loophole where it would be in plain sight from our lines, I started to work my way back.
It was only then that I thought of that flag. It was about a hundred yards down the German trench from where I then was. “So long as I am inside their wire,” I said to myself, “why not go get the damn thing and take it back?” Our Machine Gun Officer, Lieutenant White, and the Scout Officer had just discussed, in my presence, the matter of going over and getting that flag and whatever compunctions I may have had about spoiling their fun were effectively dispelled by the action of those slugs of rum. So in the end I decided it would be right and proper to slip down there and get it.
It was simply a matter of moving quietly and cautiously down the outside of the German embankment. There were a lot of tin cans and rubbish to be avoided but in a short time I came up to their flag; it was planted right in the midst of an area of what we called “trip wire;” that is, wire strung on stakes which were driven in almost to the ground, the wire (barbed, of course) sticking up about ankle high. Nasty stuff to get through all right. The flagstaff was firmly embedded in the ground and was further braced by several guy-wires which were anchored in the ground. I managed to unfasten these guy-wires and then pulled the staff out of the ground. Guess I must have overlooked something — some wire connected with an alarm in their trench, or possibly a “set” rifle or two. At any rate, a couple of rifle shots rang out and the bullets came uncomfortably close. I think one of them hit the stick on which the flag was fastened, and I had two pretty severe cuts in my hand which were suspiciously like bullet marks. Some one in the German trench sent up a flare and a machine gun chattered for a while, but I lay still, and, in a few minutes the excitement died down and I started for home. Up to that time I had not really noticed the rum which I had taken before starting out; but, about then, it began to get in its work. “Hell,” says I to myself, “what’s the use fooling around; why not just get up and walk back?” Which I proceeded to do. Believe it or not, as Ripley says, I walked back to our wire as casually as one would walk down the street today. Arriving at the wire, however, I found that I had missed the alley through which I had gone out, so proceeded to bawl out everybody in general for having locked me out. (That rum sure had authority). It was but a few moments until someone slipped over our parapet and showed me the way home. I think it was Lieutenant Bowerbank. I made a perfect ass of myself; I know that; but they were very lenient with me and I went down to where Lieutenant White had his dug-out and gave him the flag with the request that he turn it over to the Colonel. That is the whole story. They even gave me a medal for it later on.
The paper which I had affixed just below the port-hole of the machine gun emplacement enabled us to definitely locate it on the map, and, a few days later, our artillery put it out of business.
Next morning, when Fritz discovered that his flag was gone, he proceeded to give us a shelling. We then thought it severe as we had a few men killed and several wounded. A few months later, we would have called it a mild shelling.
That evening, as I was standing in the bay directly behind my dugout, with several others, including Sam Comigoe, they sent over a lot of rifle grenades. Did you ever hear one of those birds in flight? They make a noise just like a little dog that has received a swift kick. I cannot translate it into words, but if you have ever heard a little tyke, running down the street and yelping at every step — well, that’s it. This applies, of course, only to the old form of grenade, with its ramrod tail. The later forms have entirely different voices. In daylight it was no trouble to dodge the yelpers; they announced themselves well in advance and were plainly visible, but at night you had to take your chances. By ill luck, one of them dropped right into our bay. Now, those devilish things shoot from the ground up; that is, they burst on impact and, as that is usually on the ground level, the splinters that do the damage are always ranging upward. Sam was at the right end of the bay and that was where the missile fell. Some of the others received inconsequential scratches on the legs (those wrap puttees are a great protection), but Sam was evidently hard hit. He grasped his belly — he was a big, fat fellow — and grunted: “guess they got me;” sat down on an ammunition box and died almost instantly. Just one of the small fragments had entered his abdomen and ranged upward to the heart. He and his brother and another pair of brothers, the Paudashes, in our Battalion, were of the Chippewa Tribe — full-blooded Indians — and among the best soldiers in the outfit. He was buried in our little cemetery at Ridgewood — right alongside Lieutenant Wilgress, the first of our officers to make the supreme sacrifice.
At the time I felt pretty badly about the matter. I knew that all this strafing was due to the flag-stealing, but then what would you? War is War. Many times I have been unmercifully cursed by the infantry for using a machine gun on a likely-looking target. “No; no,” they would shout; “don’t do that. They will retaliate.” That was the word: “they will retaliate.” Well; hells-bells; let ’em. What the devil are we here for? A summer picnic? While I do not think that I had a personal enemy in the battalion — in fact I was glad and proud to call them all my friends — still, there is no getting around the fact they all, individually and collectively, did hate me at those times when I thought it worth while to hand Fritz a dose of poison. If I had been allowed my way, Heinie would have been kept “retaliating” along every foot of the Front.
To me it was a game; the greatest game in the world. Whenever they came back with their retaliation I was just as much pleased as a school-boy who has received the highest possible grade. It was proof positive that I had stung them. I well remember one night. Just before dark we had seen, from our Sniper’s Barn position, a German battery pulling into position at a place called Hiele Farm — not more than eight hundred yards back of the enemy front line. They always kept a whiz-bang battery there and were, evidently, changing over; that is, a new battery was coming in to relieve the one that had been there for some time. We knew all about that battery — we machine gunners — and so did our artillery; but there seemed to be some sort of “gentleman’s agreement” between the artillery on both sides; to leave one another alone and see how much fun they could have with the infantry. However, as Emma Gees, we were not bound by any such covenant.
So, when I saw that bunch moving in, I immediately got word to our reserve guns in the redoubts in the Bois Carre and gave them the target number. (We had every inch of “Germany” within range, plotted and all I had to do was to give them the number and when to commence firing.) I figured that, as soon as it commenced to get dark, all hands Would be out in the open, carrying on with the work of getting the one lot of guns out and the others into the pits. Just after dusk, we opened on them with four guns. The orders were to fire a full belt and then, after letting the guns cool down a bit, to keep up an intermittent fire, all through the night.
Having attended to all this and remaining until the first belt was started, I went down to the front line where we had other guns in good emplacements, for defensive purposes. I had a notion that we would stir up something and waited to see that the boys up there were ready for business. I made the rounds and explained matters to them and was standing at the left end of our line, where the last gun was located; talking to Major Jones when, all of a sudden; here came the shells. Now, Heinie was not much given to night shooting — in fact seldom did it unless as the preliminary to an attack — and when the shells commenced to come in, all hands were called to stand to.
They crowded into the bays, ready to hop up onto the firing step whenever the barrage lifted. The shells ripped the top of the parapet and burst all round. The Major and I were standing in an open space and some distance behind the parapet when a H.E. whiz-bang shell zipped between our heads — we were not more than two feet apart — and burst in a cook’s dugout, which was, fortunately, unoccupied at the time. Oh — sure; we moved.
Of course I knew what it was all about and was very well pleased with myself and those accurate-shooting boys behind the guns; but the others; the infantry, knowing nothing about the strafing we had given those batteries, were in blissful ignorance. All they knew was that, when the enemy put on a show like that at night, it usually meant
Thus the early winter months passed. I was sniping most of the time but made the rounds of the guns every day, just to see how things were going. There was the usual shelling and we were losing men every day from that and the various forms of trench-mortar projectiles and rifle grenades. Rifle and machine gun fire accounted for a man now and then, especially among the signallers who had to go out and repair breaks in the line. Our situation in the salient was such that it was possible for long range bullets to get us in flank, and even from the rear, and more than one man was hit in that manner.
In constructing our trenches we had to take into account this enfilading fire and build overhead traverses at frequent intervals. These were planned on the theoretical trajectory of the German bullets at the ranges from which we might expect to be fired upon. They did not take into consideration the fact that a bullet might come from some two miles away — which they occasionally did. I was standing right under one of these arch-like traverses, talking
