Several days before on the morning of September 26, they had entered the Argonne forest, as a part of the line of American attack. At five-thirty in the morning, they had gone "over the top" in a very heavy fog and behind their creeping barrage toward the German trenches. They had to force their passage through trees, shrubs, vines, and undergrowth grown all together so that it was almost impossible to advance and yet keep in touch with one another as they were ordered to do.
They reached the first German trenches which were named the Ludwig. The Huns named their trenches so as to identify them readily in orders and upon the maps. These trenches were empty and they went on to a row of fancy concrete and iron dugouts, called by the Germans Karlsruhe, where they made their headquarters for the night.
The next day they met stubborn resistance from artillery and nests of machine guns, but they were able to make progress. In the first mile they passed over twelve abandoned trench systems.
As they went forward they left men behind at regular intervals to keep them in touch with the regimental headquarters. Along this line of men, stationed near enough together to communicate easily with each other, orders, ammunition, and rations could be passed.
The Germans knew their plan and as the battalion in the next days gradually got ahead of the main American line and out of touch with it on the flanks, the Huns pushed through, killed part of the men on the line of communication, and surrounded it, placing machine-gun nests in the rear.
When Major Whittlesey discovered their predicament, he directed his adjutant, Lieutenant Arthur McKeogh, with two men to make an attempt to get back to regimental headquarters and inform the colonel of the situation. Lieutenant McKeogh has told the story of his success. It is intensely exciting and makes one shiver at the horror of men, who have no personal enmity but might be friends, killing one another, and also makes one thrill with pride and admiration for the courage that dares even to death—not the quick death of the glorious charge, but the slow death of thirst, exhaustion, and fatigue. It shows us the worst and the best of war, and that the worst is too great a price to pay for the best. Lieutenant McKeogh writes in an article in Collier's:—
I took Munson and Herschowitz, and on hands and knees, with drawn revolvers, we began a detour of the nests. I was keeping my direction by compass every foot of the way. We had been going a scant ten minutes when shots from a light Maxim and rifles broke out in front. I thought we had been spotted, but after a wait, when we started again, we crawled within a few feet of the real target, now lifeless; he was in khaki and apparently he had strayed from his outfit. During our wait we saw a boche passing through the trees. From the crackling of the brush there seemed to be others. With my lips I made the words "Don't fire" to my runners, and then covered him, in case he saw us. He went by. Realizing that we might have something of a time of it getting through, I motioned the runners to my side, read the messages to them in whispers and had them repeat. Then scooping out a little hole in the sodden leaves under my chin, I buried the messages, with several others from my map case, in fine pieces. Next I impressed upon them that our mission was not to fight unless forced to it, but to get back to the regiment, all of us, if possible; one, certainly. Consequently we would separate when it became necessary.
Half an hour's traveling brought us to a broad clearing, cleaving the forest as far as I could see, on a true north-south line. Our direction was south, and the trail down the center of the clearing meant real progress, although I knew trails to be dangerous. We were not long upon it, when suddenly, out of a side trail, two German officers appeared, fifty yards ahead.
The one in advance shouted something with "Kamerad" in it. But at the same time he was leveling his pistol at me, and I needed no interpreter.
We darted off the trail behind a bush at its edge. The boches fired into the bush as they came. We stretched out and waited. In front of me a bough ran low and parallel to the ground; upon it I rested my pistol, directing it upon the trail through the thin leaves underneath.