“Halt!”

When above the noise and rattle of the car for a Ford always carries a rattle you hear the stentorian command of the guard, instantly every stopping device is automatically applied.

“Who Goes There?”

“A friend with the countersign.”

“Advance! and give the countersign.”

The guard at charge, with bayonet fixed, awaits your coming. When you get within a few feet of the point of his bayonet the guard again commands, “Halt!” In the silence and blackness of the night you whisper the password and if he is satisfied that you are indeed a friend he says, “Pass, friend.” If he is not satisfied you are detained until your identity has been established.

No matter how many hundreds of times you hear the challenge ring out, each time you hear it a new thrill runs through your whole being and a new respect for military authority holds you captive, for you instinctively know that behind that challenge is the cold steel and a deadly missile.

It was a splendidly camouflaged camionette that I inherited from Hughes when I went to Baccarat on the Alsatian border. In all my dangerous trips, by night and day, it never failed, and I think back to it now with a tenderness bordering on affection.

My first day on the job I was sent out to five huts with supplies, driving my own car and piloting the men who were sent out to pilot me. Although they had been over the roads and were supposed to know the way, they did not have a good sense of direction and so were easily lost.

The headquarters of the 37th Division were at Baccarat on the Alsatian border. Strasburg lay fifty miles to the east and Metz fifty-five miles to the northwest. To hold this front, an area fifteen to twenty miles long, was the task of the Ohio boys until they were relieved by the French the middle of September and sent into the Argonne Forest.

Over this area were scattered twenty-one Y.M.C.A. huts. The Headquarters hut was at Baccarat, which was farthest from the front line about ten miles back as the crow flies. The other huts were scattered over the area at points most advantageous for serving the boys and up to within a few hundred yards of the line. We had thirty-four men and ten women secretaries. Our farthest advanced woman worker had a hut all her own at Hablainville, a village where our troops were billeted and where Fritzie kept everyone on the qui vive by his intermittent gifts of high-explosive bombs and shells.

Miss O’Connor always inspired confidence. It mattered not whether she was dealing with the hysterical French women when bombs exploded in their gardens and fields, or whether she was counseling with the Colonel, at whose table she was the invited guest. Her quiet assurance, her cordial greeting, her intelligent understanding, and her keen sally of wit made her always welcome. And the boys thronged her hut. She did not try to “mother” them the mistake some canteen workers made. Nor did she try to “make an impression” upon them. She quietly lived her life among them. No one could long be boisterous where she was, and so I always found her hut a rendezvous where men were glad to resort as they came from the battle or from camp.

Many were absorbed in their reading, of which there was a good assortment the daily papers, the magazines and a choice collection of books furnished by the American Library Association. Other groups were intent upon chess or checkers, while in the piano corner were the musically inclined. Sometimes it was a piano or a baritone solo, but most often the boys were singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” “The Long, Long Trail,” or “Katy.”

One day when delivering to the hut at Neufchateau, I was attracted by the strains of music that came from the piano in the auditorium the “Y” there had a large double hut. I slipped into a back seat to listen. A group of boys were around the piano while others were scattered through the building attracted as I had been. At the old French piano was a small khaki-clad figure, coaxing from its keys with wizard fingers such strains as we had not dreamed were possible. We were held spellbound until the musician, having finished, quietly walked away, leaving his auditors suspended somewhere between earth and heaven. One by one we walked silently out to our respective duties of helping to make the world safe for such as he.

One Sunday evening just at dusk, I drove to our camp at Ker Avor. The boys called this camp their summer home. It surely was an ideal spot in the heart of a pine forest, high up in the Vosges Mountains. It was also near enough to the enemy lines about a mile distant to make it mighty interesting.

After delivering our supplies to the hut we went out to where a gang of soldiers who were off duty had gathered in the forest. One was playing a harmonica and another was “jigging” and telling funny stories. Instantly and gladly they swung the gathering into a religious service, with songs from the “Y” hymn book and a fine snappy address as a speaker stood on a hummock surrounded by the silent, thoughtful bunch. The sky was our canopy and with the moonlight filtering through the branches of the pines, an indelible impression was registered on every fellow there.

The boys were happy to have us come and showed us about their camp, including an ingenious little chapel which had been built by the Germans during their occupancy of this territory in the early part of the War.

My first near view of the Boche trenches came one day when, waiting for our movie man at one of the huts, I went out “masked and helmeted” to a hill between our first and second lines. The peculiar “chills” and “thrills” of first sensations are indescribable. Cautiously and with some inward trembling I followed Private Van Voliet, of the 146th Infantry (Colonel Weybrecht’s Regiment), across a shell-torn field where twisted wire entanglements told of former fierce encounters. We passed a Stokes mortar battery of the 147th Infantry concealed in low bushes. The boys, lying idly in their dog-tents, wove canes from willow branches wound with wire and capped with bullets. I was presented with a cane by Private Boothby and a swagger stick by Private Rhoades.

A five minute walk brought us to the “alert zone,” where gas masks must be adjusted and ready for instant use. The guard at the crossroad allowed us to pass with the warning, “Keep under cover or you will draw the fire of the Boche snipers.” So we crawled through a hole in the camouflaged screen which protected the road from German observers, and keeping behind clumps of bushes we peered through at the trenches just across the valley, in which Hun rifles lay cocked and primed for any American who would dare become a target. I confess I breathed easier when we got safely back to the “Y” hut.

NIGHT BOMBING

For four nights in succession Boche planes had been trying to drop bombs on the rail-head where troop trains were being loaded near our Headquarters. On the fourth night, when returning from a front line hut with Secretary Johnson, who in America was a professor in Vassar College, we stopped on a high ridge overlooking the battle line. This was a favorite rendezvous on my return from night deliveries, as it gave a wonderful panoramic view of the whole front line for miles in either direction. The flashes of the guns, the dazzling brilliancy of the star shells, the long lines of varicolored signals as they went up from many camps and out-posts, and the flares dropped from scores of planes, passing and repassing in the darkness overhead, can never be forgotten. It was a nightly and wonderful Fourth of July celebration, enhanced by the weirdness and danger of actual warfare.

As we stood this night, silhouetted against the moonlit sky, wearing our “tin” hats and with gas masks at “alert,” suddenly out of the night loomed a German plane, flying low, the Boche engine distinguished by its own peculiar throb. As it passed over our heads it dropped a red flare and proceeded toward Baccarat. Evidently, it had discovered our signals for that night and was using them. As soon as its deception was discovered our gunners opened fire, but not until it had dropped four bombs on the town and gotten away in safety toward the German lines. The explosions from the bombs were terrific and the flashes lit up the whole sky. We took refuge behind trees as shrapnel from our anti-aircraft guns rattled down in the roadway and the “ping” of machine-gun bullets startled our ears.

When we returned to town we found everything in confusion. One bomb had exploded in the treetops a half block from our billet and had wrecked the beautiful mansion of the French mayor of the town. It also wounded some American soldiers in a nearby barracks. Another bomb landed between two buildings at Hexo Barracks, killing three of our boys and one French poilu, besides wounding many and shattering the buildings. Four horses were killed by pieces of shrapnel, and when looking over the scene of destruction the next morning I noticed a hole, clean cut, through a half-inch steel tire on a nearby cart. It had been cut by a piece of shrapnel about an inch long which had also gone through spokes and hub and buried itself in the ground.

At four o’clock one day, after the regular round of hut deliveries, a special order was handed me from our chief for immediate execution. In ten minutes I was off in my ever-faithful flivver. My order took me to Reherrey, a village near the line, where a special pass was secured from the commanding officer, allowing me to go over a dangerous road exposed to the German guns. From the Y.M.C.A. Hut at Reherrey, I took with me a new secretary, a Congregational minister from the Middle West, to relieve McGuffy, the secretary at St. Pole, whom I was to bring back to headquarters.

When we reached the hut at St. Pole, the secretaries, including McGuffy, were out at the front with supplies for the boys. While waiting for them to return we strolled about through the desolate remnants of this old peasant village. My companion had not been under fire before, so when the first shell from the Boche “heavies” came whistling and whining toward us he hastened to the dugout saying, “This is no place for me.” He was ashamed of his own fear and proved that he was a “regular guy” by joining in the laugh and jibes of the fellows. Being reassured by the passing of several shells safely overhead, he rejoined me in our tramp through the village. Every portable thing of value had been carried off by the Huns and what was left had been destroyed. Stoves had been broken down and beds and furniture demolished.

When McGuffy got back we started for Baccarat. It was a stormy night, black as ink, and we had to go over roads which the bombardment of the early evening had torn up. It took two hours to go eight miles. When we arrived we found an anxious group of “Y” workers discussing the probability of our having been blown to pieces or captured by the Boche, and they were just about to send out a searching party.

No soldiers ever had anything on the boys from the Buckeye State. They had been sent to the Alsatian border to hold the line against a threatening foe. Persistent rumors told of a German drive on this sector. Nothing but our men and guns and a few hastily constructed wire entanglements stood in their way. And the German army had a name for sweeping right through such open country and taking what it wanted. But many things caused Fritz to stop and think. The German raiding parties were failures. Only two out of a score succeeded in getting the Americans. That meant that the Yankee out-posts were not only on the job but also that they were absolutely fearless and able to capture single-handed superior numbers of the enemy.

Then, one night just as the Germans seemed to be concentrating on a dangerous salient, eighty of our big guns in a couple of hours coughed up twelve hundred tons of gas and spit it in the faces of an enemy that dared to think it could fool with Uncle Sam’s boys from Ohio. For two days after, the Boche were carrying their dead out of that area.

No more threats of a German drive were heard in that sector, but reports came frequently of Boche prisoners and deserters who offered to surrender whole companies of Huns if they could only be guaranteed that the Americans would spare their lives.

Major H, a friend of old college days, was a staff officer of the 37th Division and was as brave as he was big. His clear brain and military genius laid out our machine-gun nests. He had studied carefully every foot of ground and planted machine guns wherever they could command an enemy advance or night raid. The direct and crossfire of these guns were so coordinated that many guns could play upon a dangerous enemy approach. It was a most exciting chess game which was being played with real armies and men.

The Petty Post was the strategic point of our army out in No Man’s Land, and signals from the post would give warning of any sudden move of the enemy. Its location was changed from time to time.

On August 27, at 7:30 P.M., we left headquarters in the official car. Two chauffeurs who knew every shell-hole in the roads and who could feel their way in the darkness were in the front seat. Major Hazlett and another major who was inspecting trench conditions and personal equipment were on either side of me in the back seat. The powerful motor “purring” quietly waited Major Hazlett’s “We’re off.” Quickly the eight kilometers to the field headquarters of Colonel Galbraith, 147th Regiment, were covered. After cordial greetings the Major was closeted in secret conference with the Colonel. In a half hour we were off again. Major Hazlett alone knew his objective. That night it was the sector near Heberviller. The captain’s headquarters was a little frame shack eight by ten feet, carefully guarded in the heart of a dense woods. The sentry at the door demanded the password. In the weird candlelight were the captain and four aides. We sat on empty boxes and the edge of a table. Runners coming in out of the blackness of the forest stood at attention while they communicated their secret information and awaited further orders. Here investigations were made and all the latest “dope” on possible enemy action was obtained.

It was gratifying to note the solicitude of the officers for the comfort of the men. It was early fall and the nights were cool.

“Captain,” said the Major, “how are your men dressed?”

“There is no complaint, sir.”

“Do they still have their summer underwear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is getting too cold for that. I will see that a new issue is granted.”

All stood to salute as we took our departure. When again on our way the conversation of the back seat showed that the interest of these officers in their men was genuine. For example:

“Harry, those boys do not have any overcoats. Nothing but raincoats for these cold nights. Whose fault is that? Can’t you get some action?”

“They must have them immediately. I will so report to the Issue Department.”

Many times our car came to a sudden stop as a stentorian “Halt!” pierced the darkness and our second chauffeur went forward to give the countersign. One weak-voiced guard failed to make himself heard until our car was almost past. Major Hazlett was instantly aroused:

“What is the matter with your voice?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Then shout it out. If this happens again I’ll have you court-martialed.”

“Yes, sir!” And with a salute we proceeded.

Our last mile with the car was over shell-torn roads and past guards who dared to pass no man without full proof of his identity. Many German spies had been caught recently. Through the ruined village of Heberviller we passed to the old chateau. Here we left the car with the chauffeurs, and having been armed we started with two guides for the trenches. Every gun emplacement was inspected to see if orders had been faithfully carried out and woe betide the man who failed. The Major’s intimate and technical knowledge of every detail in machine-gun fighting, won the admiration of the men.

For three hours we walked “duck-boards" through a maze of connecting trenches, stealthily and silently following our guides and stopping “dead” when a star shell burst near us. We had secret hopes of taking prisoner some of the “Heinies” whom we could almost hear breathing out there in No Man’s Land.

As we talked with the men in Petty Post N, the German 77’s were feeling for some vulnerable point just back of our line. We could see the flash of the gun and hear that peculiar, fascinating “whine” as it passed over our heads, and finally its mocking challenge as it found its target. One of the men who was off guard, lay curled up in a shell hole beside the trench, sleeping peacefully to the music of the guns. Conversation here was whispered, and even the illuminated faces of our wrist watches were carefully concealed in our pockets. And every man knew well the reason why.

The sergeant in charge had a “hunch” that Fritz was coming over at a certain hour of the early morning. We knew that “dope” coming from enemy sources is often misleading and decided not to wait for the “party.” The next day we learned that the “party” was not “pulled off,” and our return to camp gave us a few hours of perfectly good and needed sleep.

AN AIR BATTLE

Boche planes overhead were so common as to excite little interest, but when in the midst of a heavy anti-aircraft barrage, the French children playing outside our garage excitedly announced “Trois Boche avions,” we left off “tuning up” our engines and went out to watch them three specks high overhead and out of range of our guns. Suddenly, from somewhere in the sky above, two Allied planes shot toward the German “birds,” and a battle ensued which we could clearly see, although they were too high for us to hear the sound of their machine guns.

With terrific burst of speed one of our planes shot toward one of the German planes and seemed almost to ride on top of it, all the while pouring into it a stream of machine gun bullets, the smoke of which we could see. When they separated, ours rose but the German shot downward, evidently out of control, and we held our breath in anxious joy as we watched him drop two thousand feet or more. Then as he came through a cloud and was hidden from the view of our planes, he suddenly righted and shot off toward the German lines.

The next day the same thrilling scene was staged a little to the south of us. But this time there was no disappointment. The rapid “pu-pu-pu-pu-pu” of the machine gun told us that our pilot’s gun was working perfectly, and a burst of flame from the enemy plane told also how true was his aim.

There can be no more thrilling moments in life than when you are watching bodies out of control hurtling through space and are breathlessly anticipating the crash. Your heart suspends operation, even for an enemy. Hun though he was, he was still a hero of the air, and chivalry prompted a decent burial on the banks of the beautiful Meurthe. The wrecked plane furnished souvenirs for the many who saw it fall.

HAND GRENADES

The hand grenade is a mighty dangerous weapon, but also a most effective one when wisely used.

At Merviller I was delivering a load of supplies to the Y.M.C.A. hut. A quarter of a mile to my right a deafening explosion was accompanied by a mass of debris thrown high in the air. “A German bomb!” was the first thought. And we waited expectantly to see where the next one would strike. When there was no second, I drove around to investigate. On a side street I found a crowd of soldiers and French civilians already gathering. The Red Cross ambulance had “beat me to it,” and the surgeons were already working over the mangled bodies of four American soldiers. The street was littered and unexploded hand grenades lay everywhere. Two soldiers had been carrying gunny sacks filled with grenades when one accidentally exploded, it in turn exploding others until the wreckage was complete. A military investigation would report the cause of the accident and the damage wrought, and thus an incident of war would quickly become history.

THROUGH A GERMAN BARRAGE

On my last Sunday with the flivver I drove with Secretary Armstrong to our hut at Pettonville. In the forenoon we helped Secretary Reisner in the canteen. Then we closed, ate a lunch, and, loaded down with cakes, raisins, cigarettes, and tobacco, started for the trenches. As we neared the front line the Germans began shelling the woods toward which we were headed. While we did some lightning calculating, we never slackened our pace but went through to the battalion headquarters. There a sniper volunteered as guide to the trenches. We passed several company headquarters and gave out our supplies to the men as they stood in the line with their mess kits.

When we left the first-line trenches we walked or crouched through woods, where the bark of the trees toward the enemy was riddled and broken by bullets, shrapnel, and shell; then through trenches which had been abandoned but which ran far out into No Man’s Land and furnished splendid avenues to our Petty Posts. N was the first, and was so exposed that only one man at a time was permitted with the guide. Secretary Armstrong went first. While we were examining the graves of German aviators who had been killed when their planes crashed to earth, a rifle bullet whistled over our heads. We had been seen by a German sniper, so we quickly crouched low behind the trench wall. I found myself right over the grave of one of the Germans, and was rewarded by finding on it a piece of German shell, grim paradox of the fortunes of war.

We continued through the trenches to P.P. N. This was our nearest point in this sector to the enemy front line. It was difficult to get through because of the mud and water in the trench. In some places, because of exposure to the enemy guns, we had to crawl on our hands and knees. At the post were eight men, two at the observation post and the rest in a dugout nearby. The men at the P.P.’s are on guard forty-eight hours, and off twenty-four hours. After ten days they are relieved and go back for ten days’ rest.

This special post was raided four times during that week. One report said three hundred Germans came over but the men at the post said about sixty. One attack was a surprise and they got four of our men. The other times the Germans were routed with varying losses. The P.P.’s are only observation posts and are not intended to be held in case of raid, but usually our boys were eager to give Fritz all that was coming to him, and they seldom failed no matter how largely outnumbered.

There were no signs of fear among our splendid fellows, and while it required courage to be a mile or more beyond the supporting line, lying out in No Man’s Land, yet the very danger and the adventure of it made a mighty appeal to the full-blooded Yank, and there was never a lack of volunteers.