The most memorable day that I spent upon the battlefield
was in Juvigny. We had been through Chateau Thierry, so that
the newness of the war had worn off. The heavy shelling that
we received at Death Valley had thinned our tanks and made fighting
a matter of course. I minded the whizzing and whirring and exploding
shells much less than I did the terrible stench of the dead,
the horror of the blood-covered field and the great swarms of
annoying flies. It had rained and rained. Thick mud and drenching
storms made life in the open unattractive. When we left Death
Valley, we felt like veterans.
When we were transferred to the Soisson front, we were taken
to Juvigny. It was an active sector. We moved there
early in September. Six men were assigned to cover the lines
and they were liable to a call to service day or night. These
six men were required to keep open the lines of communication
from the Post of Command to the guns and to the Battalion Headquarters
during the twenty-four hours of the day. Whenever a shell put
our wires out of commission, two men went out to make the repairs.
Juvigny was really our second position on the Soisson front.
Our first position was a mile in the rear of the Juvigny
position. Although we had moved forward under the direct
observation of the enemy, they did not open fire. The Post Commander
had established himself in a very safe German dugout. It was
about forty feet beneath the surface of the earth. It consisted
of three or four rather comfortable rooms. It was hewed out of
the natural rock. The Germans had evacuated it only in part.
We completed the evacuation by taking out a few dead ones. As
a dugout, it was perfectly safe. Down there, one could scarcely
hear the thunder of the fight even at its thickest. The objection
we had to it was that it was a mile from our guns; for us that
meant a mile of wire to keep in working condition under shell
fire.
To make matter worse, our Battalion Headquarters did not
move forward when we advanced to the Juvigny position.
That meant that we had two or three miles more of wire to
guard than we would have had, had our Battalion Headquarters
advanced also.
It was two or three days after we had taken up our advanced
position that the real fighting was done. Then, there was a
perfect storm of shells. One would strike our wire and break
it. We would go out and fix it. By the time we were back to our
post, the wire was out of commission again. So out we went again.
That day was a busy one. It seemed that we repaired wire, only
to repair it again. As we came and went the shells fell around
us. They whirred and whistled and exploded.
I had one real close call. It made me thrill and tremble.
We were well started on a trip to mend the wire when we heard
a German shell coming. My comrade and I fell to the ground.
At that moment there was a terrific explosion. My flesh quivered.
I was sure that my time had come. I knew that I had been hit.
I could feel the holes in my body that shell had made. I felt
as though I were perforated with bullets. I felt riddled and
helpless.
A moment later, we recovered from the shock of the explosion.
Then, my pal and I discovered that our powder box,
about thirty feet from us, had been struck by the shell and
had exploded. When we dropped to the ground for safety, we fell
into a bed of thistles. It was the thistles that supplied the
thousand or so stinging, holey sensations.
For eighteen hours, we six fellows were doctoring up those
two wires. It was a simple operation, but it was a constant
nervous strain. I think that it was the hardest eighteen
hours of work that I shall ever do.