"Well," came the reply, "you see you are going to command the company. I'm just a runner. They can get lots more of me."
A very good sergeant of mine, Ross by name, had his hand blown off in this sector.
He was making a reconnaissance with a view to a patrol, when a German trench mortar shell that had been imbedded in the parapet went off under his hand. As he passed me he simply said: "Major, I am awfully sorry to leave you this early before the real game begins."
Here we captured our first German prisoner. I doubt whether any German will ever be as precious to any of us as this man was. We had patrolled quite a good deal, but the Germans had either stopped patrolling in the sector in front of us or we were unfortunate in not running into any of them. We felt at last that the only way to get a prisoner was to go over to the German trenches and pull one out.
One night Lieutenant Christian Holmes, Sergeants Murphy, McCormack, Samari (born in southern Italy), and Leonard, who was called Scotty and who spoke with a pronounced Irish brogue, were designated to raid a listening post. They crawled on their bellies across No Man's Land, got through the maze of wire, and ran right on top of a German listening post. A prisoner was what they wanted, so Lieutenant Holmes, who was leading the party, leaped upon one of the two Germans and locked him in a tight embrace. The German's partner thereupon endeavored to bayonet Lieutenant Holmes, who was struggling in two feet of water with his captive, but was prevented by a timely thrust from Sergeant Murphy's bayonet. They seized the German, who was shrieking "Kamerad" at the top of his lungs, and dragged him back across No Man's Land at the double.
When they came in with him we were as pleased as Punch. Indeed, we hardly wanted to let him go to the rear, as we had a distinct feeling more or less that we wanted to keep him to look at. He was a young, scrawny fellow, and gave us much information concerning the troops opposite us. Lieutenant Holmes and Sergeant Murphy received the Distinguished Service Cross for this work; and well deserved it, for they showed the way and did a really hard job. Holmes told me afterward that they had all agreed that they would not come back until they had got their prisoner. They had decided that if they did not find him in the first front-line trenches they would go back as far as necessary, but they were going to find him or not come back.
We began here also for the first time to play with that most elusive of all military amusements, the code. In order that the Germans, in listening in on our telephone conversations, might not know what we were about, everything was put in code or cipher. The high command issued to us the Napoleon code. The Napoleon code is written entirely in French. Only a few of us could read French, with the result that only a few could send messages. General Hines, then colonel of the Sixteenth Infantry, realized that this was a poor idea, so he made up a code of his own. This code went by the name of the Cauliflower Code, and the commanding officer, his adjutant, etc., in every place were given distinctive names.
Conversation ran something like this—"Hello, hello, I want Hannibal. Hannibal is not there? Give me Brains. Brains, this is the King of Essex talking. Sunflower. No balloons, tomatoes, asparagus. No, No. I said no balloons! Oh, damn. My kitchens haven't come. Have them sent up."
When we received rush orders to leave this sector, I tried to mobilize my wagon truck by telephone. The supply officers all went by the name of Sarah in the code. I would start off, "Hello, hello. This is the King of Essex talking. I want little Sarah. Little Sarah Van." Lieutenant Van, my supply officer, would reply from the other side, "Hello, hello, is this the King of Essex talking?" "It is." "Well, Major Roosevelt," then the connection would be cut. After much labor I got him again. I had just begun, "Balloons, radishes, carrots" when we were cut off again. The next time we got the connection we said what we had to say in plain English and quickly.
One evening just after we had arrived in the front-line trenches, after a rest in the support position, the telephone buzzed. The adjutant leaped to it. "Yes, this is Blank. What is it? Yes, yes. The Napoleon code." And then for some thirty minutes, during which time the trench telephone ceased to work, was cut off, or simply went dead, the Adjutant took down a long string of numbers. At the end of that period he had a sheet of paper in front of him which looked for all the world like the financial statement of a large bank. He rushed to our portfolio where the sector papers were kept, yanked them out, ran over them in a hurry, and then turned to me with a blank look of grief: "Sorry, sir, we have left the code behind." We thought for a moment, then called back the sender, and said, "Sir, we have forgotten our code." He remarked blithely from the other end, "If the message had been an important one, I would not have sent it in code. I'll give it to you when I see you to-night."