On the Battlefields of France 1918 by Emil Gansser

Author:Emil Gansser [Gansser, Emil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Europe, Great Britain, General, Germany, France
ISBN: 9781839742781
Google: Hx7TDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2020-02-25T03:32:53+00:00

VIII. BACK AT JUMP OFF LINE

All is quiet on the front when Gordon and I arrive back at the road from which we had started forward in the gray mist of early dawn. The tumult of crashing shells has ceased and rifles and machine-guns have stopped their angry chatter. Sy and a part of his platoon and some of Heft’s men are already at the road. Sy, a mere shadow of his former self, is leaning listlessly against the road bank. Dark circles are under his eyes and his haggard face is drawn in an expression of utter dejection. Recalling the gunfire Gordon and I had heard, his downcast appearance fills me with misgivings that all is not well with the company and anxiously, I ask him, “Where’s the rest of the company?”

“Up in Jomblets Woods, so far as I know,” he replies in a voice grave as an undertaker’s.

“Is Cash and his platoon up there?”

“I don’t know what’s become of them.”

“And Heft; where is he?”

“He’s up there,” he replies, wearily; “A bullet got him in the head and he’s gone west; and so have a bunch of our men. We had a battle with the Boche and our outfit was badly shot up,” and in a state of near nervous exhaustion, he flops down on the road. For a brief space I gaze in meditative silence at the small group who had dribbled back to the road after the battle. Of our three platoons engaged in the morning’s action, scarcely a platoon is present. From them I obtain the grim details of their encounter with the Boche.

From smoke-filled Jomblets came a brisk crackle of unseen machine-guns as the platoons and our other attacking company approached the woods. Undaunted by the stream of bullets which poured from the hidden guns and clipped the grass about their feet, the thin line of men in the first wave surged forward and on into the woods and immediately came upon the hostile gunners who, with hands raised above their heads, cried out, imploringly, “Kamerad! Kamerad!” Every gunner had a Red-Cross arm band fastened around his coat sleeve, and two were lugging a litter upon which lay a machine-gun cunningly concealed under a blanket. These tricky gunners were promptly disarmed and shorn of their false insignias and after liberal application of stout, vigorous kicks to their behinds for their despicable deception, they were sent on to the rear to be eventually housed in quiet, comfortable quarters and kept in full bellies for the remainder of the war.

Moving briskly, the two companies pushed on through the haze of smoke. Coming suddenly upon some entrenched Germans deep in the woods, our men in the leading waves rushed forward with bayonets poised and leveled at the throats of the enemy who, at the sight of cold steel, fled in precipitate confusion. The platoons, spurred on by their easy victory, swept forward in close pursuit of the retreating Germans, who when near the eastern limits of Jomblets, turned

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