I should like to tell all that happened that afternoon. It was the wind-up of a week’s bombardment, and we had a ripping time dodging about to avoid being maimed for life. We held a mountain top on the frontier. The Germans had the peaks opposite, where they had planted their heavy artillery. When the French drove back the invading Germans, the lines stopped within bombing distance—about thirty yards. We had the upper line, they the lower. We could throw grenades on them, but it was hard for them to reach us. So they planted their line with trench-mortars that throw aerial torpedoes, crapouillots and bombs the size of a stovepipe, also others which resemble a two-gallon demijohn. They came slow. We could see them—the wide-nosed torpedoes coming direct, the stovepipes hurtling end over end.
These visible shells are only good for short range. We dodged them, but they kept us constantly on the move. The captain’s trench was flattened out—no need to watch that any more. The bombardment increased. Long range artillery from the mountains joined the short range mortars. The black smoke and noise from the Jack Johnsons and the yellow smoke from bursting shrapnel did not attract our attention from those three-finned torpedoes and hurtling crapouillots.
We would dodge for one but a half dozen might drop before we could look around. Deporte was buried by one explosion. I had to pull him out of the dirt. A big rock came flying down the trench, then a piece of timber four feet long. Two pieces of metal fell on my helmet which I picked up and have yet. They were burning hot, not iron or steel, but copper and nickel.
At a shout in front, we grabbed grenades and saw to the left a crowd of men running toward our lines, French and German. Later we learned how eighteen Frenchmen went over to the German blockhouse across the way, gave the forty occupants a chance to surrender, of which eleven took advantage. Revolvers and bombs finished the others. Two Frenchmen, both my friends, were wounded.
The Germans did not seem to like it. They got more angry and threw all kinds of metal at our dodging heads. An orderly rushed around the corner and yelled: “Fall back, orders from the capitaine.” He scurried away. We found a sap. I was thirty feet down when I looked up and saw Deporte standing at the opening unbuttoning his vest. Steam and perspiration formed a circle around him, such as is seen about an aeroplane flying high against the sun. About thirty feet down into that sap the steps turned a right angle, then again changed direction. We sat beyond the second turning, lighting a candle as fast as the inrush of air, made by the bursting shells, blew it out. A couple of hours later, when we looked for the hill we had held, it was gone. Immense craters yawned where had been our regular trenches. The rows of trenches were as waves of an angry sea, while the ground between was pitted and scarred beyond recognition.
CHAPTER X
CHAMPAGNE ATTACK
The night before the attack of September 25, 1915, Bouligny and I went over to Battalion C. He picked up a piece of cheese that Morlae had. Munching away, he demanded, “Where did you get this?”
“In Suippe.”
“I thought we were forbidden to go out.”
“We are.”