On we go toward the distant booming of the guns. We wind around hills, hike across a valley, over another long hill. Then the road runs along the bottom of a long, long valley. During the ten-minute rests we snatch a hasty breakfast from our reserve rations, with growls from those who don’t get in on the jam.
Now we begin to see traces of the battle—an overturned wagon, abandoned in the ditch; a train of ammunition trucks crossing the road ahead of us; a motor truck repair shop, hastily set up in a little cabin along the road, from which came a smell of hot coffee that tantalized our cold stomachs. Further on we passed a field hospital; great white tents pitched in a sheltered dell, with red crosses glaring on the tent flies.
At the next halt, a Ford ambulance came down the muddy road with a load of wounded. It stopped by us, and the driver went around behind to see to one of the occupants. The canvas curtain was pushed aside from the top, and a head lolled out—a face of ghastly yellow paste, surrounded by dirty light brown hair. The poor chap was evidently badly gassed. He retched violently time and again, spat out some blood, stared vacantly at us with glassy, miserable eyes. The driver put the head inside with a kindly “All right, buddy; nearly there now;” and the old Henry started off again with a jerk, and a groan from within.
As we resumed the march, a youngster from the 5th Division overtook us. He wore an M. P.’s brassard, and no equipment but a .45 and a canteen. We with our heavy packs and ammunition envied him. He was sleepy eyed and jaded, but still enthusiastic. Ever since the drive started he had been on the job escorting prisoners from front line division headquarters to the pens in the rear.
By 9 o’clock we had done twelve miles under our full pack, ammunition, and two days’ rations, with a breakfast of a little corned willy and hard bread and chlorinated water; the whole preceded by three hours’ standing in eight inches of liquid mud. We felt pretty well done in, for a fact. The auto riflemen were the worst off, having their heavy Chauchats and several big magazines of ammunition besides. One of them lightened his load by the ingenious means of “forgetting” his bag of magazines at a halt. When Lt. Schuyler discovered it, the culprit was promptly accommodated with a double dose to carry.
But this was the exception. As I shifted about, hiking first with one platoon and then another, I always found a set of determined grins, and a cheerful “Oh, we’re all right. How’s the rabble up ahead?”
We had been passing through the rear area of the former Allied sector. Now and again a trench system—trenches, barbed wire, emplacements, all complete—stretched away on either hand. Here and there were great stretches of barbed wire filling gullies and ravines.
At 10 o’clock we crossed a stone bridge and started up a long, long hill. At the top we found that we were on a ridge that had been the front line before the attack. Shell holes covered the whole place. To our left, the ground fell away in a long dip, and we saw the ground over which the first wave had attacked. The battle was now far away over the horizon.
For a couple of kilos we hiked along the road on top of the ridge. It had already been repaired roughly, and all sorts of traffic was passing over it. Once it had been bordered with trees, set at regular intervals, like most self respecting French roads. Now only a shattered, blasted stump stood here and there.
A few men began to straggle from the outfits ahead, but “B” Co. stuck to it gamely. On that day not a man fell out.