And they thought we wouldn't fight

After Frank's removal from our ward, the rest of us frequently sent messages of cheer down to him. These messages were usually carried by a young American woman who had a particular interest in our ward. Not strange to say, she had donned a Red Cross nursing uniform on the same day that most of us arrived in that ward. She was one of the American women who brought us fruit, ice cream, candy and cigarettes. She wrote letters for us to our mothers. She worked long hours, night and day, for us. In her absence, one day, the ward went into session and voted her its guardian angel. Out of modesty, I was forced to answer "Present" instead of "Aye" to the roll-call. The Angel was and is my wife.

As Official Ward Angel it was among the wife's duties to handle the matter of visitors, of which there were many. It seemed, during those early days in June, that every American woman in France dropped whatever war work she was doing and rushed to the American hospitals to be of whatever service she could. And it was not easy work these women accomplished. There was very little "forehead-rubbing" or "moving picture nursing." Much of it was tile corridor scrubbing and pan cleaning. They stopped at no tasks they were called upon to perform. Many of them worked themselves sick during the long hours of that rush period.

Sometimes the willingness, eagerness and sympathy of some of the visitors produced humourous little incidents in our hospital life. Nearly all of the women entering our ward would stop at the foot of "Big Boy's" bed. They would learn of his paralysed condition from the chart attached to the foot of the bed. Then they would mournfully shake their heads and slowly pronounce the words "Poor boy."

And above all things in the world distasteful to Big Boy was that one expression "Poor boy" because as soon as the kindly intentioned women would leave the room, the rest of the ward would take up the "Poor boy" chorus until Big Boy got sick of it. Usually, however, before leaving the ward the woman visitor would take from a cluster of flowers on her arm, one large red rose and this she would solemnly deposit on Big Boy's defenceless chest.

Big Boy would smile up to her a look which she would accept and interpret as one of deep, undying gratitude. The kindly-intentioned one surrounding herself with that benediction that is derived from a sacred duty well performed, would walk slowly from the room and as the door would close behind her, Big Boy's gruff drawling voice would sing out in a call for the orderly.

"Dan, remove the funeral decorations," he would order.

Dan Sullivan, our orderly, was the busiest man in the hospital. Big Boy liked to smoke, but, being paralysed, he required assistance. At regular intervals during the day the ward room door, which was close to Big Boy's bed, would open slowly and through the gap four or six inches wide the rest of the ward would get a glimpse of Dan standing in the opening with his arms piled high with pots and utensils, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

With one hand he would extract the cigarette, insert hand and arm through the opening in the door until it hovered above Big Boy's face. Then the hand would descend and the cigarette would be inserted in Big Boy's mouth just as you would stick a pin in a pin-cushion. Big Boy would lie back comfortably and puff away like a Mississippi steamboat for four or five minutes and then the door would open just a crack again, the mysterious hand and arm would reach in once more and the cigarette would be plucked out. That was the way Big Boy got his "smokes."

If Big Boy's voice was gruff, there was still a gruffer voice that used to come from a man in the corner of the ward to the left of my bed. During the first four or five days I was an inmate of the ward, I was most interested in all the voices I heard because I lay in total darkness. The bandages extended down from the top of my head to my upper lip, and I did not know whether or not I ever would see again. I would listen carefully to all remarks within ear-shot, whether they be from doctors, nurses or patients. I listened in the hope that from them I might learn whether or not there was a possibility of my regaining vision. But all of their remarks with regard to my condition were ambiguous and unsatisfactory. But from this I gained a listening habit and that was how I became particularly interested in the very gruff voice that came from the corner on my left.

Other patients directing remarks into that corner would address them to a man whom they would call by name "Red Shannahan." I was quick to connect the gruff voice and the name "Red Shannahan," and as I had lots of time and nothing else to do, I built up in my mind's eye a picture of a tall, husky, rough and ready, tough Irishman, with red hair – a man of whom it would be conceivable that he had wiped out some two or three German regiments before they got him. To find out more about this character, I called over to him one day.

"Red Shannahan, are you there?" I said.

"Yes, Mr. Gibbons, I'm here," came the reply, and I was immensely surprised because it was not the gruff voice at all. It was the mild, unchanged voice of a boy, a boy whose tones were still in the upper register. The reply seemed almost girlish in comparison with the gruffer tones of the other patients and I marvelled that the owner of this polite, mannerly, high-pitched voice could be known by any such name as "Red Shannahan." I determined upon further investigation.

"Red Shannahan, what work did you do before you became a United States soldier?" I asked.

"Mr. Gibbons," came the reply, almost girlishly, "I am from Baltimore. I drove the wagon for Mr. Bishop, the canary bird and gold fish man."

All that had happened to this canary bird fancier and gold fish tamer was that he had killed two Germans and captured three before they got him.

Among those who came to visit us in that ward, there appeared one day a man I had not seen in many years. When I knew him last he had been a sport-loving fellow-student of mine at college and one of the fastest, hardest-fighting ends our 'Varsity football squad ever had. Knowing this disposition of the man, I was quite surprised to see on the sleeve of his khaki service uniform the red shield and insignia of the Knights of Columbus.

I was well aware of the very valuable work done by this institution wherever American soldiers are in France, but I could not imagine this former college chum of mine being engaged in such work instead of being in the service. He noticed my silence and he said, "Gib, do you remember that game with the Indians on Thanksgiving Day?"

"Yes," I replied, "they hurt your leg that day."

"Yes," replied my old college mate, whom we might as well call MacDougal inasmuch as that was not his name. "Yes, they took that leg away from me three years later."

I knew then why MacDougal was with the K. C. and I wondered what service he would perform in our ward in the name of his organisation. I soon found out. Without introduction, MacDougal proceeded to the bedside of Dan Bailey, the Infantryman with one leg off, who was lying in a bed on my right. MacDougal walked back and forth two or three times past the foot of Bailey's bed.

"How does that look?" he said to Bailey. "Do I walk all right?"

"Looks all right to me," replied Bailey; "what's the matter with you?"

MacDougal then began jumping, skipping and hopping up and down and across the floor at the foot of Bailey's bed. Finishing these exercises breathlessly, he again addressed himself to the sufferer with one leg.

"How did that look?" he said. "Did that look all right?"

"I don't see anything the matter with you," replied Bailey, "unless it is that you're in the wrong ward."

Then MacDougal stood close by Bailey's bedside where the boy with one leg could watch him closely. MacDougal took his cane and struck his own right leg a resounding whack. And we all knew by the sound of the blow that the leg he struck was wooden.

In that peculiar way did MacDougal bring into the life of Dan Bailey new interest and new prospects. He proved to Dan Bailey that for the rest of his life Dan Bailey with an artificial limb could walk about and jump and skip and hop almost as well as people with two good legs. That was the service performed by the Knights of Columbus in our ward.

There was one other organisation in that hospital that deserves mention. It was the most exclusive little clique and rather inclined towards snobbishness. I was a member of it. We used to look down on the ordinary wounded cases that had two eyes. We enjoyed, either rightly or wrongly, a feeling of superiority. Death comes mighty close when it nicks an eye out of your head. All of the one-eyed cases and some of the no-eyed cases received attention in one certain ward, and it was to this ward after my release from the hospital that I used to go every day for fresh dressings for my wounds. Every time I entered the ward a delegation of one-eyed would greet me as a comrade and present me with a petition. In this petition I was asked and urged to betake myself to the hospital library, to probe the depths of the encyclopædias and from their wordy innards tear out one name for the organisation of the one-eyed. This was to be our life long club, they said, and the insistence was that the name above all should be a "classy" name. So it came to pass that after much research and debate one name was accepted and from that time on we became known as the Cyclops Club.

A wonderful Philadelphia surgeon was in charge of the work in that ward. Hundreds of American soldiers for long years after the war will thank him for seeing. I thank him for my sight now. His name is Dr. Fewell. The greatest excitement in the ward prevailed one day when one of the doctor's assistants entered carrying several flat, hard wood cases, each of them about a yard square. The cases opened like a book and were laid flat on the table. Their interiors were lined with green velvet and there on the shallow receptacles in the green velvet were just dozens of eyes, gleaming unblinkingly up at us.

A shout went up and down the ward and the Cyclopians gathered around the table. There was a grand grab right and left. Everybody tried to get a handful. There was some difficulty reassorting the grabs. Of course, it happened, that fellows that really needed blue or grey ones, managed to get hold of black ones or brown ones, and some confusion existed while they traded back and forth to match up proper colours, shades and sizes.

One Cyclopian was not in on the grab. In addition to having lost one eye, he had received about a pound and a half of assorted hardware in his back, and these flesh wounds confined him to his bed. He had been sleeping and he suddenly awoke during the distribution of the glassware. He apparently became alarmed with the thought that he was going to be left out of consideration. I saw him sit bolt upright in bed as he shouted clear across the ward:

"Hey, Doc, pass the grapes."

When it became possible for me to leave that hospital, I went to another one three blocks away. This was a remarkable institution that had been maintained by wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I was assigned to a room on the third floor – a room adjoining a sun parlour, overlooking a beautiful Old World garden with a lagoon, rustic bridges, trees and shrubbery.

In early June, when that flood of American wounded had come back from the Marne, it had become necessary to erect hospital ward tents in the garden and there a number of our wounded were cared for. I used to notice that every day two orderlies would carry out from one of the small tents a small white cot on which there lay an American soldier. They would place the cot on the green grass where the sunlight, finding its way through the leafy branches of the tree, would shine down upon the form of this young – this very young – fighter from the U. S. A.

He was just two months over seventeen years of age. He had deliberately and patriotically lied one year on his age in order that he might go to France and fight beneath our flag.

He was wounded, but his appearance did not indicate how badly. There were no bandages about his head, arms or body. There was nothing to suggest the severity of his injuries – nothing save his small round spot on the side of his head where the surgeons had shaved away the hair – just a small round spot that marked the place where a piece of German hand-grenade had touched the skull.

This little fellow had forgotten everything. He could not remember – all had slipped his mind save for the three or four lines of one little song, which was the sole remaining memory that bridged the gap of four thousand miles between him and his home across the sea.

Over and over again he would sing it all day long as he lay there on the cot with the sunlight streaming all over him. His sweet boyish voice would come up through the leafy branches to the windows of my room.

I frequently noticed my nurse standing there at the window listening to him. Then I would notice that her shoulders would shake convulsively and she would walk out of the room, wet eyed but silent. And the song the little fellow sang was this:

"Just try to picture meBack home in Tennessee,Right by my mother's kneeShe thinks the world of me.She will be there to meet meWith a hug and kiss she'll greet me,When I get back, when I get backTo my home in Tennessee."

American doctors and American nurses, both by their skill and care and tenderness, nursed that little fellow back to complete recovery, made him remember everything and shortly afterward, well and cured, he started back, safe and sound, to his home in Tennessee.

Nothing I can ever say will overstate my estimation of the credit that is deserved by our American doctors and nurses for the great work they are doing. I am not alone in knowing this. I call to witness any Canadian, Englishman or Frenchman, that, if he is wounded, when in the ambulance, he usually voices one request, "Take me to an American hospital."

I knew of one man who entered that United States Military Base Hospital near Paris, with one bullet through the shoulder, another through an arm, an eye shot out and a compound fracture of the skull, and those American doctors and nurses by their attention and skilfulness made it possible for him to step back into boots and breeches and walk out of the hospital in ten days.

It so happens that I am somewhat familiar with the details in that case because I am the man.

CHAPTER XIX

"JULY 18TH" – THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Through the steady growth of Marshal Foch's reserves, by the speedy arrival of American forces, the fourth German offensive of 1918, the personally directed effort launched by the Crown Prince on May 27th, had been brought to a standstill.

The German thrust toward Paris had been stopped by the Americans at Château-Thierry and in the Bois de Belleau. It would be an injustice not to record the great part played in that fighting by the French Army attacked, but it would be equally unjust not to specify as the French have gallantly done, that it was the timely arrival of American strength that swung the balance against the enemy. For the remainder of that month of June and up to the middle of July, the fighting was considered local in its character.

The German offensive had succeeded in pushing forward the enemy front until it formed a loop extending southward from the Aisne to the Valley of the Marne. This salient was called the Château-Thierry pocket. The line ran southward from a point east of Soissons to Château-Thierry, where it touched the Marne, thence eastward along both sides of the river to the vicinity of Oeuilly where it recrossed the Marne and extended northward to points beyond Rheims.

Château-Thierry was thus the peak of the German push – the apex of the triangle pointing toward Paris. The enemy supplied its forces in this peak principally by the road that ran southward from Soissons and touched the Marne at Château-Thierry. To the west of this road and just south of the city of Soissons, is the forest of Villers-Cotterets. The enemy occupied the northern and eastern limits of the forest and the remainder of it was in the hands of the French.

This forest has always been considered one of the sentinels of Paris. It was located on the right flank of the German salient. It was a menace to that flank, and offered a most attractive opportunity for an Allied counter offensive from that direction. The Germans were not unmindful of this.

The enemy knew that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets it would be possible for Marshal Foch to mobilise his much-feared reserves by taking advantage of the natural screen provided by the forest. That Foch reserve still remained a matter for enemy consideration in spite of the fact that the successive German offensive since March 21st had met with considerable success with regard to the acquisition of territory. The Germans, however, had been unable to ascertain whether Foch had been forced to bring his reserves into the fight.

The situation demanded a full realisation by the enemy of the possible use of this reserve at any time and they knew that their lines in Villers-Cotterets Forest offered an ever present invitation for the sudden application of this reserve strength. Their lines at that point were necessarily weak by the superiority of the Allied position and, as a consequence, the Germans guarded this weak spot by holding in reserve behind the line a number of divisions of the Prussian Guard.

For the same reason, the enemy maintained constant observation of the French position. Their planes would fly over the forest every day taking photographs. They sought to discover any evidences indicating that Foch might be preparing to strike a blow from that place. They made careful note of the traffic along the roads through the forest. They maintained a careful watch to ascertain whether new ammunition dumps were being concealed under the trees. Their observers tried to ascertain whether any additional hospital arrangements had been made by the French at that point. Any of these things would have indicated that the French were preparing to strike through the forest but the Germans found nothing to support their suspicions.

Nevertheless, they maintained their lines at maximum strength. A belief existed among the German High Command that an attack might be made on July 4th, out of consideration to American sentiment. When the attack did not develop on that day, they then thought that the French might possibly spring the blow on July 14th, in celebration of their own national fête day. And again they were disappointed in their surmises.

This protracted delay of an impending blow worried the enemy. The Germans realised full well that they were fighting against time. Their faith in the capacity of their submarines to prevent American strength from reaching the line, had been abandoned. They now knew that every day that passed meant just that many more American soldiers arriving in France, and the consequent strengthening of the Allied forces during a season when the Germans, through their repeated offensives, were suffering terrible losses and were consequently growing weaker.

So, on July 14th, when the Allied counter-offensive had still failed to materialise, the German forces, by the necessity for time, moved to a sudden and faulty decision. They convinced themselves that they had overestimated the Allied strength. They accepted the belief that the reason Foch had not attacked was because he did not have sufficient strength to attack. With this, then, as a basis for their plans, they immediately launched another offensive, hoping that this might be the one in which they could deliver the final blow.

This action began on Monday morning, July 15th, and extended from Château-Thierry eastward along the valley of the Maine, northward to Rheims and thence eastward. By a remarkable coup, one small patrol of French and Americans deprived the enemy of the element of surprise in the attack. On the morning of the previous day, this patrol successfully raided the enemy lines to the east of Rheims and brought back prisoners from whom it was learned that the Germans intended striking on the following morning. The objectives of the offensive were the French cities of Épernay and Châlons. The accomplishment of this effort would have placed the Rheims salient in the hands of the enemy and brought the German lines southward to positions straddling the Marne, down the valley of which they would thus be able to launch another offensive on a straight road to Paris.

The Germans needed considerable strength for this new effort. To muster the shock divisions necessary for the attack, they had to weaken their lines elsewhere. The first reserves that they drew for this offensive were the Prussian Guard divisions which they had been holding in readiness in back of the weak spot in their line in the Villers-Cotterets Forest. Those divisions were hurriedly transported across the base of the V-shaped salient and thrown into the attack to the east and the southwest of Rheims.

The Germans found the Allied line prepared to receive them. Their attacking waves were mowed down with terrific machine gun fire from French and American gunners, while at the same time heavy artillery barrages played upon the German back areas with deadly effect in the massed ranks of the reserves. The fighting was particularly vicious. It was destined to be the Germans' last action of a grand offensive nature in the entire war.

On the line east of Rheims, the German assault was particularly strong in one sector where it encountered the sturdy ranks of the Rainbow Division of United States National Guardsmen, drawn from a dozen or more different states in the Union. Regiments from Alabama and New York held the front line. Iowa and Ohio were close in support. In the support positions, sturdy youngsters from Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota manned the American artillery.

The French general commanding the sector had not considered it possible that this comparatively small American force could withstand the first onslaught of the Germans. He had made elaborate plans for a withdrawal to high ground two or three miles southward, from which he hoped to be able to resist the enemy to greater advantage. But all day long, through the 15th and the 16th and the 17th of July, those American lines held, and the advancing waves of German storm troops melted before our guns. Anticipating a renewal of the attack on the next day, General Gouraud issued an order on the evening of July 17th. It read:

"To the French and American Soldiers of the Army.

"We may be attacked from one moment to another. You all feel that a defensive battle was never engaged in under more favourable conditions. We are warned, and we are on our guard. We have received strong reinforcements of infantry and artillery. You will fight on ground, which, by your assiduous labour, you have transformed into a formidable fortress, into a fortress which is invincible if the passages are well guarded.

"The bombardment will be terrible. You will endure it without weakness. The attack in a cloud of dust and gas will be fierce but your positions and your armament are formidable.

"The strong and brave hearts of free men beat in your breast. None will look behind, none will give way. Every man will have but one thought – 'Kill them, kill them in abundance, until they have had enough.' And therefore your General tells you it will be a glorious day."

And so the line held, although the French General had in preparation the plans for withdrawal. When, at the end of the third day, the American line still occupied the same position, the French General found that his labour in preparing the plans for withdrawal had been for nothing. He is reported to have thrown his hands up in the air and remarked, "There doesn't seem to be anything to do but to let the war be fought out where the New York Irish and the Alabamans want to fight it."

There was one humorous incident worthy of record in that fighting. Great rivalry existed between the New York regiment and the Alabama regiment, both of which happened to be units of the same brigade. Both the New Yorkers and the Alabamans had a mutual hatred for the German but, in addition to that, each of them was possessed with a mutual dislike for the other. There had been frequent clashes of a more or less sportsmanlike and fistic nature between men from both of the regiments.