In their road-making across the brook and the trench systems the engineers had used 40,000 sand-bags. Early in the afternoon they had a passageway which permitted of the slow passage of transport between intervals of filling in the ruts cut by the heavy trucks; but two divisions, in the section of the line where the farthest advance was expected, were limited to road facilities inadequate for one. It can only be said that if it had not been for the diligence of the engineers the situation would have been even worse.
The failure of the center to reach Montfaucon on the 26th had an intimate concern with the plans of the 4th the next day, when the positive orders for its capture required that the 4th should attack without its artillery, which was still laboring to get forward. From 7.30 until darkness, without their shields against the increasing artillery and machine-gun fire, the men continued their workmanlike advance. Didn't they belong to the 4th, which was as good as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, Regulars? When night came they had behind them the heights around Montfaucon. They had gone through Brieulles Wood. They were also in the south edge of the Fays Wood, but when they tried to dig in there the machine-gun and shell-fire was too deadly to be endured. They had to fall back to the slope of 295.
Still their artillery was not up; still the order was to attack; and they attacked the next morning. The Germans attacked also; and were held. We were now against the strong covering positions on the slopes of the summit of the whale-back, where the Germans were organizing their Kriemhilde main line of defense. During the remaining days of September, the 4th cleaned up the Brieulles Wood, made itself secure in its defenses, and kept harassing the enemy with patrols. On the night of the 28th its artillery had arrived, though traffic congestion limited its ammunition supply, which it needed in great quantities to counter the enemy's artillery fire as well as his machine-gun nests. It was in range of many of the guns from the east bank of the Meuse which were so mercilessly harassing the 80th, and of course was receiving an immense volume of shells from all the heights of the whale-back. The division was short of supplies and it was tired, but there could be no thought of taking it out. It was to remain in line in a tug-of-war with the enemy until it took part in the general attack of October 4th, being all the while under that raking cross artillery fire that made the Corps sector a hell night and day.
Contemptuous in their security, the observers from Hill 378, the Borne de Cornouiller, continued to exchange notes with the observers on the heights of the whale-back, as they looked down on the amphitheater, peering for targets into the wrinkles of the uneven landscape and soaking the woods which we occupied with gas. Our only hope of protection was to find ravines deep enough or with walls steep enough to enable us to dig pits which could not be reached by the plunging fire from three directions. These German gunners knew the roads which we must take at night in order to move our supplies to the front; the villages where our transport might halt; and the location or probable location of our batteries, while theirs were hidden. If we wheeled to attack to the right or left, we received shells in the back as well as in front. The first day of the battle, when the Corps had fired 80,000 shells against the Germans' 5,000, became the mockery of a halcyon past in face of the concentrations which now pounded the Corps from sources to which we could not respond with anything like equivalent power.
If the men of the Corps who had to endure this plunging fire had heard the name of the Borne de Cornouiller, they would probably have called it "Corned Willy," the sobriquet which naturally came to the lips of our soldiers, who eventually conquered it on rations of cold corned beef. But they knew only that shells were coming from three quarters of the compass, while they asked "why in ——" our artillery did not silence the German artillery. The answer was that our artillery could not, until the Borne de Cornouiller and the whale-back were taken, which was not to be for another month. The Third Corps was to keep on trying for that town of Brieulles, while it kept on fighting in that wicked river trough, to support the attacks in the center. There was no use of growling. The thing had to be borne.
XI
BY THE LEFT
German comfort in the Forest retreats—The 77th see-sawing through—The 28th plowing down the trough of the Aire—Scaling the escarpments of the Chêne Tondu and Taille l'Abbé—An enemy counter-attack—The 35th pushing four miles down the east wall of the Aire—Pushing through an alley to the untenable position of Exermont—Unjust reflections on the persistence of the 35th.
On the left flank the First Corps, composed of the 77th, 28th, and 35th Divisions, was having quite as hard fighting as the Third Corps on the right flank. The regiment of the 92nd Division (colored), National Army, forming the link with the French on the western edge of the Argonne Forest, buffeted in its inexperience by the intricacies of attack through the maze of trenches, was withdrawn after its initial service. It was better that the 77th should take its place in meeting the baffling requirements of liaison between two Allied armies.