Читать книгу What the "Boys" Did Over There - Various - Страница 8

Table of Contents

BY CORP. FRANK J. SEARS, CO. A, 9TH INFANTRY, 2D DIV., A.E.F.

IN THE winter of 1917 we found ourselves marching along a little road somewhere in France. It was cold and dismal and the hail came down in sheets, but we marched on and on. I looked at the fellow alongside of me and could not tell whether he was ready to laugh or cry. There was not much talking en route. I didn't feel much like talking myself and couldn't understand what made me feel so downhearted. It was the day we all looked and hoped for our chance in the battle. When we took over our sector, one kilometer from St. Mihiel, the French told us it was a quiet sector and to keep it that way. The first four days we did not care how quiet it was so long as we were allowed down in the dugouts. The shells whizzing past our heads annoyed us a little, it being our first experience. It took us a few days to become accustomed to our new home and the noise of bursting shrapnel. We knew we were not going to stay there long. In the American Army we never do linger long in one place as there is no retreat in our army.

CORPORAL FRANK J. SEARS

There was only one direction for us to follow and that was toward Berlin.

The idea of the French telling us to keep Verdun sector quiet amused us, for, while we had no desire to start anything for a few days, there wasn't a "yellow" man in our bunch. Yet we hesitated, before we became accustomed to the noise, to take our first chance at, what we termed, slaughter. However, one night, about seven days after we took over our sector with the French Army, a "Fritz" sent over one of his 77 shrapnel shells which wiped out our entire mess shack. That was a bad mistake on "Fritzie's" part for it was a serious offense for anybody to tamper with the Sammie's "chow." No matter how hard a night he has spent he will always get up an appetite where there is anything to eat. That night we formed a raiding party. We crept out of the first line trench with three squads. It was our first entry into No Man's Land and we had heard so many strange tales about this place, we shied at everything we saw. We split up into squads. Our password was to knock three times on the helmet. So we parted. I went off to the right with a squad. Each man covered his ground, trying to find out whether the Hun had any intention of making a raid next day. The trenches are protected by barbed-wire fences and when the Huns intend going "Over the Top" they cut the wires on the previous night, and it was our duty to find out whether or not these wires had been cut. The barbed wire was O. K. on the ground we covered, so we started back to meet the other squads. We did not go far, for about ten feet away we heard a noise, which is something unusual on a raiding party in No Man's Land. We stopped short and looked at each other. We did not know what to do, for, as I have said, this was our first experience. One of the boys said to me, "Give them the signal." I knocked three times on my helmet, but received no reply, so one of the boys said he would creep over and investigate; but it wasn't necessary, because just then a skyrocket went up into the air. Every soldier knows that this means to get under cover quickly for the rocket would light up the sky and make nice targets of us for "Fritz." Luckily for us there was a shell-hole to jump into, for as soon as we laid low, there came the "pop," "pop," "pop" of the German machine guns. We laid there in the mud, through what seemed to us like an eternity, but which was in reality only about two hours. However, luck was with us, and we finally crawled out of our hiding place and arrived behind our own lines once more.

Editor's Note.—For his gallantry in this raid, of which he says nothing in the above article, Corporal Sears was awarded the "Croix de Guerre" by the French Government.

—H. L. F.