Day came, and with it the corvée carrying hot coffee and bread. After breakfast another corvée was sent after picks and shovels, and the men were set to work remodeling the trench, shifting the parapet to the other side, building little outpost trenches and setting barbed wire. The latter job was done in a wonderfully short time, thanks to German thoroughness, since for the stakes to which the wire is tied the Boches had substituted soft iron rods, three quarters of an inch thick, twisted five times in the shape of a great corkscrew. This screw twisted into the ground exactly like a cork-puller into a cork. The straight part of the rod, being twisted upon itself down and up again every ten inches, formed six or seven small round loops in a height of about five feet. Into these eyes the barbed wire was laid and solidly secured with short lengths of tying wire. First cutting the tying wire, we lifted the barbed wire out of the eyes, shoved a small stick through one, and, turning the rod with the leverage of the stick, unscrewed it out of the ground and then, reversing the process, screwed it in again. The advantage of this rod is obvious. When a shell falls in the midst of this wire protection, the rods are bent and twisted, but unless broken off short they always support the wire, and even after a severe bombardment present a serious obstacle to the assaulters. In such cases wooden posts are blown to smithereens by the shells, and when broken off let the wire fall flat to the ground.
As I was walking up and down, watching the work, I noticed a large box, resting bottom up in a deep hole opening from the trench. Dragging the box out and turning it over, I experienced a sudden flutter of the heart. There, before my astonished eyes, resting upon a little platform of boards, stood a neat little centrifugal pump painted green, and on the base of it in raised iron letters I read the words, 'Byron Jackson, San Francisco.' I felt queer at the stomach for an instant. San Francisco! my home town! Before my eyes passed pictures of Market Street and the 'Park.' In fancy I was again one of the Sunday crowd at the Cliff House. How came this pump so far from home? Many times I had passed the very place where it was made. How, I wonder, did the Boche get this pump? Before the war, or through Holland? A California-built pump to clean water out of German trenches, in France! It was astonishing! With something like reverence I put the pump back again, and, going to my place in the trench, dug out one of my bottles of champagne and stood treat to the crowd. Somehow, I felt almost happy.
As I continued my rounds I came upon a man sitting on the edge of the ditch, surrounded by naked branches, busy cutting them into two-foot lengths and tying them together in the shape of a cross. I asked him how many he was making, and he told me that he expected to work all day to supply the crosses needed along one battalion front. French and German were treated alike, he assured me. There was absolutely no difference in the size of the crosses.
As we worked, soup arrived, and when that was disposed of, the men rested for some hours. We were absolutely unmolested except by our officers.
But at one o’clock that night we were again assembled in marching kit, each man with an extra pick or shovel, and marched along parallel with our trench to the summit of the butte. There we installed ourselves in the main line, out of which the Germans were driven by the One Hundred and Seventy-Second. There was no work of any kind to be done, and quickly we found some dry wood, built small fires, and with the material found in dug-outs brewed some really delightful beverages. Mine was a mixture of wine and water out of Haeffle’s canteen, judiciously blended with chocolate.
The weather was delightful, and we spent the afternoon lying in sunny spots, shifting once in a while out of the encroaching shade into the warm rays. We had no idea where the Germans were—somewhere in front, of course, but just how far or how near mattered little to us. Anyhow, the One Hundred and Seventy-Second was fully forty metres nearer to them than we were, and we could see and hear the first-line troops picking and shoveling their way into the ground.
Little King was, as usual, making the round of the company, trying to find some one to build a fire and get water if he, King, would furnish the chocolate. He found no takers and soon he laid himself down, muttering about the laziness of the outfit.
Just as we were dozing deliciously, an agonized yell brought every soldier to his feet. Rushing toward the cry, I found a man sitting on the ground, holding his leg below the knee with both hands, and moaning as he rocked back and forth, 'Je suis blesse! Je suis blesse!' Brushing his hands aside, I examined his leg. There was no blood. I took off the puttee, rolled up his trousers, and discovered no sign of a wound. On my asking the man again where the wound was, he passed his hand over a small red spot on his shin. Just then another man picked up a small piece of shell, and then the explanation dawned upon me. The Germans were shooting at our planes straight above us; a bit of shell had come down and hit our sleeper on the shin-bone. Amid a gale of laughter he limped away to a more sympathetic audience.
Several more pieces of iron fell near us. Some fragments were no joking matter, being the entire rear ends of three-inch shells, weighing, I should think, fully seven pounds.
At 4 P.M. the soup corvée arrived. Besides the usual soup we had roast mutton, one small slice per man, and a mixture of white beans, rice, and string beans. There was coffee, and one cup of wine per man, and, best of all, tobacco. As we munched our food, our attention was attracted to the sky above by an intense cannonade directed against several of our aeroplanes sailing east. As we looked, more and more of our war-birds appeared. Whipping out my glasses, I counted fifty-two machines. Another man counted sixty. Haeffle had it a hundred. The official report next day stated fifty-nine. They were flying very high and in very open formation, winging due east. The shells were breaking ahead of them and between them. The heaven was studded with hundreds upon hundreds of beautiful little round grayish clouds, each one the nimbus of a bursting shell. With my prismatics glued to my eyes, I watched closely for one falling bird. Though it seemed incredible at the moment, not one faltered or turned back. Due east they steered, into the red painted sky. For several minutes after they had sailed out of my sight I could still hear the roar of the guns. Only one machine, the official report said, was shot down, and that one fell on the return trip.