For hours in a dimly candle-lighted room we worked. Studied charts and blue prints, planned each move of each detachment and platoon in detail. Company and platoon commanders laid their courses, drew maps and studied them carefully, for they would have to travel independently and by compass after entering enemy wire. We carefully rehearsed our plans of liaison. In short, every detail was gone over; all emergencies we could conceive of were discussed, so that each captain and each platoon leader (some were non-coms.) knew his part and its relation to the whole. Each one explained aloud just what he was to do and when and how, and how such and such developments were to affect his actions. For you must know that nothing but well-nigh faultless team work would enable us to accomplish our mission.
To capture and to hold this strong and seemingly impregnable key position under the big guns of the world renowned fortress of Metz, to say nothing of its other means of defense, with but one battalion and but five minutes’ artillery preparation, did not mean to rush out with a whoop and sweep all before us. It required a thorough, practical knowledge gained by experience of all the complicated phases of trench and open warfare. It required officers and non-commissioned officers of iron nerve and cool judgment under fire, and brave troops of exceptional discipline and the finest training. Whether those higher up expected us to succeed or could have expected any battalion to succeed, I doubted. So I had made up my mind we would succeed.
At one thirty-five A. M. I received word by telephone from the Brigade Adjutant that Zero hour would be seven o’clock instead of five. At three A. M. I said, “I’m going to lead you over and into that place. I’ll be with you and I’m going to stick. I’ll never come back except on orders from proper authority unless carried back unconscious or dead. This meeting is adjourned.” For fully a minute they remained perfectly still—not one moved. Then one at a time they got up, shook my hand and filed out into the cold and darkness—the vast, ominous outdoors. And I knew then by the look on each leader’s face that we would be annihilated or win.
They roused their men, for they had been ordered to get what rest they could, and there in the chill and dead of night, explained to them just what was to be done; explained each man’s part, for each man has a part in a job like that. Certain things had arrived during the night. These were distributed, final inspections were made and by five o’clock all was in readiness for the start. The four companies of infantry, “H,” “G,” “E” and “F,” the Regimental Machine Gun Company, the One-Pounder and Stokes Mortar Platoons, the Pioneer Platoon and Signal outfits from the Headquarters Company, the specialty detachments from Division Headquarters, the Doctors and Stretcher Bearers—all were there lined up in battalion front, at increased intervals, along the great Metz road.
For a moment I paused, feeling or sensing, as it were, my Battalion, for I could see only the shadowy forms of a few who were nearest. I wondered if those at home knew or could have any realization of what these men were doing and suffering for them. All through that awful night I had heard not one word of complaint. Not a grumble had reached my ears, and I smiled as I remembered the many times before, even away back in the Argonne or St. Die (it seemed ages ago then), how, when I had approached within hearing of disconsolate looking groups of men, shivering all night long, perhaps in deep mud and cold rain, because of mistakes higher up or for unavoidable causes, some old fellow in the group had started to sing or said some silly thing intended to be funny and how all the others had laughed—for my benefit. And these were the men I was about to lead out there where it looked to all of us like sure annihilation. These were the remnant of that Battalion, and I—, but the hour had come.
I started at the right of the line, which would be the rear when they swung into column, followed by my Adjutant, Lieutenant Pritchard. It was just before dawn, that most spookey and shivery of all hours—a few degrees above freezing, but the cold, fleecy mist that enveloped us seemed to penetrate our very bones. Just enough light was filtering through for me to recognize each officer and man as I walked slowly close to the line. Not a word was spoken—not a sound, save the never tearing screech of an occasional shell with its ugly blast, or the rattling, echoing tat, tat, tat-a-tat! of a machine gun or an automatic rifle in the distance.
Along the whole wide front I moved—sadly, looking into the face of each man, each so busy with his thoughts. How pinched, how tired—how worn they looked. Many cheeks were wet with tears. Each man made an effort to smile. Many chins and lips trembled. The very chill and the darkness seemed charged and potent with death. But every head was high. Every form was rigidly erect. “They are just great children,” I thought, “so proud in their sacrifice, so brave, so true in this awful preliminary hour—great trusting, innocent boys suffering for the sins and for the sakes of others, and mine the sad, oh, unspeakably sad, duty of leading them to death, or to horrors and suffering even worse.” Had I not been going with them I could not have faced them then. I reached the end of the line. My staff and runners fell in behind me. The Captain of the leading company gave a signal, repeated down the line. They swung—“Squads left!” And the Death March had begun.
No band was playing, no colors flying, no loved ones and friends admiring, cheering—just on through the ghastly night—and I could feel the very heart beat of those twelve hundred and fifty brave men behind me as plainly as I could hear the muffled tread of their hob-nailed shoes. For I loved that Battalion. It was the pride of my life. And there was not one among all those hundreds of big, black heroes of mine that would not have gone through hell for his Major. And no one knew it better than I.
On, on, thump, thump, thump, up the familiar road, under the great bare trees, past the deserted, shell marked houses, and damp, tomb-like ruins that had once been happy homes. Then we were in the outskirts of the town. On the left was the arch, the big iron gate and the ruined house under which were the dugouts of the battalion infirmary. Soon we were passing the Battalion graveyard to our right, with its rows of mounds and wooden crosses barely discernible.
And strangely enough, at a time like this, I thought of one very dark night, much darker than this, with flares and star shells and colored rockets lighting no-man’s land, not far away, and the flash and roar of big guns and screaming shells, when we buried our first man there, killed the night we first moved into the sector. And I remembered how helpless and small he seemed as they gently laid him in his shallow grave, and then when we bent near to conceal the brief glare of a pocket flashlight, how proud he looked, with a great hole through his chest torn by a flying chunk of jagged steel, and only a blanket for a coffin, and the expression of peace on the young black face, for he had stuck and died at his post. And then when the little, muddy grave was filled, how pitiful and how lonely he seemed, as we left him to darkness in that blood soaked foreign soil—so far from his loved ones and home.