Again we assembled in column of fours, and this time began the climb up hill. Just then I happened to think of the blow I had received under the jaw, and, feeling of the spot, discovered a slight wound under my left jaw-bone. Handing my rifle to a man, I pressed slightly upon the sore spot and pulled a steel splinter out of the wound. A very thin, long sliver of steel it was, half the diameter of a dime and not more than a dime’s thickness, but an inch and a half long. The metal was still hot to the touch. The scratch continued bleeding freely, but I did not bandage it at the time because I felt sure of needing my emergency dressing farther along.
Up near the crest of the hill we halted in an angle of the woods and lay down alongside the One Hundred and Seventy-Second Regiment of infantry. They had made the attack in this direction on the 25th, but had been severely checked at this point. Infantry and machine-gun fire sounded very close, and lost bullets by the hundreds flicked through the branches overhead. The One Hundred and Seventy-Second informed us that a battalion of the Premier Étranger had entered the forest and was at that moment storming a position to our immediate left. Through the trees showed lights, brighter than day, cast from hundreds of German magnesium candles shot into the air.
Our officers were grouped with those of the other regiment, and after a very long conference they separated, each to his command. Our captain called the officers and subalterns of the company together, and in terse sentences explained to us our positions and the object of the coming assault. It was to be a purely local affair, and the point was the clearing of the enemy from the hill we were on. On a map drawn to scale he pointed out the lay of the land.
It looked to me a hard proposition. Imagine a tooth-brush about a mile long and three eighths to one half a mile wide. The back is formed by the summit of the hill, which is densely wooded, and the hairs of the brush are represented by four little ridges rising from the valley we had just crossed, each one crowned with strips of forest and uniting with the main ridge at right angles. Between each two lines of hair are open spaces, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty metres wide. We, of the second regiment, were to deliver the assault parallel with the hairs and stretching from the crest down to the valley.
The other column was to make a demonstration from our left, running a general course at right angles to ours. The time set was eight o’clock at night.
Returning to our places, we informed the men of what they were in for. While we were talking, we noticed a group of men come from the edge of the woods and form into company formation, and we could hear them answer to the roll-call. I went over and peered at them. On their coat-collars I saw the gilt No. 1. It was the Premier Étranger.
As the roll-call proceeded, I wondered. The sergeant was deciphering with difficulty the names from his little carnet, and response after response was, 'Mort.' Once in a while the answer changed to 'Mort sur le champ d’honneur,' or a brief 'Tombé.' There were twenty-two men in line, not counting the sergeant and a corporal, who in rear of the line supported himself precariously on two rifles which served him as crutches. Two more groups appeared back of this one, and the same proceeding was repeated. As I stood near the second group I could just catch the responses of the survivors. 'Duvivier': 'Present.'—'Selonti': 'Present.'—'Boismort': 'Tombé.'—'Herkis': 'Mort.'—Carney': 'Mort.'—'MacDonald': 'Present.'—'Farnsworth': 'Mort sur le champ d’honneur,' responded MacDonald. Several of the men I had known, Farnsworth among them. One officer, a second lieutenant, commanded the remains of the battalion. Seven hundred and fifty men, he informed me, had gone in an hour ago, and less than two hundred came back.
'Ah, mon ami,' he told me, 'c’est bien chaud dans le bois.'
Quietly they turned into column of fours and disappeared in the darkness. Their attack had failed. Owing to the protection afforded by the trees, our aerial scouts had failed to gather definite information of the defenses constructed in the forest, and owing also to the same cause, our previous bombardment had been ineffective.
It was our job to remedy this. One battalion of the One Hundred and Seventy-Second was detached and placed in line with us, and at eight P.M. sharp the major’s whistle sounded, echoed by that of our captain.