That day, August 5, Sergeant McElhone left the battery to go back to the United States as an instructor, an opportunity that made him the envy of everyone while they congratulated him on his good luck. Corporal Monroe succeeded to the charge of the Second Section, Herrod taking his place as gunner.
All that night and the next day, the battery maintained a steady fire on the enemy, destroying machine gun nests, entrenchments and available shelter in preparations for an advance across the Vesle. From 4:30 till after 8 p. m. August 6, we dropped a slow barrage on the town of Bazouches, to the left of Fismes.
At noon next day the Second Battalion went forward to a position almost overlooking the river. The movement was not without danger. For the bright day, with enemy aeroplanes overhead constantly, exposed the batteries to discovery, particularly when they galloped up an open hillside into position. A blanket covering two still figures just beside our path, several others farther away without such cover, and white bandages gleaming on the bodies of some of the battalion of engineers who, with pontoon bridges, were waiting in readiness in the woods below, were evidence that the shells which whirred over and burst a ways beyond us were not always so far from their mark. The battery went up the hill one carriage at a time. Flat-tops were stretched at once, and in addition to the trail pit, each section dug a trench for shelter as well. Shells bursting on the crest ahead lent speed to the shovels and picks.
Captain Robbins, using a tree-top as an O. P., directed the adjustment of the pieces, firing only two rounds per gun in doing so.
But that was all the battery fired from this position, although we stayed there the following two days. The division which had relieved our infantry could not keep up the pace the latter had set, which formed the basis of the plans by which we had moved up, ready to support the crossing of the Vesle.
The roads behind us received constant fire from the enemy. Shrapnel bursts came near the position occasionally, and gas alarms were frequent. In the horse-lines just behind lit a shell on the afternoon of August 8 that caused the battery’s first serious casualties. Parkhurst was instantly killed. Foster was struck in the breast by a large fragment, and died two days later. Lawrence Gibbs was wounded in the hand. He refused to go to the hospital at the time, and kept at his duties as clerk of the firing battery, though later the wound, becoming worse, compelled him to go. For his bravery in going after medical aid and under heavy shell fire, refusing treatment himself until the others had been attended to, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross by the regimental commander.
This news of death in our own battery—the first enlisted men lost in action—caused a heavy sorrow and grief that could not be shaken off, among the men of the battery, whose friendship by this time had become very close.
On the night of August 10, the battery moved back to a spot within a few hundred feet of that it had occupied before making the last advance. The caissons drivers made trip after trip to bring back all the ammunition, under frequent shell fire on the road. Horse after horse, weakened to exhaustion, dropped in harness, and had to be taken out of the hitch.
Artillery of the Fourth Division were in position all about us, in the valley. In the woods were their horse-lines, too, from which they so openly brought their horses to water that they received ironic inquiries concerning their “horse fair.”
Shelling was frequent, and gas was always noticeable at night. Itching throats and watering eyes were too common for comfort. When the battery was in readiness to move out, the caissons having gone and the guns waiting for sundown to follow, the enemy gave a parting salute, a little fuller of thrills than any before. In the trail pit was the only protection. The buzz of jagged fragments through the air, the loud whang and eruption of sod and soil from a burst not far from Captain Robbins’ tent, sent everyone to this slight shelter. Fortunately the farewell ended with no one injured.