Those Marines were regular guys. When they heard our transport wasn’t up yet, they turned to and fed as many of our men as they could, until their supply ran out. They had been through the mill before, at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood. As one of them said “Better help the other fellow now. Tomorrow’s a hell of a way off here.”
The Marines have had an awful lot of joshing, of course, about their press agent stuff—“Ace high with the Satevepost,” and so on. But these were certainly a fine bunch, and gave us a lift when we needed it. Naturally, those of them who did the fighting did the least of the blowing about it afterward.
The sun came out to look at the battle after awhile, and we got warmed and partially dried. Also the kitchen arrived, and a hot dinner was in prospect.
About 11 A. M. bulletins began arriving from the front, and were read out to us. All objectives were being taken according to schedule, and the number of prisoners and guns captured mounted by leaps and bounds. We were not allowed out of the woods, but even from the trees on the outskirts one couldn’t see much except a great cloud of smoke and dust slowly rolling up the slope of a range of distant hills.
The wet exposure and irregular eating of half cooked food had already started to tell on us. Dysentery was appearing; nearly all the company suffered with constant diarrhoea from this time on.
The afternoon dragged on; still no call for the alert brigade. We were allowed to pitch pup tents, but no fires were allowed; the wood was too wet and smoky.
Night fell; we crawled into whatever shelter we had, and surreptitiously smoked, and talked, and listened to the rumble of the guns until we got to sleep.
At about 1:30 A. M. a battalion runner fell over my feet and lit on Lt. Dunn. After a few hasty remarks we stopped for breath, and were informed that the battalion was to form on the road right away. Stiff and sleepy, I stumbled out into the dank night, routed out Chiaradio, my staunch little runner and striker, and broke the glad news to Robbins and the company runners. The woods were soon in a bustle as we rolled packs, donned equipment, and filed out by platoons into the mud of the road.
By 2 A. M. the battalion was standing ankle deep in the slushy mud in column of squads, the Major at our head. Half an hour passed. Not a sound except an occasional “su-luck-slosh,” as someone shifted his heavy pack, or tried in vain to find a less liquid footing. The leaden minutes dragged by. Three o’clock; no move. Half past four—the company ahead moved off, and we sloshed along behind, but only to the edge of the wood. Dawn broke—another gray and misty dawn. Oh, that awful wait in that awful hole! It was quite light before, at 5 o’clock, we finally moved out, and, splashing and sliding over a muddy field, finally hit the road and were off toward the scene of action.
As we were stretching the kinks out of our legs on a fairly good road, we passed a U. S. Coast Artillery outfit; a 12-inch gun. Some of the crew came out to the roadside from the emplacement, and Capt. O’Brien recognized his old outfit, in which he had served as an enlisted man years before.