Through the Wheat

by Thomas Boyd

  “A runner from battalion headquarters,” the voice answered cautiously. “Don’t shoot.”

  “Oh, come ahead.”

  “What the hell are you afraid of?”

  “We’re not as fierce as we look.”

  “Where’s your company commander?” the voice asked.

  “He went over to ask the Squareheads to stop shootin’. There’s a man here that’s got a headache,” Pugh informed the voice.

  “No, where is he, fellows?” By this time the voice had become Fosbrook. Hicks recognized him.

  “Hello, Fosbrook.”

  “Oh!” Fosbrook walked over to Hicks’s hole and jumped in. “Hello, William.”

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were interpreter for the colonel.”

  “I was, William, but I drank too much one night and he fired me,” Fosbrook answered sadly.

  “What do you want with the company commander?”

  “I don’t know whether I should tell you.”

  “Hell, I’ll find it out in a minute, anyway.”

  “Well, your company is to move to another position as soon as it gets dark enough.”

  “What for? Are we going to attack?”

  “I don’t know, William, I’m sure. Where is your captain?”

  “He’s over between the third and second platoons, about fifteen holes down that way.”

  Fosbrook got up, and, stooping over until his head was parallel with his hips, trotted in the direction Hicks had indicated.

  An hour later the orders came for the men to sling their packs and be ready to move again. And great was the outcry when the men heard the news.

  “Are we going to dig up the whole of France?”

  “I’ll get my old man to buy some ploughs if we are. I wasn’t cut out to be a ditch digger.”

  “This is a hell of a note. Diggin’ a hole for one day. I was jist gittin’ mine so’s I could sleep in it.”

  The company lined up in single file and marched off.

  After manœuvring around for a couple of hours they came to another woods. On the way they had been joined by a section of the machine-gun company that was attached to their battalion. In a measure, this annexation was responsible for their slow progress. There were the carts to be hidden, and then the men of the machine-gun detail carried their guns and their ammunition in their arms. But they were halted at last, and amid much muttering and cursing were shooed into the woods and told that they might go to sleep for the night.

  It was noon of the next day before they received any food. Then a detail had to be sent back to the village after it. And when they returned they brought with them cold boiled potatoes, cold coffee, and black French bread.

  “Don’t eat too many of these damned potatoes,” Pugh warned all and sundry. “I was ridin’ on a box car for three days once, and I didn’t have nothin’ but these things to eat, an’ I got col’ sores all over my mouth.”

  Cigarettes were scarce, so the butts of them were passed around and in that way shared by all.

  The firing during the day was slight. Scattered rifle fire was heard on both sides, but the artillery was dumb. The men spent the day speculating upon whether their own artillery would arrive and get into position before they were ordered to attack.

  Time after time Kahl nervously paced the length of the woods. He had done all that he could to his rifle. The bolt worked smoothly with a satisfying “click.” The bore had been swabbed free of the oil, which had been put there to keep the metal from rusting. The chamber held five meticulously clean shells and there was one in the bore.

  Lepere and Harriman were telling each other of what they used to do “on the outside,” by which phrase they meant before they had enlisted. Ryan was cursing because there was no water to be had. His canteen was half empty, and he knew better than not to hoard water. He decided that he would have to shave without water, and this angered him still more. Then he divided the water equally, using a portion for lather.

  Thus they passed the day.

  To the weary platoon, their thinned ranks huddled all day long in the small clump of woods, night came on slowly and inexorably. The sun had disappeared, and, one by one, elf-like stars became apparent, twinkling like shaking jewels through the black curtain of the heavens. At sunset orders had been received for the platoon to be prepared to leave at any moment. Their rifles were lying by their sides, the men were sprawled on the damp ground, their heads resting on their combat packs.

  Some one touched a lighted match to a cigarette. It glowed softly in the darkness, a bright, inquisitive eye.

  “Put out that God-damned light,” Lieutenant Bedford whispered hoarsely. “Do you want us all to get shot up?”

  Soon at the edge of the woods the branches were parted and a tense voice called: “Where is Lieutenant Bedford?”

  It was a messenger from battalion headquarters carrying orders for the platoon to move. The summons was passed along from squad to squad, a disagreeable secret hurriedly disposed of. The men slung their packs and, holding their rifles in front of them, filed slowly and carefully out of the woods to form in a column of twos.

  Lieutenant Bedford in front and Sergeant Ryan in rear—as if, Hicks thought, some of the men were thinking of deserting—the men marched off, joining the other platoons in the middle of the field. Lieutenant Bedford called:

  “Pass the word along to keep quiet; we’re within hearing distance of the front lines.”

  On both sides the artillery was silent. Occasionally a machine-gun would fire a string of bullets the sound of which died in the stillness without an echo.

  The platoon dragged slowly on, their legs soaked around the knees from the dew nestling on the tall wheat. For perhaps a mile they had marched, and the platoon, like a sensitive instrument, was beginning to have an unaccountable perception of danger, when shoes were heard swishing through the heavy wheat, and a voice said:

  “Turn around, you damned fools. Do you want to walk straight into the German trenches!”

  The men breathed relievedly. Apparently they were not going immediately to attack. Recovering, they began audibly to curse the lieutenant.

  “The dirty German spy. What the hell does he think he’s doin’?”

  “Ought to be back at G. H. Q. with the rest of the dummies.”

  The lieutenant, unable to distinguish the mumbling voices as belonging to any particular persons, vowed to himself that when the platoon was relieved and back in a rest camp, he would give them extra fatigue duty for a month.

  They were coming to another woods, and within a few yards of its fringes some officers stepped out and halted them.

  “All right, here you are.”

  “Lieutenant, swing your men right in here and don’t let any one get out of the woods.”

  The men backed in among the trees and lay down, their packs, raising their shoulders from the ground, protecting them from the moisture. They lay silent, with their rifles cradled in their arms. No one seemed to mind the wet of the grass or the chill of the air. They were all silent and rather full of fear. Time was unknown. They might have been there a year—a minute—an æon.

  Just as the trees, in a clump of woods, perhaps a mile away, were beginning to come out against the sluggish sky like sharp, delicate etchings, the batteries awoke. After the first flock of shells, sounding like black, screaming spirits, were fired, the men in the woods were fully aroused and many of them were standing.

  “Uh-h-h, did you hear that bunch of sandbags?”

  “They sounded as if they came from a thousand miles.”

  Another salvo was fired, the shells droning rage had driven the enemy back. But what if it hadn’t—what if the Germans are just waiting until we get right almost into the woods. Wouldn’t that be a mess! And what a bore, this moping through the wet smoky wheat. He wondered whether
his knees were bleeding. Curse it! His neck was stiff. Maybe he could limber it up if he shook his head. . . . No, it couldn’t be done. It didn’t work.

  The first wave entered the woods where the enemy was without firing a shot or being fired at. The second wave entered, and the third, and the fourth.

  Kahl, parting the leaves with his bayonet, unexpectedly looked out upon a clearing, and the sight he saw made him exclaim to the man next to him:

  “Oh, Jimmy, this must be some joke. Look at all those fellows asleep there.”

  In the clearing, lying flat on their backs, were five soldiers, their legs stretched out. They wore no shoes over their heavy woollen hose.

  Hicks drew over toward him and looked.

  “You better get down, you lumphead,” Hicks cautioned; “they aren’t asleep.”

  Together they crawled out toward the motionless figures. By this time Lepere, Cole, and Pietrzak had come to the clearing and started to follow.

  “Je-sus, Kahl! Here’s a fellow out of the Eighty-third Company that I enlisted with. And he’s dead as hell.”

  Rat-t-t-t——

  It was a Maxim and the men dropped to their bellies.

  “Hey, you poor fool, can’t you shut up?” Kahl said. “That’s a Maxim.”

  Hicks made for behind a tree as fast as he could crawl.

  “Hey, Pete,” he called in an undertone “where’s the rest of the outfit?”

  “I don’t know,” Pietrzak answered him. “That’s the reason we come over here where you fellers are.”

  Hicks turned to Kahl. “By God, Kahl, we’re lost!”

  The machine-gun bullets shaved the bark from the trunk of the tree behind which Hicks was lying. He flattened out, his face pressed into the grass.

  “Oh, Kahl, we’re lost!”

  But Kahl did not hear him. Possibly he remembered what he had said earlier in the day. Possibly he was really a hero. Possibly he again saw himself as a little boy playing Indian in the back yard. Whatever were his thoughts, he rose to one knee, and, after peering intently in the direction from which the bullets had come, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and sighted along the shining barrel.

  Rat-t-t-t-tat.

  A Maxim, but from an oblique direction, was firing, and Kahl sprawled on his face, his right arm falling over the shiny barrel of his rifle. Then other machine-guns rained their bullets into the clearing, and the men clawed at the ground in an effort to lower their bodies beneath the sweep of the lead.

  “What’ll we do, Hicks?” asked Pietrzak.

  The tender green leaves from the trunk of the tree behind which Hicks was secure fluttered to the ground, clipped by the machine-gun fire.

  “I don’t know, but we can’t stay here. Why don’t you find the rest of the gang?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Well . . .” Hicks started to crawl back from the clearing into the woods. After he had wriggled his body about fifty yards he rose to his feet and ran in the general direction of which he had last seen the company. Breaking through the woods, he met Captain Powers.

  “Captain Powers, there’s a squad of us up there, and we’re lost. We don’t know what to do. The men are in a clearing, and they’re afraid to move because they’re right in sight of a nest of machine-guns. Do you know where the platoon is? What shall we do?”

  And in a Shakespearian voice Captain Powers told Hicks to return to his squad and lead them in a charge on the machine-gun nest.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Hicks turned and squirmed back through the woods to the clearing. “Like hell we’ll advance,” he thought. “The poor fool.”

  Hicks reached the clearing at the same time the German machine-guns momentarily stopped.

  “Ja find ’em, Hicks?”

  “No, but I saw Powers. If we made a half circle back to the left we might find ’em.”

  “Sounds good enough to try.”

  They were crawling, crawling on their bellies, in single file, when Pugh stopped and called with an exultant lilt in his voice:

  “Oh-o, here’s one Squarehead that’s kissed his papa good-by. Right through the eye.”

  The men in rear veered off so as not to see the dead body. A short distance away some one was moaning weakly. Hicks stopped. “Another one of our guys hit, I betcha.”

  They crawled eagerly and yet fearfully toward the noises. Seen through the trees bandy-legged Funk was supporting the head of little Halvorsen and trying to get him to open his eyes. Beside him was Lieutenant Bedford, saying:

  “You’re crazy, Funk. The kid’s gone, but we’ll see if anything can be done.”

  Funk was softly calling: “Hank, oh, Hank, ain’t you got anything to say?”

  Hicks got to his feet and came beside the group that was staring at the dead face of Halvorsen.

  “What’s that? Little Hank get it? Je’s, that’s bad.”

  And Pugh: “Poor little fellah. I give him a hunnerd francs the other day. But he sure is welcome to it.”

  Funk straightened his body, letting the head of Halvorsen touch the ground. Clinching his fist, he raised it above his head and shook it toward the woods: “We’ll get you, you dirty—” He could not find the word with which he wanted to characterize the inhumanity of the Germans.

  Bedford grasped at his arm: “Get down, you damned fool. Do you want to get hit, too?”

  The platoon had begun the advance through the woods in good order, but after it had reached the more dense part the German machine-guns commenced firing and four men fell. They tramped on, unable to see the enemy. Suddenly they realized that they had broken contact between themselves and the platoon on their left. Advancing, they wedged themselves into the German lines and made a target for enfillade fire. Then, little more to be done except get killed, they halted.

  An orderly from battalion headquarters crawling through the woods carried with him the information for Captain Powers that the company was to intrench for the night. When the news reached them the platoon failed even to comment. For once their garrulous selves were stilled. The realization that they were to spend a night freighted with experiences totally new, that through the darkness they were to lie powerless to defend themselves, stunned them.

  A curving line was described by Lieutenant Bedford, and the men were deployed along it at intervals. They unslung their packs, their extra bandoliers of ammunition, and began furiously to dig holes in the ground, deep enough for them to lie in without exposing their bodies. Some used their hand shovels and picks, while others, more careless with their equipment, used their bayonets to loosen the dirt and their mess-kit lids to scoop it out.

  Dusk, like powder of old blue, sifted through the trees and wrapped the shallow burrows in a friendly mystery. In their fresh-made beds, peeping through the boughs with which they had covered the tops of their holes, the men waited.

  Through the long night that stretched interminably before them they peered into the darkness, fancying, as they had in the trenches, that each tree trunk was an enemy. The least noise was sufficient for overworked nerves to press the trigger of a rifle and send a volley of bullets through the leaves of the trees. The calling of a frightened bird would cause their hearts to throb violently against their ribs. When they spoke it was in the smallest of whispers, and even so conversation was peculiarly lacking.

  Hicks, at times, would think of a letter that his mother had written him in which she had offered to send him a quantity of cyanide of potassium. “You know, son,” she had written, “this war is not like the war that grandpapa used to tell you about. Those frightful Germans have liquid fire and deadly gases, and it is only when I think of how you would suffer if you were burned by their infernal liquid fire that I offer to send it. If you want it, just mark a cross at the bottom of your next letter.” But Hicks had not marked any cross. He had laughed at the notion at first, and then, as the
months slipped by, he had forgotten entirely about it. Now he wondered if he had done wisely. Suppose he were shot like the fellow in the trench the other day? Or gassed as badly as the Frenchman whom he and Pugh had carried back to the first-aid station. Yes, it would have been comforting. . . . But he revolted at the thought of poisoning himself. His early religion had been that a suicide does not better his condition. He simply lives in purgatory. It would be hellish to lie gasping forever in purgatory, Hicks thought. Dear old mother. How she had cried when he told her that he had enlisted and was to be sent almost immediately to France. “But, mother, you were such a good patriot before I enlisted, and now you don’t want me to go. What kind of patriotism is that?” he remembered having asked her. And how badly she had felt that he only spent an hour with her before he left for the training camp.

  He was amused at the notion of digging holes to lie in. It is insulting, he thought, to ask a person to dig his own grave. It is barbaric.

  The leaves of the trees were silvered above by the rays of the sun playing upon the dew. Morning had come.

  Somewhere—and it seemed as if it were only ten yards away, a bugle blew a short and unfamiliar call.

  “All right, Third Platoon!” Lieutenant Bedford’s voice was hoarse with excitement. “Forward, Third Platoon.”

  Hesitatingly and half-whimpering, the platoon climbed out from their holes, over which they had carefully placed boughs of trees to keep reconnoitering airplanes from seeing the freshly dug dirt.

  Hicks’s helmet felt as if it were about to come off. It wabbled from one side to the other. His face was frozen, and when he wanted to speak out he felt that he could not because the muscles that controlled his mouth refused to respond. At first he was intensely aware of his legs, but, surging along with the rest of the platoon, he soon forgot them.

  Three Germans were rising up in front of him. “Don’t those queer little caps of theirs look funny?” he thought, and, from the hip, he fired his automatic rifle at them. One fell and the others lifted their hands in the air and bellowed: “Kamerad! Kamerad!” Hicks passed by them, unheeding. More Germans. The woods were filled with Germans. But the rest of them wore heavy steel helmets that covered their foreheads and ears.