Immediately ahead of it was the Montrebeau Wood, which the Germans had been fortifying since they recovered it from the 35th; beyond that the deep broad Exermont ravine, guarded in the center by the Montrefagne, or Hill 240, with its crest crowned by woods which covered its slopes almost to the edge of the ravine. This was only the highest of the series of hills which extended west to east from the Aire valley across the sector of the 32nd. When the first series was taken, other hills still higher commanded the valleys and reverse slopes beyond, in a witchery of irregularities which had their culmination in a final congeries of wooded hills in front of the Kriemhilde Stellung of the whale-back, some six miles beyond the 1st's line of departure. Every open space was covered by interlocking machine-gun nests supported by artillery concentrations. Ravines were corridors for the sweep of fire; or if they gave cover their ends were sealed by fire. With its left moving along the eastern wall of the Aire, its flank naked to the fire from the western wall, the 1st was to drive a human wedge over these hills in order to gain one of the two sides of the trough, whose interlocking and plunging fire, as we have seen, had stayed the First Corps in the trough and in the Forest. Of course, the 1st would "go through" at the start. Its own record and standards compelled it to go through. It would make the wedge. What would be the result after the wedge was made? Unless the point of the wedge were protected by a spreading movement at its base, it would be crushed by pressure from both sides. Here the part of the 32nd became vital in gaining the hills on its front, which, remaining in the enemy's hands, would threaten the right of the 1st with a fire interlocking with that from the western wall of the Aire. In the valley of the Aire, of course, the Pennsylvanians of the 28th were to try to advance under cover of the 1st's thrust. If they were checked, and the 32nd were also checked, the Germans would not be slow to see or to improve their opportunity to force a repetition of the bloody result of Pickett's charge and of the assault at Cold Harbor.
The 1st and the 32nd were not the only veterans attacking on October 4th. There was to be an offensive along our whole line to engage the enemy at every point to support the prime object of making the wedge. The 1st started for its objectives at the same hour, daylight, as the other divisions. Its left overran the Germans of the 5th Guard Division in Montrebeau Wood, and swept down into the Exermont ravine. There the groups of dead of the 35th, killed by shell-bursts, gave warning against "bunching" that the men of the 1st took to heart. They did not move forward in dense formation, but in thin swift lines offering the enemy few targets, and those briefly. Orders were simple; responsibility direct and ruthlessly delegated. Company leaders knew what to do against machine-gun nests, and they did it, thanks to the fresh vigor and thorough training of the men.
MAP NO. 8
THE APPROACH OF THE CENTER TO THE WHALE-BACK.
Quivering under the blows of the hammer of command and determination, the left was driven three miles that day, against fire from three directions manipulated by the cleverly conceived and cunningly executed open warfare tactics of the enemy: in and out of the folds of ground, uphill and downhill, taking machine-guns with barrels hot, as the German gunners fired until the last moment. That night it sent patrols into Fléville, a village on the bank of the Aire at the foot of a bluff, with the Germans holding the other bank three miles in their rear. The possession of Fléville was that of a name on the map, which read well in communiqués. Holding the high ground above it was what counted, in the same way that possession of the porch counts if you wish to throw stones at a man on the driveway below; and holding it in face of fire from flank and rear flank required men who would dig holes and stick to them. The wedge was made, but it was a sharp one of only one brigade front, as things had not gone as well as they might either with the right of the 1st or with the 32nd.
The right of the 1st crossing Exermont ravine under enfilade and frontal fire charged into the wooded slopes of the Montrefagne, or Hill 240. Twice that day we had the hill; and twice the Germans, reinforced, surged back and drove us off. Our men were saying that "every Boche who didn't have a machine-gun had a cannon"; for the enemy, realizing the value of every foot of ground, was using roving guns attached to his infantry battalions. We were doing the same. There were instances, in the course of this battle for the heights, when our infantry charges came within a hundred feet of field guns which the enemy boldly—and it seemed miraculously—withdrew under our rifle fire to the cover of reverse slopes.
The repulse of the right of the 1st was of course intimately concerned with the situation of the 32nd, which was fighting against the same kind of tactics on the same general kind of ground, which had its own particularly refractory qualities. Before the attack the Arrows had entered Cierges, which they found unoccupied; but the German evacuation of the village only opened up a field of approach commanded by the strengthened defenses of the surrounding positions, which had already forced the withdrawal of the last of the reserves of the 37th and 91st in their final charges before being relieved. Thus the 32nd had its center in a kind of trough, commanded by heights and woods. Gesnes was its first goal; but to take Gesnes the positions east and west of it must be conquered. On the right the charge reached the summit of Hill 239, due east of the village of Gesnes, but could go no farther. To the west were the two woods Chêne Sec and Morine, forming a single oblong patch. The left charged them repeatedly, in vain. The Arrows were fighting with veteran will, but their charges could not proceed against the welter of machine-gun and artillery fire, while they were swept by bullets from German aeroplanes flying audaciously low.
In all that long day of ceaseless endeavor, when its replacements were learning their lessons hot from the enemy's guns and rifles, the 32nd had been able to gain a little more than half a mile, with every rod counted. Its effort and that of the right of the 1st, let it be repeated, had been mutually dependent for success on their liaison in the hectic rushes of units for points of advantage over the treacherous ground. That is, if an element of one division made a gain, it must have the support of a gain by the other. Though the wedge made by the left of the 1st on October 4th was narrower than we had planned, we did have a wedge, and where we wanted it—on the wall of the Aire valley. We must not lose that wedge, though the 28th had been able to make only a slight advance in the valley. The dangerous position of the left of the 1st on the bluff above Fléville called for desperately hard driving the next day by both the 32nd and the 1st's retarded right.
In supporting the 1st's right, whose advance was so vital in protecting the entrant the 1st's left had made, the 32nd set its heart on gaining the block of the Morine and Chêne Sec woods and Hill 255 beyond. From midnight to the hour of attack, all the artillery of the 32nd pounded them, keeping the dark masses of the woods and the outlines of the hill flickeringly visible in the flashes of a stream of bursting shells, which it would seem no defender could withstand. At 6.30 three battalions of infantry began the assault of the woods, and over the fresh shell-craters, past smashed machine-gun nests, through a litter of fallen saplings and splintered limbs, they kept on until they reached the open. This was a triumph of incalculable value to the right of the 1st, and in turn to the wedge on the Aire wall. But when the charge started to go on to Hill 255, the artillery concentration could not stifle the irresistible machine-gun fire of the nests hidden in all the recesses of the forward slopes, or the guns on the reverse slopes and on the series of heights beyond.