Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

by Gerald Vizenor

  The Boche burned libraries and museums, wrecked cathedrals, universities, and hospitals, a degenerate act of soldiery entertainment with no military strategy. Notre-Dame de Reims was bombarded and burned overnight. The angels wounded, saints disfigured, and molten lead oozed out of the stone gargoyles.

  That slow journey on the back of trucks through the wreck of many communes in the river valley transformed the new soldiers of conscription and adventure into fierce warriors, or at least some of the soldiers were visionary warriors.

  The convoy of trucks turned north and later that day delivered several hundred soldiers to the final destination at Fère-en-Tardenois, a commune located between Château-Thierry and Fismes in Picardy. The Rainbow Division and other allied soldiers had driven the enemy across the Vesle River only a few days earlier, and inherited by wary conquest the havoc, wounded soldiers stacked on ambulances and trucks, shattered trees, the reek of dead humans and horses, and the pockmarked earth. The dead had been collected, piece by bloody piece from the ruins, a grotesque heap of body parts, the last ghastly gesture of a military muster. The First Pioneer Infantry soldiers camped in the light rain at Forêt de Nesles near the fortified positions of the Germans.

  Aloysius was haunted by the nearby death of more than six thousand soldiers of the Rainbow Division only a few days before we had arrived by truck. The Rainbow Division was a union of soldiers from more than twenty state National Guard units, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and many more, truly a rainbow of volunteer soldiers. Later we learned that one of the casualties was the romantic poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the Rainbow Division. He was a poet of the war and a scout assigned to risky reconnaissance missions. Kilmer had turned down a commission as an officer and remained an enlisted volunteer in the war.

  I think that I shall never see

  A poem lovely as a tree.

  Joyce Kilmer was shot in the head by a sniper on the Meurcy Farm near the commune of Seringes-et-Nesles. The French honored him in death with the Croix de Guerre. Kilmer probably wrote about a white oak near his home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but my brother decided that a blue raven medal carved from any of the trees in the nearby forest would rightly honor the poet.

  Sergeant Kilmer was buried in Oise-Aisne American Cemetery near Fère-en-Tardenois. “Rouge Bouquet,” the poem that Kilmer wrote to honor the death of some twenty other brave soldiers in the Rainbow Division, was read at his own memorial service.

  For Death came flying through the air

  And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,

  Touched his prey and left them there,

  Clay to clay. …

  There is on earth no worthier grave

  To hold the bodies of the brave

  Than this place of pain and pride

  Where they nobly fought and nobly died.

  The Rainbow Division pursued the withered enemy with courage, resolute vengeance, and the sorrow of a terrible sacrifice. The Germans turned the forests and countryside into a wasteland, and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and allied soldiers. Private Phillip Plaster from Oskaloosa, Iowa, died at age seventeen in a bombardment near the Marne River in Champagne. He was the youngest soldier in the infantry regiment. Private Arnold Wright carried a French officer to a first aid station and was wounded by an artillery explosion and died in hospital near Châlons-sur-Marne. Private Victor Frist from Villisca, Iowa, died from severe facial wounds at Croix Rouge Farm near Château-Thierry. Private Elmer Bruce from Joplin, Missouri, survived combat in Château-Thierry and the River Marne in Champagne and then drowned in a swimming accident in the Marne River near Saint Aulde.

  First Lieutenant Merle McCunn from Shenandoah, Iowa, was badly wounded in Forêt-de-Fère and died in a field hospital. He had served eleven years in the Iowa National Guard, including service on the Mexican Border. Private Charles Hudson, who was born in Waterloo, Iowa, was the first soldier in his infantry company to die in Château-Thierry. Corporal Pierce Flowers from Coin, Iowa, was on patrol and died in machine gun fire near Sergy. Private Howard Elliot, from Wilmette, Illinois, was killed by machine gun fire in Château-Thierry. Private Eddie Conrad Momb from Rorchert, Minnesota, died from mustard gas at Château-Thierry. Private Charles Bordeau from Frazee, Minnesota, near the White Earth Reservation, died in action at Château-Thierry.

  Sergeant Oliver Wendell Holmes from Council Bluffs, Iowa, died in a bombardment near the Ourcq River. The sergeant was the namesake of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the medical doctor and author of the famous poem “Old Ironsides.” The poem was written when the navy announced a scheme to scrap the Constitution, a celebrated warship, but the wooden frigate was saved by a poem.

  Oh, better that her shattered hulk

  Should sink beneath the wave;

  Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

  And there should be her grave;

  Nail to the mast her holy flag,

  Set every threadbare sail,

  And give her to the God of storms,

  The lightning and the gale!

  Corporal Thomas Evens from Glenwood, Iowa, was wounded and died near Château-Thierry. An explosion severed his leg as he connected telephone wires near the front lines. Sergeant Harry Hart from Oskaloosa, Iowa, died at twenty years old, the youngest sergeant in his regiment, in combat near the Ourcq River. Corporal Paul Dixon from Mystic, Iowa, died in combat at Château-Thierry. Private Frank Keech from Otsego, Michigan, died in combat at Château-Thierry. Private Charles Cunningham from Dyersville, Iowa, a litter bearer, was wounded in an artillery explosion and died in an evacuation hospital near several soldiers he had rescued earlier in the day.

  Second Lieutenant Christopher Timothy, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was wounded by machine gun fire and died near the Ourcq River. Enemy bullets punctured his lung, and when he was evacuated by ambulance he told the driver, “Tell Tommy to tell the folks goodbye, tell them I died an honorable death. I died fighting.”

  German soldiers were heavily entrenched on the other side of the Forêt-de-Nesles. They waited with machine guns, mortars, bayonets, mustard gas, deathly fear, and the fury of revenge. Allied and enemy artillery flashed and thundered through the night, a heavy bombardment on both sides of the forest and the front.

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  Aloysius carved blue raven medals that night from chunks of wood shattered by artillery explosions. The Elephant Toe knife he used was a present from Odysseus a few months earlier, just before we were mustered into the infantry. The trader told us to attack the enemy at night with our knives, but naturally my brother would rather carve totemic blue ravens for the soldiers than search for the enemy with a pocketknife. The blue raven pendants created a sense of peace, and that touch of rouge on the ravens reminded me of the red crown of the totemic sandhill crane.

  The sandhill crane was our native visionary totem.

  We had pitched our tent on a secure slope of the forest very close to other soldiers. No lights were allowed, not even cigarettes under a poncho that dreary night of rain, thunder, lightning, and the roar of artillery. The steady rain spattered on the tents, and ticked on metal materiel. The tick, tick, tick sound was an annoyance, and a menace. A soldier nearby had left a mess kit outside his tent to be washed by the rain.

  Raindrops shivered with artillery explosions.

  My brother carved in the dark by touch and memory, and we told hushed stories about our friend Odysseus. The trader was always with us in memories and stories.

  Suddenly Sergeant Sorek pushed his wet helmet and head into our tent and ordered us to report immediately to the command post for our first mission as native scouts.

  The reverie of our stories ended on a rainy night.

  There was no courtly initiation of scouts, and certainly not for native scouts. Our first night of stealth and surveillance in the rain was solemn but only conceivable in a shaman story. No other scouts were ordered that night to penetrate enemy lines on the east side of Forêt-de-Nesles and to gather critical infor
mation on machine gun emplacements, fortifications, or capture one or more enemy soldiers for interrogation.

  That night was a decisive moment, and not the only one, when we could have raised questions about the order, but any expression of doubt would have demonstrated unacceptable fear and cowardice for a soldier, and especially a native soldier. We were selected only as natives, and not because of any special training.

  Sergeant Sorek was not romantic but he was convinced that stealth was in our blood, a native trait and natural sense of direction even on a dark and rainy night in a strange place, otherwise we would have been breaking quarry rocks for road construction. The choice of risky missions over breaking rocks for roads could not be reversed for any reason.

  The only real doubt we might have expressed that night was about the absurdity of a late night capture and protect strategy in the rain, but instead we saluted and accepted our first mission. Natives were selected as scouts more than other soldiers because of romantic sentiments, and, of course, because the missions very were risky. Later the sergeant talked fast in the dark and dank command post, and he provided only minimal information about possible enemy positions on the other side of the forest.

  So, we sauntered into the forest with only the security of an absolute cover of darkness and roar of artillery. At first not even the leaves near my nose were visible. The sense of sight, though, was not only by light. Misaabe told stories about a hunter who could sense the presence of animals by the faint puff and waft of breath, and by the glint and spirit of blood, bone, and the distinctive scent and stink of bodies.

  The Boche soldiers were wild, demonic, but not animals with a natural sense of presence. No shine or cast of spirit was sensible that night in the forest of the enemy. Actually, we could smell the enemy even in the steady rain.

  Aloysius crouched and moved slowly ahead of me through the forest with his rifle close to his chest, and in only a few minutes of concentration we could sense the presence of the trees, but not yet the brush and branches. We wore soft hats to avoid the sound of rain on helmets. Remarkably, we could sense the spirit of trees, but not by the ordinary light of sight. Misaabe once described what we see as more than the perception of the light. The eyes sensed the blue spirit and glint of life. I should have asked the old healer then if he could sense a dead body or the enemy.

  Aloysius moved with wariness in the forest. He paused every few minutes to listen and to change the pattern of his hesitant pace. We tried to imitate the natural motion of the rain, and there was a great silence in the forest between artillery explosions.

  I could hear the beat of my heart. Our presence in the hilly forest was not noticed for several hours. Past midnight the rain and bombardment ended, and we were distracted by an inscrutable silence in the forest. Creatures moved, or we imagined motion, and the only other sound was the turn of heavy leaves and late dash of rain on the earth.

  I sensed the presence of someone by the hush of insects, and hunched my shoulders like a praying mantis to listen and imagine the faint sounds. I opened my Elephant Toe pocketknife and prepared to attack and wound the enemy. We were aware that only a frightened and untrained soldier would shoot into the night. The flash and sound of his weapon would only reveal his position, and bring about certain death. The more we moved in the forest the more we were determined to capture an enemy soldier that night, and that act alone would confirm our courage and instinct as native scouts.

  Aloysius groaned and whispered my name. His body leaned to the right and collapsed in the brush. I turned, raised my rifle and was directly disarmed by a soldier with his bayonet at my throat. The enemy spoke softly in an unfamiliar language, but not German. Later, we were surprised when the enemy soldiers talked to each other in perfect English.

  The soldiers who had captured us were on a similar mission to capture the enemy for interrogation. The gestures and whispers of the soldiers were familiar, but we could not distinguish faces or features in the dark. The soldier who had disarmed my brother was angular and strong. The other soldier who easily grounded me was smaller, a wrestler who pushed my face into the musty earth.

  The soldiers we thought were the enemy had muzzled and bound my brother and me. The soldiers were convinced that we were disguised enemy agents, and marched us back toward the allied military encampment. A short time later in the faint morning light we discovered that the captors and captives were natives. By some incredible coincidence the two teams of native scouts that night were in the same section of Forêt-de-Nesles.

  Naturally, we were shied and humiliated as captives, but we were not amazed to realize that we had been outmaneuvered by two of the best native scouts in the infantry. Natives must be naturals at stealth, who else would have the instinct to imagine the scent of blood and capture other native scouts?

  Aloysius was right, we could not return to our companies without at least one enemy soldier. So, as a team of four native scouts we turned around and moved quickly through the forest to the enemy positions.

  The Rainbow Division scouts were more experienced so we learned stealthy strategies from the native shamans of the decimated forests. The new strategy was to capture as many enemy soldiers as we could that night, but at least one for each team of scouts. We were obliged to impress our sergeant.

  Strut, the huge angular native scout, was Oneida from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hunch, the wrestler, was Oneida from New York, one of the first five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Oneida was the first language we heard whispered that night, and then English. Hunch had served in a National Guard regiment that became part of the great Rainbow Division in the American Expeditionary Forces.

  Hunch suggested that we choose a likely natural pathway in the forest close to the enemy and camouflage ourselves nearby in the brush. Most of the trees had been shattered by artillery explosions and provided a strategic cover and unnatural concealment. The strategy was similar to the way natives once hunted animals, to enter the forest early in the morning and then fall asleep. The tension of the hunter was released, and when the hunter awakened he became part of a natural scene, not a breathy invasion of the surroundings.

  Four native scouts waited about an hour that early morning for the enemy. I thought about the trader Odysseus, Misaabe, and the mongrel healers, and could not fall asleep. Luckily the enemy was not as perceptive as animals in the forest.

  Three German soldiers entered the forest and followed the natural pathway. Two soldiers set their rifles aside, and lowered their trousers to defecate. The third soldier, the youngest, stood guard nearby but looked away.

  Strut cracked a stick as the signal and we pounced on the soldiers. Two were already disarmed, and were easily subdued with their trousers around their ankles. The third soldier panicked and fired one shot in the air. Strut reached from behind the young soldier and cut his throat. The soldier gurgled on blood, stared at me with fear, and died in the wet broken brush. Quickly we covered the body, and marched the other two soldiers double time through the forest back to our military units.

  Naturally, our sergeant was pleased that we had captured one enemy soldier, but the interrogation revealed nothing of value to our regiment. The soldier was a replacement without much knowledge of the defensive positions of the Germans.

  Hunch was a storier and he would not hesitate to include in his repertoire of native stories the capture of two scouts from the White Earth Reservation. So, we anticipated his stories and recounted the reverse, that we had almost, yes, almost, captured two Oneida scouts from the Rainbow Division.

  The Germans had been driven across the Vesle River and two months later out of France. So, our risky missions as native scouts were decreased and then hardly necessary. German soldiers were captured in the thousands, and many thousands more surrendered near the end of the war to the British, French, and Americans.

  Strut and Hunch were at a reserve encampment when we met them for the last time at the end of the war. We were united by chance that afternoon at a Cootie
Machine created by the Rainbow Division. The marvelous machine killed enemy body lice on our uniforms. We had survived the war, captured the cooties, and after a warm shower, the first in several weeks, we were restored, clean, and ready for the tease of stories that night at the mess tent.

  Hunch told the story about Private Arthur Elm, an Oneida from Wisconsin, who served with a machine gun company in the mighty Red Arrow Division. Elm was wounded and survived the battle at Ronchères and Bois-de-Cierges east of Reims near Verdun. Elm and his machine gun team advanced to Juvigny in the deadly Oise-Aisne Offensive. Elm encountered three enemy soldiers with Red Cross armbands who were about to throw grenades, so he killed them with his bayonet.

  The Red Arrow Division was bombarded and under direct enemy fire for two days and without food. Elm and another soldier volunteered to return to the supply depot and secure food for the company. They traveled under fire with a compass and map through the brush, craters, barbed wire, and bodies to a mobile supply depot behind the line of combat.

  Elm secured a wagonload of beans and tomatoes and was about to leave for the front when he heard the sound of an artillery shell. He ducked in a trench for cover. The shell exploded on the wagon and killed the mule and two soldiers. Hunch gestured with his hands and shouted there were beans and tomatoes everywhere, in the trees, on helmets, and beans covered the supply trucks.

  Hunch recounted the native story about the explosion, the shower of beans and tomatoes, as a comedy first and then the casualties as a tragedy. Chance was a distinct native story, the irony and comedy over the misery and tragedy. Not everyone, however, appreciated the manner and tease of native stories.

  Private Elm and the other soldier observed boxes of food at the back of a supply truck. The Military Police guarded the truck, so he told the story about hungry soldiers at the front and the explosion, and asked for a couple of boxes of prunes. The request was refused, and at that very minute there was the sound of another round of artillery shells. The Military Police took cover in a bunker.