| Chapter 1 |
At early dawn we continued advancing "over the top" through clouds of gas and smoke-under rain of machine gun bullets, shrapnel and steel. The Huns were shelling heavily the edge of the roadside. It was freezing cold; we were out of water and had just a small ration of salmon and hard-tack. Completely exhausted and thirsting for a drink, I remember grabbing a canteen from a passing artillery caison to soothe my parched lips, when the explosion of a shell sent over deadly gas, getting four of our men. We got down in a valley for awhile during a machine gun barrage and then up again, firing away at the enemy as fast as our automatics could work. For hours the fight continued, for hours the veterans of the 89th pushed forward. A little farther ahead, in a ditch, my partner and I took turn about to rest, but our work had just begun. So many of our men were getting wounded and as the litter-bearer was killed while going out under fire for wounded, my sergeant sent me with another man to replace him. It was a dangerous situation going over grounds of Hell, as we had to go up and get them under machine gun and rifle fire. Now and then our men were hit while changing reliefs, our dead and wounded lay everywhere. We picked up our first man with a bullet in his stomach and started back one-third of a mile to the horse-drawn ambulance as fast as we could when an enemy shell exploded, throwing dirt all over us and sending shrapnel between the stretcher and me. I felt a cold chill run down my back, as it was a wonder it didn't get all three of us; yet I was not going to put down that stretcher with the poor fellow on it for the world! They followed us up a second time but could not get the exact range on us. The next day we moved up to Beauclair, another town which the Germans were shelling. We started back again to get other wounded continuing our first aid and litter-bearer work. Our next trip was for two of our own boys. As I carried their wounded forms from off the battlefield of carnage and misery, I thought of their mothers, who were keeping the home fires burning, waiting for the return of these boys! On our way back again to the lines we turned off abruptly dodging two German "snipers' who gave us hell for a few moments before we got the best of them. We began picking up the wounded as fast as they came and bandaging those in need of first aid. It was a heart rending sight that weakened the strongest, for everywhere were wounded and lifeless forms - some all torn to pieces, their limbs and heads entirely severed from their bodies! I remember making a trip about a mile under heavy gun fire to get a wounded stretcher-bearer whose partner had been killed. He was a game little Yank, yet a pitiful sight, with his side all ripped open by shrapnel. As I laid him gently on the stretcher, I still remember his last uttered words, "Oh God, if I could only live to die at home!" |