Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

The attacks on the position of Company G were not so bitter and persistent as Company F had to sustain. The G men felt rather hurt about it, but their genial Captain smilingly tells them that it was because the enemy know they could never get a ball through where G Company soldiers kept the goal. On the 15th the enemy certainly got a taste of their quality. A strong attack pushed in at a thinly held spot and were making off with a machine gun. Lieutenant Ogle mustered his platoon, sped over the top and down upon the enemy with grenades and cold steel. A short sharp fight ensued. The gun was carried back with shouts of laughter and in a few moments was barking with vicious triumph. Sergeant Martin Murphy, Corporals John Farrell, Michael Hogan and Thomas Ferguson—four soldiers of the jolly, rollicking Irish type, were Ogle’s mainstays in this dashing fight. Lieutenant Boag was wounded, but his platoon was ably handled by Sergeant John McNamara.

When Prout’s dugout was smashed to pieces by shell fire, Sergeant Martin Shalley, who is the very type and pattern of the Irish soldier, took charge of the rescue work and dug out the buried men in time to save their lives. Another shell destroyed the kitchen of Cook William Leaver. Thus relieved from his peaceful occupation he got himself a gun and belt and ran out into the fight garbed in his blue overalls. Michael Foody, tiring of being made the cockshot of aeroplanes which were flying low over the trenches, determined to try reprisals, and leaning back against the trench, began to discharge his automatic rifle in the direction of one that was particularly annoying to him. It was a long chance, but before he had emptied his feeder he had the joy of seeing the plane wabbling out of control and finally making a bad landing back of the German lines.

Corporal John G. Moore lived up to the best traditions of his gallant Company. He had been wounded but refused to go back. Later his post was suddenly occupied by half a dozen Germans. They called upon him to surrender, but Moore does not know that word in German or in any other language. He says he took it to mean a command to fire, so he started to put hand grenades over the plate and the two Germans that were left made quick tracks for the exit gate. Moore’s delivery is hard to handle. Alfred Taylor also proved his mettle by sticking to his post when wounded and insisting furthermore on joining a raiding party the same day.

Raiding parties were G Company’s stock in trade. Lieutenants Ogle and Stout revel in them. They were out at night looking for the trouble that did not come their way often enough by day. One of these patrols fell upon what they called a bargain sale and “purchased” new German boots and underwear for the whole Company. John Ryan got left behind in one of these raids and had to lie for two days in a shell hole with Germans all around him. He finally got back with valuable information concerning movements of the enemy.

Further to the east and separated from the other companies by a battalion of the 10th Chasseurs was Company E under Captain Charles D. Baker. During the bombardment only one man, Michael Higgins, was killed. The attacks of the enemy on the next two days were of the filtering kind, and were easily repulsed, George McKeon being the only man slain.

By the 18th they began to grow weary of these trivial actions and Captain Baker ordered two platoons to go a raiding. The first platoon, under Lieutenant Andrew L. Ellett and Acting-Sergeants Malloy and McCreedy, went up the boyau on the left. They had not gone a quarter of a mile when they saw Germans in a trench. Douglas McKenzie, in liaison with the French, reported them as gathering for an attack. The Lieutenant climbed out of the trench to get a better view, and Matt Cronin got out behind him with his automatic rifle to start things going. Some of the enemy were in plain view and Cronin’s weapon began pumping merrily. The enemy responded and he received a wound. The fight was on. It was a grenade battle. Our men rose to it with the same zest they had shown when they fought their boyish neighborhood fights, street against street, in Tompkins Park or Stuyvesant Square. But this was to the death. Both Sergeant Malloy and Archie Skeats took that death in their hands when they caught up German grenades out of the ditch and hurled them back at the enemy. Lieutenant Ellett’s men were far from their base of supplies. Three times they fell back along the boyau as their ammunition ran out; and three times with fresh grenades they advanced to meet the foe. The Lieutenant was wounded, but a hole or two in him never mattered to Andy Ellett. He withdrew his men only when he felt he had done all that was necessary. Then he handed over his charge to Sergeant Frank Johnston, a warrior every inch, who had joined up with Anderson’s old company for the war because he knew Anderson of yore. He had fought, with him many a time in the Epiphany Parish School.

GENERAL LENIHAN, LIEUTENANT GROSE, COLONEL MITCHELL, FATHER DUFFY, MR. GEORGE BOOTHBY OF THE “Y,” AND JUDGE EGEMAN, OF THE K. OF C.

The other platoon was commanded by Lieutenant Tarr with William Maloney and Michael Lynch as Sergeants. Dick O’Connor, who always went to battle with song, was the minstrel of the party, his war song being “Where do we go from here, boys?” John Dowling, Cowie, Joyce, Gavan and McAleer went ahead to scout the ground. They passed through some underbrush. Suddenly they flushed two Germans. Dowling fired and shouted, “Whirroo me buckos, here’s our mate.” His cry was answered by Maloney, a mild-mannered Celt, who knows everything about fighting, except how to talk of it afterwards. Lieutenant Tarr gave the order and led his whole platoon over the top across the level ground and up to the trench where the Germans held the line. It was grenades again and hand to hand fighting on top of it. A party of the Germans fled to the left. They heard the battle of Ellett’s platoon from there and they turned with upthrown hands and the cry “Kamerad.” Dowling helped the first one out of the trench by the ear. “Aisy now, lad, and come along with me. The Captain is sitting forninst the blotter to take your pedigree.” Back went most of the platoon with the prisoners, their mission accomplished. Eleven prisoners had been taken and fifty Germans left dead upon the field. But the never satisfied Maloney elected himself to cover the retreat with Hall, Breen and Hummell; and with such a leader they kept battling as if they were making a Grand Offensive until they were ordered to withdraw.

I have been to the Third Platoon of Company E and everybody talked about that patrol at once. Everybody except Maloney. But everybody else was talking about Maloney. I looked around to see what Maloney would have to tell. And I found no Maloney. Maloney had fled, sick of hearing about Maloney.