The Gunner's war

 The captain was called to Battalion Headquarters a short time ago. He has returned with an outline of our mission. Zero hour is at 5 o’clock but that doesn’t mean that we are to sit quietly and wait for the doughboys to start across.

The preparation is to begin in an hour and we are to have a part in it: Number 5 gas on Mont Sec, three shots per gun per minute until daylight.

A bloodthirsty sort of mission, this. The active agent in Number 5 is prussic acid. Hydrocyanic gas is a weapon from which the so-called civilized world might have recoiled four years ago. Now the prospect of its employment against the tunnels of Mont Sec leaves us cold. We have grown weary of dodging the eyes on Mont Sec. Tomorrow unless we are blown out of our holes those eyes will be closed. If the data on the tunnel entrances has been properly calculated there won’t be a living thing on the butte or under it tomorrow.

At 12:30 the chiefs of section were called in, given their data sheets and kissed good-by. They filed out again to lay the guns on their sectors. It was still raining and still impenetrably dark. The long silence was broken, however, by subdued commands: “Muzzle right. . . . Little more. . Steadee! Muzzle left. . . . Little bit. . Steadee. . . . Good!”

Flashes of electric torches and aiming lights began to appear like fireflies all over the creek where unseen batteries of the 123rd lay in waiting. The feeling of loneliness vanished at once. They are visible signs of the moral support which the night had hidden.

A belated French machine gun outfit hurried over the bridge . . . a string of running poilus and funny little one-horse caissons.

Over in the northwest a searchlight of dubious ownership was making a fruitless effort to pierce the heavy cloud rack.

This dugout is not, properly speaking, a dugout at all. It is a sort of shallow cellar with a roof of curved elephant iron that extends well above the surface of the earth. It is possibly ten feet square with two-decked bunks on either side and a little open space in front of the door. It provides no protection at all against shell but it permits of work with a light, which is something.

A moment ago came an incident like an act out of an old-fashioned war play. Some one stumbled on the slippery steps and the door burst open to reveal a doughboy.

A straggler probably. It’s my guess that he failed to see any light in the dugout and picked it as a likely spot for silent introspection until the battle should get itself well over. At any rate he didn’t expect to find us there and his look of utter bewilderment came close to signaling his finish. Wheeler had a gun on him before he knew where he was. He dropped his rifle and put up his hands.

“I’m an American,” he protested. “Sixteenth Infantry. Fell off a tank on my way up front and got beaned. Tryin’ t’ find my outfit.” His accent was right and Wheeler put down the pistol.

“I guess you are an American,” he said. “But you haven’t any business here.” So the captain called an orderly and directed that our doughboy prisoner be escorted through town and on to the Xivray road where he’d find plenty of his kind. Even a willing deserter may have trouble crawling back- ward out of an infantry trench. Wonder what’s going to happen to the poor egg.

One A.M., September l2.—Squarely on the stroke of one came the crack of doom.

A naval gun over behind Raulecourt let loose a blast that rocked the sector. A heavy shell rumbled overhead and finished with a crack somewhere behind Hill 390. That was the last definite sound in the battle.

The entire line burst into action simultaneously - a continuous, quivering hedge of flame. Sometimes it flared to incandescence, sometimes it died away to a red glow—but it was always there, stretching in a serpentine line for miles on either side. Skeletons of villages stood out in it red and ghastly. Wire and wall and battered trees were silhouetted against it. Guns, virtually hub to hub for thirty kilos, were all firing at once.

The noise resolved itself into surf and tides of sound sound. It was impossible to pick out where it began or what become of it. One heard dimly the crack of one’s own guns. For the rest there was an oppressive beating upon breast and ears, resolving itself now and then into a million coordinated echoes somewhat reminiscent of an express train plunging through a tunnel.

As a spectacle it was tremendous—magnificent. Never since Verdun had there been such a concentrated spray of iron on any single part of the Front.

A sweep of flame behind us—the town appears in soft reflected light like the peaceful village it was four years ago. A comet of fire before us—the gaping roofs, the broken walls, the spear points of smashed masonry loom up in their actual hideousness—a bleached and partly dissected corpse.
 

The gun crews are calm and working steadily.Shooting the Soixante—quinze is no more of a job now than it was on the range at Valdahon. ~ A glance at the sights shows that our shells are barely clearing the ruins of Bouçonville on the way. out. Whether the Boche is replying or not one cannot tell. The sound of a counter-barrage would be as completely lost as the snapping of firecrackers in this infernal din.

A moment ago there was a crash in the road. Something struck close to where I was standing and I went back along the Raulecourt lane to see if I could detect any bursts back of the line of guns. If the thing really was. a shell it was a dud and a lone dud at that. Probably it was a piece of some projectile northward bound—a stripped rotating band or a loose fuze.

It continues to rain..

The men screwing fuses into the shells are kneeling in puddles of water. It is penetratingly cold—thus again the battle bears resemblance to Verdun. But the mud, deep, slippery, tenacious, belongs to the scenery of the Somme.

“Clean those shells,” bellows Tack, making himself heard much as a noonday whistle insinuates itself into the sounds of a boiler factory. . . “I don’t want no red-head fuse to croppy me.”

But his warning is gratuitous. If he fears the unstable red-head, he is not alone. Every shell fed into the breech is clean—clean and glistening with grease. The crews are taking no chances on a muzzle-burst.

Star shells are blazing over in the northwest— magnesium flares shot aloft from Very pistols and held aloft by unseen parachutes. Their brilliance can be distinguished from the glare of the barrage only by its steadiness.

“Shorty” Moffett of the second section, who spread the gas alarm in camp the other night, is acting as Number Two in the first section, loading the gun. He is a scientific workman and so skillful that he has time for thought—an unfortunate situation. Naturally his mind is on gas.

A moment ago when his gun was out of the firing for a ten-minute rest he came into this shed where the firing data is being protected from the rain and sought some important information.

“Lieutenant,” he inquired, “don’t you smell anything peculiar?” A fair question and withal noncommittal. 

“Yes,” I was forced to admit. “I smell quite a bit of the old peculiar. . . . And Shorty, I’ll tell you what it is, it’s powder-smoke. Naturally enough, a cannoneer wouldn’t be acquainted with it.”

So “Shorty” was sufficiently shamed to forget about his incipient panic and he went back to his knitting chastened in spirit. This orchard probably would present a strange spectacle by daylight. The smoke must be hanging to it like a fog right now. But fortunately it is too dark for us to see any paint on the lily.

From the slope behind us one can see the effect of the fire on Mont Sec. Hill 390 is a mass of shifting flame, a fine illustration for the “Inferno.” It is too terrible to realize. Nothing can live out there in front. Nothing can hide from that sweeping destruction.
 

The first piece is smoking. Wet sandbags are steaming on the muzzle. Tack is howling for the mechanic.

The reason for the trouble is made clear after a brief inquiry. The first section has been firing twice as rapidly as scheduled. But nobody cares except possibly the Boche whose mask doesn’t protect against Number 5 Gas.

In the P.C. Capt. Wheeler is censoring letters. It isn’t that he wishes to deprecate the attractions of our battle, he admits. But if he doesn’t fix up the letters so that he can dump them here he will have to carry the damned things forward. . . 

And anyway there’s nothing much to be seen outside.

Don Stier, the reconnaissance officer, and the instrument sergeant, their work done for the evening, are making a meal on fancy crackers brought over from Camp Merritt in a bed roll and long hoarded against such a momentous occasion as this. A bottle of champagne came out of the same kit, but nobody is much interested in artificial stimulant. Wheeler suggests that we send it over to the cooks, whose barn is being badly shaken by the heavies working behind it. .  . The phone rings. .

Somebody is shooting short!

A breathless moment . . . then relief. The short gun is firing H.E. and our ration is strictly Number 5 Gas.

The rain has stopped. Day is just breaking over the plateau on our right. The night’s gas program is finished. The guns stand idle as drops of moisture fall on their blistered muzzles from trees and nets with a sizzling, steaming sound. New charts covering every minute of an hour’s firing have been issued to the chiefs of section. Zero hour is fifteen minutes away.

The first flash of daylight shows the ruins of Bouçonville tumbling down—not because of any retaliatory fire by the enemy but as a result of vibration from our own cannonade.

The noise has died away—a lull in the storm.

Now and then can be detected the murmur of a Boche avion.

Five A.M., zero hour.—A burst of rockets.

The doughboys are out of their canals and into the mud.

The surf of sound rolls back once more from a coast of flame.

For one mighty moment the terrible volume of din came to climax. Then the roar struck its pitch and went on as it had through the night, dying, swelling, incoherent, incomprehensible.

Dawn was dull but rainless. A wreath of smoke overhung the hollows. There was no sun.

An aeroplane came out of the west, scarcely clearing the tree tops. From Broussey all along the road it followed the line of the batteries. But no one noticed it until a huge black cross on a white ground loomed in a cloud above our heads. We were not kept in ignorance of its intentions.

“Put-put-put,” came a report like the hammering of a pneumatic riveter. “Put-put-put!”

Branches falling from a tree beside the first section were the first indication that from close range The gunner and Number One gazed up in puzzlement at the airplane now streaking along toward the east.

The chief of section was setting his quadrant. He placed it on the gun, watched the bubble come to rest and held up his hand.

“Read-ee! Fire!”

The incident was over. In competition with a barrage, machine gun bullets somehow don't sound so murderous.

Five-thirty A.M.—The first of the wounded - all Frenchmen—are straggling back across the stone bridge.
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Well up in the van is the youth who with the nine other soldats occupied our dugout night before last. He is no laughing now, though a smile of recognition crosses his face as he passes us. His left arm is hanging limp and blood is oozing through the bandages on his shoulder.

Most of the men come in pairs leaning upon one another. Some are in two-wheeled litters, covered with blankets and still.

Six A.M. - A company of French engineers and a burial squad, cheerful and fresh-looking, have just gone forward. While they were marching toward the front lines, the tide of wounded machine gunners was temporarily stemmed. But it was only temporary. The blue-clad individuals, squads and platoons are limping towards Broussey again.

Machine guns have a trait that one realizes at once as he listens with a chill to their stuttering. They never shoot by accident or at random. When they open up they are speaking to somebody. Some one’s life is in the balance.

The guns bark on with their barrage. It is almost mechanical now. The routine checking of sights and quadrants is hardly necessary.

Eleven 11 A.M.—Cease firing!

French patrols are working on Mont Sec, says the order. Which, unbelievable as it sounds, has a tremendous significance. The Boche has abandoned his stronghold. The hill where 40,000 men lost their lives in as many minutes is ours, virtually without a struggle.

The cooks are bringing over coffee and sandwiches, prepared in an old barn where tiles from the shattered roof fall intermittently into the soup.

The men are not waiting for food. They are lying down in the mud, dead for sleep.

It is raining again.