A More Unbending Battle by Peter Nelson

A More Unbending Battle by Peter Nelson

Author:Peter Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books


There were quiet times in the trenches when men found ways to amuse themselves. On one occasion a private named Peter Sands was playing craps in the foremost line when a German shell dropped into a nearby trench. No one was wounded, but the explosion blew their only set of dice out of the trench and into no-man’s-land. Sands made a private sortie over the top to retrieve the dice and resume the game.

Another private named Nichols (possibly William O. Niccolls of F Company) was said by Maj. Lorillard Spencer to be the champion crap shooter of the outfit, so accomplished at craps, or “African golf,” that he somehow kept winning money even when the regiment had gone eleven months without pay. Out of gratitude for the many things the French had taken the time to teach them, the men from Harlem returned the favor by teaching the poilus and Moroccans how to shoot dice. They took to the game “like ducks to water,” and the money they lost tided the New Yorkers over until the pay-master showed up. The Moroccans were a tough crowd, in their khaki-yellow uniforms sporting the red shoulder braid of the Legion of Honor and the star-and-crescent spahi insignia on their collars. They were part of the “Iron Corps” that fought at Nancy, in Joseph Joffre’s Champagne offensive in 1915, at Verdun, Fleury, and Thiaumont. Strict Muslims would not have partaken of alcohol, but “African golf” was another matter. The men of the 369th had great respect for the Moroccans, “one of the greatest and bravest fighting troops that I have ever come in contact with,” Sgt. G. J. Williams said. “Their one belief is that in going to their death, is going to Heaven, and that is one reason of their recklessness in fighting the enemy. . . . We boys did not share this belief, altogether.”

Thirty-three-year-old Pvt. Lionel W. Rogers of Company L (enlisted September 25, 1916) became one of the best hand grenade throwers in the regiment by practicing on rats, throwing light grenades at the trench vermin to improve his accuracy, even though his comrades told him the rats were “altogether too big a target.” He was engaged in this activity one day while he was eating. He got butter on his fingers and lost his grip on a grenade as he threw it, dropping it at his feet, where it exploded. The charge was small but enough to send him to the hospital.



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