“Long as you live—that’s good!” gibed Corporal Snair, of the Company Headquarters group. “Don’t you know by now how expendable you bucks are?”—The lieutenant heard, and remembered it, oddly enough, in a crowded moment the next day, when he lost the two of them to a hard-fought Maxim gun.
No wind moved across the lonely wheatland; the bearded stalks waved not at all, and the sun-drenched air was hot and dead. Sweat made muddy runnels through the thick white dust that masked the faces of the men. Conversation languished; what was said was in profane monosyllables. Clouds came up, and there were showers of rain, with hot sunshine between. Uniforms steamed after each shower, and thirst became a torture. The man who had the vin blanc in his canteen fell out and was quite ill. “Hikin’—in—a dam’—Turkish bath——”
After interminable hours, the column came to the forest and passed from streaming sunshine into sultry shades. It was a noble wood of great high-branching trees, clean of underbrush as a park. Something was doing in the forest. Small-arms ammunition was stacked beside the road, and there were dumps of shells and bombs under the trees. And French soldiers everywhere. This road presently led into a great paved highway, and along it were more of the properties of war—row upon row of every caliber of shell, orderly stacks of winged aerial bombs, pile after pile of rifle and machine-gun ammunition, and cases of hand-grenades and pyrotechnics. There were picket-lines of cavalry, and park after park of artillery, light and heavy. There were infantrymen with stacked rifles.
Gunner and horseman and poilu, they looked amicably upon the sweating Marines, and waved their hands with naïve Gallic friendliness. The battalion came out of its weariness and responded in kind. “Say, where do they get that stuff about little Frenchmen? Look at that long-sparred horse soldier yonder—seven feet if he’s an inch!”—“Them gunners is fine men, too. All the runts in the Frog army is in the infantry!”—“Well, if these Frawgs fights accordin’ to their size, Gawd pity the old Boche when that cavalry gets after him—lances an’ all!” “You said it! Them little five-foot-nothin’ infantry, with enough on they backs, in the way o’ tents an’ pots an’ pans, to set up light housekeepin’ wit’, and that long squirrel gun they carry, an’ that knittin’-needle bayonet—! Remember how they charged at Torcy, there on the left——?”
The French were cooking dinner beside the road. For your Frenchman never fights without his kitchens and a full meal under his cartridge-pouches. They go into the front line with him, the kitchens and the chow, and there is always the coffee avec rhum, and the good hot soup that smells so divinely to the hungry Americans, passing empty. “When we goes up to hit the old Boche, we always says adoo to the galleys till we comes out again—guess the idea is to starve us so we’ll be mad, like the lions in them glad-i-a-tor-ial mills the corp’ril was tellin’ about.”—“Hell! we don’t eat, it seems—them Frawgs might at least have the decency to keep their home cookin’ where we can’t smell it!”
The highway led straight through the forest. Many roads emptied into it, and from every road debouched a stream of horses, men, and guns. The battalion went into column of twos, then into column of files, to make room. On the left of the road, abreast of the Marines, plodded another column of foot—strange black men, in the blue greatcoats of the French infantry and mustard-yellow uniforms under them. Their helmets were khaki-colored, and bore a crescent instead of the bursting bomb of the French line. But they marched like veterans, and the Marines eyed them approvingly. Between the foot, the road was level-full of guns and transport, moving axle to axle, and all moving in the same direction. In this column were tanks, large and small, all ring-streaked and striped with camouflage, mounting one-pounders and machine-guns; and the big ones, short-barrelled 75s.
The tanks were new to the Marines. They moved with a horrific clanging and jangling, and stunk of petrol. “Boy, what would you do if you seen one of them little things comin’ at you? The big ones is males, and the little ones is females, the lootenant says....” “Chillun, we’re goin’ into somethin’ big— Dunno what, but it’s big!”
The sultry afternoon passed wearily, and at six o’clock the battalion turned off the road, shambling and footsore, and rested for two hours. They found water and filled canteens. A few of the hardier made shift to wash. “Gonna smear soapsuds an’ lather all over me—the Hospital Corps men say it keeps off mustard-gas!” But most of the men dropped where the platoon broke ranks and slept. Battalion H. Q. sent for all company commanders.
Presently the lieutenant of the 49th returned, with papers and a map. He called the company officers around him, and spread the map on the ground. He spoke briefly.
“We’re in the Villers-Cotterets woods—the Forêt de Retz. At H hour on D day, which I think is to-morrow morning, although the major didn’t say, we attack the Boche here”—pointing—“and go on to here—past the town of Vierzy. Eight or nine kilomètres. Three objectives—marked—so—and so. The 2d Division with one of the infantry regiments leading, and the 5th Marines, attacks with the 1st Moroccan Division on our left. The Frog Foreign Legion is somewhere around too, and the 1st American Division. It’s Mangin’s Colonial Army—the bird they call the butcher.