Winning a Cause Part 23

Overcoming all obstacles, he led the nation to victory. Down into the trenches he went, risking his life in the very front lines, that he might go among his soldiers to cheer them, and to let them know that he did not send his men where he would not go himself.

His behavior toward his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, on February 19, 1919, was in itself a striking example of his daring, fighting spirit. As he rode home in his car from the Peace Conference, a man aimed and fired at him. Instantly Premier Clemenceau pushed open the door of his car, and, while the man continued firing, sprang upon him and grappled with him until the police reached the spot and seized the offender. Five bullets had been shot, only one of which lodged itself in the "Old Tiger's" shoulder, and did no great harm.

Even those who opposed Clemenceau's political policies, strongly denounced the attempt upon his life, which had been made by a supposed Russian socialist. Thus this keen, jovial, loyal defender of liberty has come into the love of all his people.

An unnamed poilu sent Premier Clemenceau his Croix de Guerre, with the following letter:--

"You have not been given the Croix de Guerre. Here is mine, bearing only two stars. You merit two palms."

Clemenceau is reported to have wept when he read the letter.

It gave him untold pleasure to serve as the nation's host during the visit of President Wilson--with whom, as representative of the great republic of the United States, he should further help to establish freedom throughout the world.

THE LOST BATTALION

On December 24, 1918, Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Whittlesey of Pittsfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, was presented in the presence of 20,000 people on Boston Common by Major General Edwards with the congressional Medal of Honor, the highest tribute of valor the United States awards.

General Edwards presented the medal with these words: "Your heroic act thrilled the entire American Expeditionary Force. It was a piece of stout-hearted work that reflected credit upon the part of yourself and of the men who were serving under you. It sustained the best traditions of American arms and valor. It is a great pleasure to have the presentation a.s.signed to me; I regard it as a sacred duty."

Lieutenant Colonel Whittlesey smiled, and straightening up to his full stature of six feet and four inches, simply said, "I thank you, General."

The medal was given to reward his courage and determination when with his "lost battalion" he was surrounded by the Germans in the Argonne forest.

On the fourth day of suffering in the cold and rain without food or blankets, when their ammunition was almost gone, an American who had been taken prisoner by the Germans was sent to Major Whittlesey--his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel came later--with a written message saying, "Americans, you are surrounded on all sides. Surrender in the name of humanity. You will be well treated."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Major General Clarence R. Edwards, former commander of the Twenty-sixth Division, pinning the congressional Medal of Honor on the breast of Lieutenant Colonel Charles W. Whittlesey.]

Major Whittlesey's exclamation when he had read the message was very brief and very forceful. It made the Germans understand without further parley that the Americans would never surrender. Major Whittlesey's men cheered his reply. Not one of them, cold, hungry, and almost exhausted, thought for a moment of surrendering.

Several days before on the morning of September 26, they had entered the Argonne forest, as a part of the line of American attack. At five-thirty in the morning, they had gone "over the top" in a very heavy fog and behind their creeping barrage toward the German trenches.

They had to force their pa.s.sage through trees, shrubs, vines, and undergrowth grown all together so that it was almost impossible to advance and yet keep in touch with one another as they were ordered to do.

They reached the first German trenches which were named the _Ludwig_.

The Huns named their trenches so as to identify them readily in orders and upon the maps. These trenches were empty and they went on to a row of fancy concrete and iron dugouts, called by the Germans _Karlsruhe_, where they made their headquarters for the night.

The next day they met stubborn resistance from artillery and nests of machine guns, but they were able to make progress. In the first mile they pa.s.sed over twelve abandoned trench systems.

As they went forward they left men behind at regular intervals to keep them in touch with the regimental headquarters. Along this line of men, stationed near enough together to communicate easily with each other, orders, ammunition, and rations could be pa.s.sed.

The Germans knew their plan and as the battalion in the next days gradually got ahead of the main American line and out of touch with it on the flanks, the Huns pushed through, killed part of the men on the line of communication, and surrounded it, placing machine-gun nests in the rear.

When Major Whittlesey discovered their predicament, he directed his adjutant, Lieutenant Arthur McKeogh, with two men to make an attempt to get back to regimental headquarters and inform the colonel of the situation. Lieutenant McKeogh has told the story of his success. It is intensely exciting and makes one s.h.i.+ver at the horror of men, who have no personal enmity but might be friends, killing one another, and also makes one thrill with pride and admiration for the courage that dares even to death--not the quick death of the glorious charge, but the slow death of thirst, exhaustion, and fatigue. It shows us the worst and the best of war, and that the worst is too great a price to pay for the best. Lieutenant McKeogh writes in an article in _Collier's_:--

I took Munson and Herschowitz, and on hands and knees, with drawn revolvers, we began a detour of the nests. I was keeping my direction by compa.s.s every foot of the way. We had been going a scant ten minutes when shots from a light Maxim and rifles broke out in front. I thought we had been spotted, but after a wait, when we started again, we crawled within a few feet of the real target, now lifeless; he was in khaki and apparently he had strayed from his outfit. During our wait we saw a boche pa.s.sing through the trees. From the crackling of the brush there seemed to be others. With my lips I made the words "Don't fire" to my runners, and then covered him, in case he saw us.

He went by. Realizing that we might have something of a time of it getting through, I motioned the runners to my side, read the messages to them in whispers and had them repeat. Then scooping out a little hole in the sodden leaves under my chin, I buried the messages, with several others from my map case, in fine pieces. Next I impressed upon them that our mission was not to fight unless forced to it, but to get back to the regiment, all of us, if possible; one, certainly.

Consequently we would separate when it became necessary.

Half an hour's traveling brought us to a broad clearing, cleaving the forest as far as I could see, on a true north-south line. Our direction was south, and the trail down the center of the clearing meant real progress, although I knew trails to be dangerous. We were not long upon it, when suddenly, out of a side trail, two German officers appeared, fifty yards ahead.

The one in advance shouted something with "Kamerad" in it. But at the same time he was leveling his pistol at me, and I needed no interpreter.

We darted off the trail behind a bush at its edge. The boches fired into the bush as they came. We stretched out and waited. In front of me a bough ran low and parallel to the ground; upon it I rested my pistol, directing it upon the trail through the thin leaves underneath.

Presently Herr Offizier came creeping along, bent to the waist and peering through the bush. We looked squarely into each other's eyes as we fired, less than ten feet separating us. Being settled and ready for him, my gun had about a second the better of his. I aimed at his mouth, allowing for the rise of the bullet from the "kick." As he fired I actually felt the concussion against my face, we were so close; then a hot, sharp pain in my right forearm, as if some one had suddenly pushed a white-hot knife blade along under the elbow when I hadn't been looking.

Munson and Herschowitz fired too, and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got off four in quick succession.

Now we made for the thick of the woods. My resolution was to stick to them though they should be thick as fish glue. Under good cover Munson dressed my wound. My fingers had begun stiffening up a bit, and I worked them to keep the trigger finger in good trim, thinking at the time what a ludicrous shot I'd be with the left hand. A thought for soldiers in training: Are you ambidextrous? I've never fired a shot with the left.

The wound itself was a puzzler. Almost at once the arm swelled until it seemed that a duck egg had been inserted under the flesh. But, feeling around it, there was no hard substance beneath. The sleeve showed two holes within three inches of each other where the cartridge had gone in and out. What probably happened was that my shot had diverted his aim and his bullet had pa.s.sed under my crooked elbow and armpit, merely searing the forearm in a caressing sort of way. The blood was negligible. Altogether, it was a "cushy blighty," as the Tommy puts it. We reloaded our revolvers to wait for nightfall. There was a bit of stale bread in the bottom of my gas mask, forgotten until now. I split it into three parts, about two mouthfuls for each, and dug out some half-soaked cigarettes.

"We'll have a smoke, Jack" (military rank is forgotten sometimes), "if it's the last," I said, and he agreed with a wan sort of smile.

Herschowitz whispered that he didn't smoke, and dropped asleep as the words left his mouth.

None of us had water. And we were very thirsty. The boys had white, sticky saliva in the corners of their mouths, and, from the feel of mine, I knew that I had too.

To the inevitable monody of machine guns, we dozed until dusk came.

Then with compa.s.s and revolver, one in each hand, I started again upon the eternal crawl. My arm had grown in circ.u.mference until the sleeve was tight upon it. Crawling added nothing to its comfort, for to do the crawfish stroke the elbows are pushed out ahead and upon them as anchors the rest of the body is then drawn up. As yet it was not necessary to go so carefully. But when, after hours, we came to a clearing as grateful as I was for the chance of unhampered movement, I dropped to hands and knees. Ten minutes of thus s.h.i.+nning pa.s.sed without event. Then suddenly a boche voice called out, a little to our front: "_Bist du Deutsch_?" That much German I understood. We flattened. As it happened, we were at the foot of a tree at the base of which grew brush. We lay motionless. Again the voice, with its demand in intonation.

Then the bolt of a rifle clicked clearly and the owner of the voice fired. The flash was clear against the night. From the right and left of the flash, and close to it, came other flashes. The bullets whined harmlessly above us.

Was this a small, mobile party? If so, they would be slinking about.

But during half an hour of their intermittent firing the position of the flashes never changed. That looked like funk holes! And if it was a case of funk holes, by all the nasty little elves of tough luck, _we had stumbled right into a German position_!

By watching the direction of the flashes I tried to determine their front. Cupping my hand over the radio-lighted dial of my compa.s.s, I studied it in connection with their bursts of fire. They seemed to be firing north. But north was our own battalion front, and theirs, according to the military logic of things, south, unless--unless they had swung in from our flank behind us and had dug in facing our rear!

No amount of juggling of the compa.s.s could satisfactorily account for the position of those bodies. So I settled down to waiting tactics.

Clearly, it's wise to let your enemy think you have moved off while he is most on the alert for your movement. After that he relaxes vigilance, and you stand a better chance of getting away without foreign substances under the skin.

I whispered--oh, very softly--that we would stay here for some time.

Possibly an hour. And then I fell asleep!

Munson woke me by gently pounding on my thigh. I don't remember the time. Must have been around midnight. The funk holes were quiet now, and we wormed away in a new direction without drawing fire. I recollect seeing the s.h.i.+ny hobnails and the horseshoe of steel on the runners' boots as I crawled back past them to take the lead. I wondered at what distance they were visible.

Occasionally my helmet would come afoul of a vine or small branch; and then like cathedral bells to my overstrained ears the edge of the helmet would make a little ringing sound. I berated myself for ever having removed its burlap camouflage, though it gathered all the sand in the world to deposit in my hair.

Once I heard Munson struggling to restrain a cough. We froze to the ground while he sputtered as softly as he could. And I was to know later what mental as well as physical torture the sensation is. For hours it seemed, painstakingly, inch by inch, we wormed our way out of those funk holes. _Out_, as I thought. But it was deeper into them that we went!

I was congratulating myself on leaving the hotbed, as I headed for a bush, when, just at the fringe of it, and almost out of its very leaves, came another demand in German.

This was a moment for quick action. It was time for the message to go back by three individuals on different routes. I heard the safety lock of a rifle snapped back. He would fire the next minute. Springing up, I shouted: "Separate!" to the boys, and ran as fast as I could, helter-skelter down the side of a gradual slope. I was making no effort at stooping now. Speed was my salvation, if anything was.

Rifles barked all around. For a moment or two I heard the runners cras.h.i.+ng through the brush. Several shots hummed past me, but I was too preoccupied to notice them much. I knew I'd have to get cover soon--before they saw and dropped me. Just ahead, in dark outline, I spotted what seemed to be a providential bit of cover. I made for it full tilt, the sloping ground quickening my pace.

I hurled myself at it, legs first and spread apart, so as to land in a sitting position. It was so that I did land--right astride the shoulders of a boche. I had selected a German funk hole for cover!