Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France

Chapter 9 The Last Trench Days

T H E L A S T T R E N C H D A Y S 85 CHAP TE R NI N E The Last Trench Days E ven a labyrinth of ditches can have its own distinct personality. GC12 offered a variety of vices and virtues . Birds twittered now and again in a scrawny apple tree behind my shelter of timbers and corrugated iron. An ominous 155mm “dud” lay in the mud underneath the sparse verdure. Stryker labored from daylight to dusk on a suction pump to prevent seepage from flooding the low bunks in my underground headquarters. A lazy stream of muddy water poured from the mouth of a hose and into a ditch at the side entrance. Malodorous stenches came from a bayou latrine . A yellow blanket of buttercups, peeping from the wire that surrounded my half platoon, tried bravely to hide the raw brutality of shell holes and abandoned trenches. The wreckage of a farmhouse stood in no man’s land, halfway down a gentle slope from our fire trench. Rusty wire between and beyond met enemy barricades at the foot of the hill and spread out over a plain to a gaunt clump of woods, which hid the German trenches. The familiar sausage balloon floated against a blue May sky, behind the Boche positions. More rolling expanses of posts and crisscrossing rust hemmed in McDonough’s invisible subsector to the left and covered the front of the adjoining Alabama sector beyond him. Indistinct trench tops to our right sloped down toward Wally’s marooned crew in GC11. A suggestion of zigzagging parapets led on to 86 TRENCH KNIVES AND MUSTARD GAS GC’s 10 and 9, where Dorsey and Barney held forth, and disappeared into the shell-scarred woods beyond. Perce, in command at PA6, spoke through the medium of runners, chow details, written messages, and occasional tours of inspection. A trio of enemy planes circled and droned overhead from time to time. An enemy sniper pinged away from the foot of the ravine in front of Wally’s position. Gray-green ants crawled from the distant woods in front of us and scurried back “toot sweet” when my excited riflemen took potshots at the minute targets. A chilly, sleepless night of eerie flares and cracking rifle fire gave way to a steady drizzle. Cherub and his gang of night prowlers crawled up from the misty blackness of the farmhouse ruins to be greeted by nervous half-whispers of recognition . The nightly patrols and vigils continued, flare and pistol -shot signals letting invisible friends know that the prowlers were home safely. In the candlelit shelter, where rats scampered about and gnawed into our reserve rations of hardtack, Sergt. Lawson and I made daily reports of things seen and heard and greeted drawling liaison patrols from the Alabama sector. The Southerners couldn’t be bothered with rifles; a grenade in the hand and another in an otherwise empty canteen cover was worth “beaucoo” small artillery. The boys from Alabam’ did not think much of our passwords and countersigns, which battalion headquarters usually chose from French sources. Their own signals, sent us each day, were more original than “Côte d’Or and Bapaume;” “Toulouse and Grenoble,” “Big-Boy,” “Come sev’n–Come ‘leben,” “Little Phoebe,” and other phrases from their stock of slang made a big hit with my bunch from the corn and hog country. Summary court prisoners, who spent the long nights in Wally’s deep sap, came over each morning with picks and shovels. They helped my men keep the strong point livable and commandeered sundry duckboarding from abandoned trenches near the ruined farmhouse. Deprived of all weapons as part of their punishment for past delinquencies, they seemed a heavy responsibility. I ignored the grenades, swiped T H E L A S T T R E N C H D A Y S 87 from our ammunition dump and now bulging in their blouse pockets. The sun shone again, bringing the balloon and the planes back with it. A brace of enemy shells banged into the ravine one morning and brown figures sprang out of the ground, as if by magic. Crawling, scurrying men stumbled through patches of wire toward us, to the tune of pinging bullets. Cherub, at the head of a panting crew, fell into our fire trench giggling nervously. The gang had been after...