We joke Rerat about the size of the French rivers. I told him that one of our soldiers lay badly wounded near the river, and I offered him a pull at my canteen. Raising himself on one elbow and throwing out his arm in a Sir Philip Sydney fashion, he exclaimed, “Give it to the Ourcq, it needs it more than I do.”
The Germans nearly had a grim joke on me during the action. We picked up our dead in the town, and I had the Pioneers dig me a long trench on the south side of the cemetery wall, which screened them from observation while their own trench would give protection. I said “This spot is the safest place in France.” We finished our sad task and went away. A few hours later I passed that way again and found that the wall against which I was sitting was smashed to the ground; a tree eight inches in diameter which had shaded me was blown in two, and two other missiles had exploded five feet from the line of graves. Evidently a German aviator, seeing the freshly turned earth, thought that it was a gun emplacement and dropped three of his nasty eggs. I smiled grimly as my words came back, “The safest place in France.”
Going through the woods I heard John McMorrow discussing a date with Monzert of Headquarters Company, and he was saying, “It happened the first day we went over. I tell you it was. It was on the mornin’ that we crossed the O’Rourke River and captured Murphy’s Farm.”
Colonel McCoy felt deeply grieved at the news of Quentin Roosevelt’s heroic death in an air battle some time before, as he knew him from boyhood, having been military aide at the White House during part of President Roosevelt’s term of office. We knew that Lieutenant Roosevelt had met his death in this sector, and our Colonel had instituted inquiries to find if any person had discovered his grave. Word was brought to him that the grave had been found in the sector to our right, which was occupied by the 32nd Division, and Colonel McCoy determined to have it suitably marked. I had a cross made and inscribed by Julius Horvath, and the Colonel with Lieutenant Preston and myself went by automobile to the place to erect it over the grave. We found the roughly made cross formed from pieces of his broken plane that the Germans had set to mark the place where they buried him. The plot had already been ornamented with a rustic fence by the soldiers of the 32nd Division. We erected our own little monument without molesting the one that had been left by the Germans. It is fitting that enemy and friend alike should pay tribute to heroism.
The Germans had not retreated ten miles before the advance guard of the French civilian population began coming in to take possession of their shattered homes. I was coming down today from the battlefield whither I had gone with Emmet Watson and Bill Fernie to make a map of the graves when I met the incoming civilians in Villers sur Fere. Most of them were men who had been sent ahead by the family to see what was left. But occasionally we met a stout old peasant woman pulling a small cart behind her on which rested all her earthly substance, or a hay-cart drawn by oxen with the family possessions in it and two or three chubby youngsters with their mother perched on top. I followed a middle aged farmer and his son into one of the houses near the church and we made our inspection together. All the plaster had been knocked off the walls and the glass from the windows, and there was a big hole in the roof, and altogether it looked anything but a home, but after looking it all over the young man said to his father, with a satisfied grunt, “Pas trop demoli” (not too badly banged up). I certainly admired the optimism and courage of people who could take up their lives once more with cheerfulness under such desperate conditions.
The Germans had made their most of the time in which they had possession of this salient. They had harvested a great deal of the grain and anything else that was already ripe and in some places they had ransacked the houses of any goods that were worth while. There were many evidences, though, that they had no idea that they were so soon to be dislodged. At Seringes they had installed an electric light plant, and the French road signs had been supplemented with the large legible German signs. Their sense of security was the cause of their largest losses in material, as they had made of the Forest of Fere a great ammunition dump, and the large shells, gas, shrapnel, high explosives, were left behind by thousands.
I got back to Château Thierry looking for hospitals which might contain our wounded but found none of them, as they had all been transferred to other places, no one knew exactly where. In the burying ground I hit upon the graves of Sergeant John O’Neill of B and Sergeants Peter Crotty and Bernard McElroy of K and Walter Wandless of H. The city already presented a lively appearance with a great deal of traffic, not all of it military, over the bridge of boats which replaced the bridge that had been destroyed during the German drive.
Our men are getting more and more restless in these dirty woods and the first question that anybody asks is, “When do we get relieved.” I stepped into the woods on the other side of the road to visit my Alabama friends and one of their fine lads voiced the common mind by asking whether the govament hadn’t othah soldiehs than the Fohty-Second Division. I answered, “Well, if they’re using you so much, it is your own fault.” “How is it ouah fault?” demanded my friend, and twenty pairs of eyes asked the same question. “It’s your fault all right; the trouble with you fellows is that you’re too blamed good.”
I have become a specialist on what they call the morale of troops and as I go around I find that the morale of the men in this division is still very high. They have had a tough week of it and nearly half the infantry are gone while of those remaining more than half are sick. But they know that they have whipped the enemy on his chosen ground and they feel confident that if they only get rested up a little bit they can do it again and do it cheerfully.
The Quartermaster’s Department has helped considerably by fitting us all out with new clothes, underwear, shoes, everything we need, and the food supply is steady. And Miss Elsie Janis has done her part, too, as a joy producer by coming up to us in our mud and desolation and giving a Broadway performance for an audience which was more wildly appreciative than ever acclaimed her on the street of a million lights.