The unusual activity in the Allied trenches, observed by enemy aircraft, combined with the terrific cannonading of their lines, had evidently convinced the enemy that some aggressive movement against them was in contemplation, for their artillery fire now, at seven o'clock, was directed squarely upon the outer lines of British trenches, bringing havoc and horror in the wake of the exploding shells.
It was under this galling bombardment that the men of the second section adjusted their packs, buckled the last strap of their equipment, took firm bold of their rifles, and crouched against the front wall of their trench, ready for the final spring.
Into the Face of Death He Led the Remnant of His Brave Platoon
At seven-thirty o'clock the order came. It was a sharp blast of a whistle, made by the commanding officer. The next moment, led by Lieutenant Butler, the men were up, sliding over the parapet, worming their way through gaps in their own wire entanglements, and forming in the semblance of a line outside. It all took but a minute, and then the rush toward the enemy trenches began. It seemed as though every gun of every calibre in the German army was let loose upon them. The artillery shortened its range and dropped exploding shells among them with dreadful effect. Machine guns mowed them down in swaths. Hand-grenades tore gaps in their ranks. Rifle bullets, hissing like hail, took terrible toll of them. Out of the blackness overhead, lit with the flame of explosions, fell a constant rain of metal, of clods of earth, of fragments of equipment, of parts of human bodies. The experience was wild and terrible beyond description.
Pen took no note of the whining and crashing missiles about him, nor of the men falling on both sides of him, nor of the shrieking, gesticulating human beings behind him. Into the face of death, his eyes fixed on the curtain of fire before him, heroic and inspired, he led the remnant of his brave platoon. Through the gaps torn out of the enemy entanglements by the preliminary bombardment, and on into the first line of Boche entrenchments they pounded and pushed their way. Then came fighting indeed; hand to hand, with fixed bayonets and clubbed muskets and death grapples in the darkness, and everywhere, smearing and soaking the combatants, the blood of men. But the first trench, already battered into a shapeless and shallow ravine, was won. Canada was triumphant. The curtain of artillery fire lifted and fell on the enemy's third line. So, now, forward again, leaving the "trench cleaners" to hunt out those of the enemy who had taken refuge in holes and caves. Again the rain of hurtling and hissing and crashing steel. Human fortitude and endurance were indeed no match for this. Again the clubs and bayonets and wild men reaching with blood-smeared hands for each other's throats in the darkness.
And then, to Penfield Butler, at last, came the soldier's destiny. It seemed as though some mighty force had struck him in the breast, whirled him round and round, toppled him to earth, and left him lying there, crushed, bleeding and unconscious. How long it was that he lay oblivious of the conflict he did not know. But when he awakened to sensibility the rush of battle had ceased. There was no fighting around him. He had a sense of great suffocation. He knew that he was spitting blood. He tried to raise his hand, and his revolver fell from the nerveless fingers that were still grasping it. A little later he raised his other hand to his breast and felt that his clothing was torn and soaked. He lifted his head, and in the light of an enemy flare he looked about him. He saw only the torn soil covered with crouched and sprawling bodies of the wounded and the dead, and with wreckage indescribable. Bullets were humming and whistling overhead, and spattering the ground around him. Men in the agony of their wounds were moaning and crying near by. He lay back and tried to think. By the light of the next flare he saw the rough edge of a great shell-hole a little way beyond him toward the British lines. In the darkness he tried to crawl toward it. It would be safer there than in this whistling cross-fire of bullets. He did not dare try to rise. He could not turn himself on his stomach, the pain and sense of suffocation were too great when he attempted it. So he pulled himself along in the darkness on his back to the cavity, and sought shelter within it. Bodies of others who had attempted to run or creep to it, and had been caught by Boche bullets on the way, were hanging over its edge. Under its protecting shoulder were many wounded, treating their own injuries, helping others as they could in the darkness and by the fitful light of the German flares. Some one, whose friendly voice was half familiar, yet sounded strange and far away, dragged the exhausted boy still farther into shelter, felt of his blood-soaked chest, and endeavored, awkwardly and crudely, for he himself was wounded, to give first aid. And then again came unconsciousness.
So, in the black night, in the shell-made cavern with the pall of flame-streaked battle smoke hanging over it, and the whining, screaming missiles from guns of friend and foe weaving a curtain of tangled threads above it, this young soldier of the American Legion, his breast shot half in two, his rich blood reddening the soil of France, lay steeped in merciful oblivion.