“Thank you, Stapley. Hope you get along well at old Brighton when you get back. Good luck! Taps will sound in about half an hour. Sorry you didn’t find those spies. They may turn up yet.”
The young corporal left the spot and went to where his own platoon was bivouacked. The men, officers and all, slept scattered on the ground, to avoid casualties from stray shells. Each man had a blanket and poncho and though the temperature was low for June, the nights being chilly, it ideal camping weather for men long hardened to it. Some of the toughest fellows had no more than thrown a corner of the blanket across their shoulders, sleeping in their clothes and removing only their shoes. It was the order to do this, as marching feet need an airing and, better, a dabble in cool water. A little stream ran near by and one might safely wager, where it emptied into the Marne, the water that night ran black with the soil of France.
Morning dawned clear and breezy. Shortly after reveille, a messenger arrived from the American headquarters and another from the French Field Staff. Half an hour later the two regiments of marines, moving like one man, were marching straight across country a little to the northwest of Château-Thierry. It was the intention to drive the Huns out of their threatening positions in the hills where they were concentrating troops and artillery, mostly machine-gun units. A brigade also of the Third Division U. S. Regulars, moved forward at nearly the same time in support of the marines, if needed.
No prettier sight could be imagined than those long lines of soldiers, over two thousand in number, sweeping forward. They had been called “the Matchless Marines” and by another equally expressive, though homelier name, “the Leathernecks.” Picked men, every one of them chosen with regard to his athletic and probable fighting ability, they could but live up to the standards set for them by their predecessors in the same force, adhering always to the maxims that “the marines never retreat” and that “they hold what they’ve got.”
The peeping sun shone upon their brown uniforms and glistened on their bayoneted guns, as they moved through waving grass and over fields of yellowing grain. There was no sound of drum or fife. No band played martial music—that is not the custom when a modern army goes against the enemy—but here and there along those steady, triple lines could be heard laughter, snatches of song, the voice of some wag bantering his fellows.
The orders to the commanding general of the division ran something like this: Rout the enemy from the village of Bouresches. Break up the machine-gun and artillery positions in Belleau Woods and if possible capture Hill No. 165. Consolidate positions at these points and south of the village of Torcy and hold them.
It was evident that the commander-in-chief depended fully on “the Leathernecks” and felt confident that they would do as ordered, although they had before them a large undertaking. It was known that the Germans had two divisions of picked troops at this point, with still another division in reserve.
There was double reason for this confidence. The Americans had already been performing most creditably within the sector about Château-Thierry. A few days before a strong detachment of American regular troops had withstood an attack of the enemy at Veuilly Wood, nine miles north of the Marne, and had driven them back. The day following a detachment of machine gunners had held the approaches to the bridges across the Marne, connecting the north and the south towns of Château-Thierry itself and prevented the Huns from crossing, while a battalion of Americans, supporting French artillery that was pounding the Huns in the northern end of the town, captured and wiped out more than their number of Germans who had managed to gain the south bank by pontoons. On the same day the Third and Twenty-eighth Divisions of U. S. regulars, commanded by a French officer, had defeated the enemy in his attempt to make a crossing of the Marne at Jaulgonne, a few miles east of Château-Thierry, and had driven him back to his former positions. But all these battles, relatively small actions in themselves, had been fought according to European methods, and had been directed by French generals and aided by French infantry and artillery.
The action now about to take place was to be that of the Americans alone, under American staff direction, and the boys were going into it tickled with the idea of being allowed in their own way to get a whack at the Huns.
Corporal Stapley, as he trudged along with his squad, thought of a good many things of a rather solemn nature, though not once did he permit a hint of this to bother his fellows. The next in line was a wag named Giddings, but Clem noted that the youth was very quiet now, and that his face was pale. With a laugh Clem turned to the fellow: “Say, Gid, it’s a fine day for this little picnic.”