the fight. As specialists, they were too valuable to be used up this way and an order had to be issued to restrain them. Sergeant Ned Boone, who knows a good soldier when he sees one, said to me: “Father, after this I will stand at attention and salute whenever I hear the word Wisconsin.”
Our own Stokes Mortar men fought with equal energy and enthusiasm under Lieutenant Frank McNamara and Sergeants Jaeger and Fitzsimmons with Corporals John Moore, Gerald Harvey and Herbert Clark. They did not take time to set the gun up on its base plates. Fitzsimmons and Fred Young supported the barrel in their hands, while the others shoved in the vicious projectiles. The gun soon became hot and before the stress of action was over these heroic non-coms were very badly burned.
During this interchange of fusillades the Germans were seen climbing out of the approach trenches and taking their positions for an assault on the whole line.
They swept down on our trenches in masses seeking to overcome opposition by numbers and make a break somewhere in the thinly held line. Grenades were their principal weapons-rifle grenades from those in the rear, while the front line threw over a continuous shower of stick grenades, or “potato-mashers.” An exultant cry went up from our men as they saw the foe within reach of them. Many jumped on top of the trench in their eagerness to get a shot at them or to hurl an answering grenade. The assault broke at the edge of the trench where it was met by cold steel. It was man to man then and the German found who was the better man. The assaulting mass wavered, broke and fled. No one knew how it might be elsewhere, but here at least the German Great Offensive had lost its habit of victory. They were unconvinced themselves, and hastened to try again, this time in thinner lines. Again they were repulsed, though some of them, using filtering tactics, got up into places where their presence was dangerous. One of their machine gun crews had established themselves well forward with their light gun, where it was troublesome to the defenders, and an enemy group was forming to assault under its protection. Mechanic Timothy Keane came along just then in his peaceful occupation as ammunition carrier, which he was performing with a natural grouch. Seeing the opportunity, he constituted himself the reserve of the half dozen men who held the position. He found a gun and grenades and leaped joyously into the fray; and when the attacking party was broken up he called, “Now for the gun, min,” and swarmed over the parapet. The others followed. The surviving Germans were put out of action and the gun carried off in triumph.
Again and again the Germans attacked, five times in all, but each time to be met with dauntless resistance. By 2:00 in the afternoon the forces of the attacking Division was spent and they had to desist until fresh Infantry could be brought up.