Through the Wheat

by Thomas Boyd

  “You dirty bastards!” Hicks heard some one scream.

  By God, he wouldn’t have any liquid fire poured on him. “Johnston!” he called. But Johnston, his leader, was not there. Hicks’s last clip had been emptied of shells. There were no more in his musette bag. It wasn’t possible! Johnston must be some place near, ready to give him more clips. But no! He threw his rifle away in disgust. A few yards farther he saw the back of an olive-drab uniform, and by one of the hands that was connected to the uniform as clutched a rifle. Hicks snatched the rifle, unbuckled the cartridge-belt from the uniform, and hurried blindly on. A deep ravine was in front of him. He half jumped, half stumbled across it, and found himself once more in a wheat-field. There was no one in sight. He scrambled back over the ravine and through the woods again, frightened but defiant. Wherever he looked, as he went back through the woods, men were lying. Some of them lay quite still. Others moaned and cried alternately. But Hicks paid no heed. He was still hurrying on, his head up and his nostrils wide, when some one called:

  “Here, Hicks, get busy and round up some of these Squareheads.” It was Ryan.

  Hicks felt as if he had been struck in the stomach with a brick. He laughed nervously. “Sure.”

  Nine Germans stood together with their hands raised high above their heads. Their knees were shaking badly and they looked first to one side and then to the other. Docile sheep, he led them back to the village where he turned them over to a reserve regiment.

  On the way back to join his platoon he met a man who looked familiar. “Say, fellow, don’t you belong to A Company, of the Fifth?”

  The man turned. “I did,” he said. “I don’t believe there is any more A Company.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, we attacked this morning through an open space in the woods,” the man told him.

  “And they’re all dead? Fellah, I’ve got a cousin in that outfit. Show me where they went over.”

  They walked back to the clearing together. Men were lying around in all manner of postures, and much more thickly than the men in the woods.

  “What was your cousin’s name, buddy.”

  “Williams, Paul Williams,” Hicks jerked out. “He was a tall, dark-haired fellow, about nineteen?”

  “Nope. Might have seen him, but I don’t remember his name.”

  Hicks covered the entire field, stopping closely to peer into the face of each of the men who was not a German soldier. As he was turning away from a man who was lying upon his back, his arms and legs stretched wide, and over whom he had stood longer than usual because the face reminded him somewhat of his cousin, the man’s eyelids partly opened, and in a voice in which there was little strength, called: “Soldier! Oh, soldier! Don’t let that damned Squarehead get me. Don’t leave me alone with him. He’ll kill me.”

  “No, he won’t, buddy. He’s all right.” Hicks spoke reassuringly. For a moment he could not think whom the man was speaking of, but then he recollected that a German Red Cross attendant had been busy in the field, binding the wounds of the soldiers. Hicks looked around and saw the attendant a few yards off. He beckoned to him, and tried to illustrate by motions that he wanted the soldier carried back to the first-aid station.

  The German came over, lowered his head to the soldier’s chest. “Nein. Caput.” He pointed to a rust-colored spot on the soldier’s tunic over the heart. While Hicks was standing there, wondering what to do, the soldier’s eyelids fluttered, he breathed once and deeply—and died.

  Hicks gave up hope of finding his cousin. He had either been taken prisoner, and that was not at all likely, or else he had been sent back wounded, he thought.

  Hicks tramped back through the thick woods that suddenly had become quiet. The rays of the noonday sun were filtering through the boughs of the trees, seeking out the now inanimate bodies, which would soon turn black and bloat out of shape under the intense heat. Before him, on a knoll of green, was a pile of heavy boulders, and, peeping through a crevice, stuck the nose of a Maxim. Climbing the knoll to the right, he looked into the machine-gun nest. Three bodies, motionless as the rocks themselves, were stretched at length. One had fallen face forward, an arm thrown over the stock of the weapon. His back, that swelled under the gray coat, was turned reproachfully toward the sky. Another was sprawled on his back, his hands and legs frozen in a gesture of complete negation. His chin had fallen heavily on his breast and upon his head his small trench cap was tilted forward at a rakish angle. The other man’s face was a clot of blood. Death, camera-like, had caught and held him fast, his body supported by the rocks, his face like a battered sunflower in the evening.

  Hicks stooped over and gently drew the Maxim away from the man who had been firing it when he had been killed. Shouldering it, and carrying an extra belt of cartridges and the water-cooler, he left the knoll and walked toward the ravine. The spectacle that he had just witnessed left very little impression upon him.

  The platoon was gathered closely together in the ravine. The ravine was deep and wide, and every so often passage along it was obstructed by a huge stone over which the men would have to climb. Evidently, a few days before, the French soldiers had used the ravine as a trench from which to conceal themselves while they fought against the onslaught of the enemy. Little holes had been dug in the side of the ravine nearest to the field in which men could throw themselves to be protected from the bursting shell casings and shrapnel. As he approached, three of the men were scuffing dirt over the body of a dead French soldier who had fallen near one of the small burrows in the ravine.

  Sergeant Ryan was pacing along the ravine, pulling at the ends of his pointed mustache. Lieutenant Bedford, chewing speculatively at a sprig of wheat, and Sergeant Harriman were seated on the ground, apparently immersed in a discussion.

  Sergeant Ryan walked over to them.

  “This is damned foolishness,” he called. “Before very long there are going to be so many shells flying into this place that you won’t be able to count them. And where will we be? In hell, if we loaf around like this much longer.”

  Lieutenant Bedford rubbed with the palm of his hand the stubble on his pallid face. “If I knew how much longer we were to be here, Ryan, I would have had the men digging in long ago.”

  The company commander broke through the edge of the woods, and stood on the edge of the ravine. “Lieutenant Bedford. I want six of your men right away.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bedford answered. “You, Hicks; you. Cole; you, Bullis; you, Johnston; you, Lepere, and Haight. Follow Captain Powers.”

  Joined by details from the three other platoons, the men followed along through the woods again and out into a field which was very near to the place where Hicks had searched for Williams that morning.

  “Have all of you men your rifles loaded?”

  They responded in the affirmative.

  “Well,” he hesitated, “you see that little bunch of woods over there? There’s a number of Germans there and we’re going after them.”

  Swishing through the heavy wheat, the men now advanced in skirmish order. They were very cautious and, although the sun was making a glaring light and they were directly in an open field, they walked as though they were sneaking toward the enemy. Captain Powers, forgetting his impressive dignity, slunk along, one shoulder low and his hand grasping by the middle a rifle. His eyes were narrowed as if he were registering for the motion-pictures “extreme wariness.” As gently and softly as wading through heavy grass permitted, Captain Powers placed one foot after the other. His manner infected the men. One by one they adopted the crouching attitude, ready to spring upon their unsuspecting prey. They could almost be seen to flex the muscles in the calves of their legs and in their upper arms, rising majestically on their toes when they walked, instead of using the customary flat-footed form of perambulation.

  Captain Powers, abandoning his duties as instructor of English at the
Texas college, had learned modern warfare from the books supplied by the nearest officers’ training camp. He had learned how to order men about, that he was an officer and a gentleman, as the officer who commissioned him had phrased it. But yet he felt a slight interest in the men of his command. In the officers’ training-school and in the course of the practice skirmishes through which he had been he had learned that the way in which an attack was made by a small party moving forward in full daylight was by running forward in spurts until the objective had been reached.

  Being a professor of English, and especially a professor of English in Texas, he sentimentalized the attack. How much finer it is, he thought, to attack as General Sam Houston attacked; to march steadfastly upon the enemy and make them surrender at the point of a sword or a bowie-knife. The only rift came in his realization that he had no sword, not even a bowie-knife.

  When the party was still several yards from the edge of the woods, a mass of Germans, outnumbering them twice, emerged with their hands held high in the air and blithely calling: “Kamerad.”

  The captain’s disappointment at not being able to make another attack worthy of a Texan was soon lost in his exultant emotion at the thought of the number of prisoners he had captured. Selecting one of the men to go with him, he herded the prisoners back to the regimental headquarters, where he proudly delivered them to another officer.

  Chapter VIII

  IN the ravine Hicks was busy trying to place his Maxim in a position from which it would sweep a portion of the field. He had succeeded in making it remain upright on its haunches, and was now experimenting with it in various positions, so that he could swing it back and forth as he fired, and cover the maximum of ground. The water-cooler had been set at its side and the long rubber hose was attached to the machine-gun. A belt filled with cartridges was inserted in the chamber, and the affair was ready to be fired.

  “’At’s some gun you got there, Hicksy, old boy. What do you ’spect to do with it? You don’t aim to kill nobody, do you?” Pugh had recovered and was in good humor. As he talked, a black stubble of beard that grew grotesquely on the chin of his elf-like face rose and fell.

  “No, Jack. I’m just keepin’ it for a souvenir.”

  “Hell, y’ain’t got no souvenir. Lookit, Hicksy.” He produced a small pearl-handled pistol. “Got this offen one of them Dutchmen. Lookit here.” He placed his hand in his blouse and brought out a pair of field-glasses. “Got this from another one. Now all I want to do is to git wounded and I’ll take these babies back and sell ’em for beaucoup francs to them S. O. S. birds.”

  “Don’t talk about getting wounded, Pugh,” Harriman requested. “It’s bad luck. Remember what Kitty Kahl said the other night?”

  “Naw, how’d I know what Kitty Kahl said? He didn’t say nothin’ to me.”

  “He said that he’d either win a decoration or get killed.”

  “I don’t care if he did. I want a bon-bless-ey so I can git outta this damn hole.”

  “Say, Hicks,” Lepere called, “you’d better take down that confounded gun. The Boche will see it and then we’ll all get killed.”

  “Oh, they won’t see it.”

  “You can’t tell. One of their aviators is liable to come over here any time.”

  “Tyah tyah tyah tyah, you talk like you come from where they have possums for yard dogs, Lepeah,” Pugh sneered. “Hicksy, let’s you and me go out salvagin’. There’s a lot of salmon and stuff in some of them boys’ packs that’ll never want it no more.”

  “You mean some of the fellows that have been killed?” Hicks asked. “I don’t like to do that. It seems too ghoulish.”

  “I don’t cah what it seems like. I’m hawngry. Le’s go.”

  “Maybe Bedford’ll stop us.”

  “Naw, he won’t. He’s too damned scared to git out of his hole.”

  They climbed out of the ravine and started back through the woods.

  “Hicksy! Be damned! Lookit that!”

  “Where, where? What is it?”

  “Look!” Pugh pointed his finger toward a large tree. Its knees on the ground and its forehead pressed stiffly against the bark of the tree, a body kneeled.

  “Let’s go back.”

  “Naw, I wanta git some of that salmon.”

  It was easy enough without touching the bodies to collect armfuls of canned salmon from the packs of the dead men. Soon they had all they could carry. Besides the salmon, Pugh had collected several razors and a carton of talcum.

  They had but reached the ravine when the bottom seemed to drop from the sky, dumping a deluge of shells. For a moment the men were stunned by the fierceness of the bombardment. Hicks and Pugh emptied their arms of the cans and dived for a burrow, reaching it simultaneously. Another flock of shells struck in and around the ravine. It was not until after they had exploded that the report of their having been fired was heard.

  “Oh-o, Hicksy, can’t you get in a little closer and give me some room,” Pugh yelled. “Them’s the whizz-bangs they’ve been tellin’ us about.”

  The shells, with their terrific “bz—BANG, bz—BANG” poured in upon the men.

  “Stretcher bearer on the left!” some one screamed above the racket. The plea went unheeded.

  “God damn it, there’s a man half killed up there. Stretcher bearer on the le-f-f-t.”

  “I didn’t know there was anybody fool enough to yell for one of them lousy stretcher bearers. Hicksy, le’s you and me go up.”

  While the shells fell and burst directly in front of him, behind him, and on each side, a huge fellow whose proportions made him an easy target, walked conscientiously along the ravine. In his hand was a bag containing first-aid implements. To Hicks, as he passed, the huge fellow, with the red cross on his arm, looked like a doting father who felt the necessity forcibly to reprimand a child. A few minutes later Hicks saw him, with the wounded man thrown over his shoulder as if he were a bag of salt, making his way along the ravine and through the woods to the dressing station.

  Bang—CRASH. The ravine reverberated from the explosion. Another volley had been hurled into it.

  “Stretcher bearer on the left. Stretcher bearer on the left,” some one called. From time to time the cry was repeated, each time less hopefully, more stridently.

  Fiercely whining, a shell bore down upon the ground under which Hicks and Pugh were crouched. It landed softly. They waited, breathless, for it to burst. Hicks was convulsed. Oh, if only it would explode and end the suspense. Hicks found himself wanting the shell to burst, imploring it!

  The smoke in the air was stifling them, burning out their lungs. Their eyes were shot with blood, and tears streamed unceasingly down their cheeks. Their throats felt as if they had swallowed handfuls of fine dust.

  “I’ll choke, I’ll die,” Hicks thought with every breath. He felt for his mask, knocked off his helmet, and adjusted the mask to his head. Frenzied, he bit his teeth into the hard-rubber mouthpiece, and breathed deeply. Oh, what a relief; the picrine could not penetrate the chemicals of the mask! He breathed again; gulped, rather. Immediately his throat and lungs were on fire. The mask was more of a hindrance than a help.

  Incomprehensibly, the bombardment stopped.

  Men ran from their burrows and clambered over the ravine in an effort to escape the blinding, choking smoke.

  “Stop, men,” Lieutenant Bedford called hoarsely. “Come back here and be ready to stand off an attack.”

  Reluctantly they returned and placed themselves in a position from which they could fire across the field. Hicks drew out his canteen. It was empty.

  “Water, got any water, Pugh?”

  “No, jist drained the last drop.”

  Hicks walked down the ravine. “Anybody got any water to spare?”

  No one had. No one had any water. He walked back beside Pugh. As he approached, Pugh called:
<
br />   “Oh, Hicksy, you’d better go over and ask them Dutchmen for another gun. One of their shells swiped that pretty one you had up here.”

  The Maxim which Hicks had diligently striven to get into shape was gone—where, no one knew.

  “I don’t care. If they come over now I wouldn’t have strength enough to pull a trigger. I’m all in, Pugh.”

  Fearfully the men waited for the attack. It grew dark, but none came. Out in the field a cow slowly moved across the broken ground. In the dusk Lieutenant Bedford was stumbling along the ravine, calling for volunteers to go on a water detail.

  From one of the holes King Cole’s voice croaked: “I’ll go, lieutenant. I’ll go.” He sounded like a bullfrog.

  “I’ll go, too; be glad to,” Hicks offered.

  “God, me too,” complemented Pugh.

  “I only want two men. Pugh, you stay here. All right, Hicks and Cole, collect up the canteens and then I’ll tell you where to go.”

  “Je’s, these canteens make a lot of noise. The Squareheads can hear us for a mile. Hadn’t we better put something around them?” Hicks asked Lieutenant Bedford.

  “Yes, have the men unhook their canteen covers and put them on. Now be careful when you go, for the German lines are only a few hundred yards. You follow this ravine until you come to a place where it splits. Take the one to the right. It leads into a little town where there’s a pump.”

  They started off, feeling their way over the huge boulders that lay in the ravine. When they were no more than a hundred yards from the platoon, a shell severed the air over their heads and burst in the field to their right. They fell flat on their faces. After the shell had exploded they got up and started again. Another shell burst ten yards in front of them. They ran forward again, the canteens jangling over their shoulders. This time the shell burst just to their left, throwing up a mass of dirt which showered down on them.