Those were before the days of lavish maps, to which the Americans afterwards attained. There was one map to each company, exclusive property of the captain. Platoon commanders had a look at it—“You’re here. The objective is a square patch of woods a kilometre and a half northeast, about. See?—this. Form your platoons in four waves—the guide will be right. Third Battalion is advancing their flank to conform. French on the left....” Platoons were formed in four waves, the attack formation taught by the French, a formation proved in trench warfare, where there was a short way to go, and you calculated on losing the first three waves and getting the fourth one to the objective. The Marines never used it again. It was a formation unadapted for open warfare, and incredibly vulnerable. It didn’t take long to learn better, but there was a price to pay for the learning.
The platoons came out of the woods as dawn was getting gray. The light was strong when they advanced into the open wheat, now all starred with dewy poppies, red as blood. To the east the sun appeared, immensely red and round, a handbreadth above the horizon; a German shell burst black across the face of it, just to the left of the line. Men turned their heads to see, and many there looked no more upon the sun forever. “Boys, it’s a fine, clear mornin’! Guess we get chow after we get done molestin’ these here Heinies, hey?”—One old non-com—was it Jerry Finnegan of the 49th?—had out a can of salmon, hoarded somehow against hard times. He haggled it open with his bayonet, and went forward so, eating chunks of goldfish from the point of that wicked knife. “Finnegan”—his platoon commander, a young gentleman inclined to peevishness before he’d had his morning coffee, was annoyed—“when you are quite through with your refreshments, you can—damn well fix that bayonet and get on with the war!” “Aye, aye, sir!” Finnegan was an old Haitian soldier, and had a breezy manner with very young lieutenants—“Th’ lootenant want some?”—Two hours later Sergeant Jerry Finnegan lay dead across a Maxim gun with his bayonet in the body of the gunner....
It was a beautiful deployment, lines all dressed and guiding true. Such matters were of deep concern to this outfit. The day was without a cloud, promising heat later, but now it was pleasant in the wheat, and the woods around looked blue and cool. Pretty country, those rolling wheat-lands northwest of Château-Thierry, with copses of trees and little tidy forests where French sportsmen maintained hunting-lodges and game-preserves. Since the first Marne there had been no war here. The files found it very different from the mangled red terrain around Verdun, and much nicer to look at. “Those poppies, now. Right pretty, ain’t they?”—a tall corporal picked one and stuck it in his helmet buckle, where it blazed against his leathery cheek. There was some shelling—not much, for few of the German guns had caught up, the French had lost all theirs, and the American artillery was still arriving.
Platoon column in support, Champagne, 1918.
Drawn by Captain Thomason from notes made in front of Blanc Mont.
Across this wheat-field there were more woods, and in the edge of these woods the old Boche, lots of him, infantry and machine-guns. Surely he had seen the platoons forming a few hundred yards away—it is possible that he did not believe his eyes. He let them come close before he opened fire. The American fighting man has his failings. He is prone to many regrettable errors. But the sagacious enemy will never let him get close enough to see whom he is attacking. When he has seen the enemy, the American regular will come on in. To stop him you must kill him. And when he is properly trained and has somebody to say “Come on!” to him, he will stand as much killing as anybody on earth.
The platoons, assailed now by a fury of small-arms fire, narrowed their eyes and inclined their bodies forward, like men in heavy rain, and went on. Second waves reinforced the first, fourth waves the third, as prescribed. Officers yelled “Battle-sight! fire at will”—and the leaders, making out green-gray, clumsy uniforms and round pot-helmets in the gloom of the woods, took it up with Springfields, aimed shots. Automatic riflemen brought their chaut-chauts into action from the hip—a chaut-chaut is as accurate from the hip as it ever is—and wrangled furiously with their ammunition-carriers—“Come on, kid—bag o’ clips!—” “Aw—I lent it to Ed to carry, last night—didn’t think—” “Yeh, and Ed lent it to a fence-post when he got tired—get me some off a casualty, before I—” A very respectable volume of fire came from the advancing platoons. There was yelling and swearing in the wheat, and the lines, much thinned, got into the woods. Some grenades went off; there was screaming and a tumult, and the “taka-taka-taka-taka” of the Maxim guns died down. “Hi! Sergeant!—hold on! Major said he wanted some prisoners—” “Well, sir, they looked like they was gonna start somethin’—” “All right! All right! but you catch some alive the next place, you hear?—” “Quickly, now—get some kind of a line—” “Can’t make four waves—” “Well, make two—an’ put the chaut-chauts in the second—no use gettin’’em bumped off before we can use ’em—” The attack went on, platoons much smaller, sergeants and corporals commanding many of them.
A spray of fugitive Boche went before the attack, holding where the ground offered cover, working his light machine-guns with devilish skill, retiring, on the whole, commendably. He had not expected to fight a defensive battle here, and was not heavily intrenched, but the place was stiff with his troops, and he was in good quality, as Marine casualty lists were presently to show. There was more wheat, and more woods, and obscure savage fighting among individuals in a brushy ravine. The attack, especially the inboard platoons of the 49th and 67th Companies, burst from the trees upon a gentle slope of wheat that mounted to a crest of orderly pines, black against the sky. A three-cornered coppice this side of the pines commanded the slope; now it blazed with machine-guns and rifles; the air was populous with wicked keening noises. Most of the front waves went down; all hands, very sensibly, flung themselves prone. “Can’t walk up to these babies—” “No—won’t be enough of us left to get on with the war—” “Pass the word: crawl forward, keepin’ touch with the man on your right! Fire where you can—” That officer, a big man, who had picked up a German light machine-gun somewhere, with a vague idea of using it in a pinch, or, in any case, keeping it for a souvenir, received the attention of a heavy Maxim and went down with a dozen bullets through his chest.
“Catch some alive——”