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Dear Elsa,
Spring has come to France, and with it comes for me the relief of a change.
I am with a full American division now. After a long march north, we have taken up a position behind the British army near Amiens. We hold the reserve behind a strategic ridge that the Germans keep trying to take. I have included my new contact, but I do not know how long we will be here. The armies are moving much more now than they did last year. When you write to me, list my division and company numbers, as that is the surest way to reach me.
It seems Germany is intent on winning the war this spring. They have concentrated all their force here on the northern front. Thank God I was not in the path of their first assault. So many of the Americans who are finally arriving died in their first action of the war. It is all so sad.
I am relieved to be here, as I am not presently on the front lines. No longer do I fear being killed in my sleep. No longer must I sully my soul by joining in the daily slaughter that was my life in the front trench.
Since coming here, all I have been required to do is dig. But that, indeed, is the primary task of a soldier in this war. Before a battle, we all dig. After a battle, we dig. But I am not complaining. I would much rather dig than fight.
How long the respite will last I cannot say. The German army is on the move. But I am glad for a chance to catch my breath out of the line of fire . . .
Glenn paused with the sheet unfinished. There was so much he wanted to say to Elsa. He wanted to comfort her after the uncertainties her last letter expressed. He wanted to assure her of his own spirits, fragile as they were. He wanted to tell her how much her thoughts meant to him.
But he couldn’t bring words to his mind or his pen. This war wasn’t an easy thing to write home about. How could one describe the details: the shelling, the gas, the bodies of comrades torn apart, the persistent stench of death? By not writing these things down they could be kept at arm’s length, like terrors seen on a motion picture show. But how could one write about something else?
His emotions were numbed by the horror. If he let himself become emotional he couldn’t endure the things he had seen . . . and would surely see again soon. So he left his letter as it was, reading like a military correspondence.
The morning postman was about to leave. He quickly finished the letter, signed it, and sent it off.
Leaving the tent, he looked east to the ridge where the British army was camped two miles away. For now his position seemed safe, but he knew the German army was close beyond that Chemin des Dames ridge.
It wasn’t difficult for him to see what was happening. The papers called the Germans’ spring offensive the greatest display of firepower the world had ever seen. Glenn could only hope this was their last effort. Kaiser Wilhelm knew Germany needed to win before millions more Americans arrived in France. The U-boats had failed to stop them. Germany poured every man and boy who could hold a weapon into the surge on the Marne. The problem for Germany was that to win the war, it needed to conquer; the Allies only needed to defend. The goals that brought Germany into the war had become obsolete. Now, Germany had to take Paris or lose everything. But just as in their initial onslaught of 1914, the advance on Paris was limited by lack of resources. Exhaustion and delayed supply trains forced the army to slow. Did the Germans have enough left to finish the surge?
As if a foreboding answered his own question, Glenn saw puffs of smoke rise over the ridge. Moments later came the deathly sound of cannon fire. Another battle was starting. He sprinted back to his company.
Even here in the reserve, two miles behind the ridge, Glenn quickly surmised that things were going badly. He had learned to recognize the sounds of battle and knew the British army on the ridge had been taken off guard. The German artillery was ripping apart the tightly packed troops in the front trench. They had probably preceded the shelling with a mustard-gas drop. Glenn shuddered to think of the casualties the British division was suffering.
He clutched his rifle and waited for orders. It was better not to think at all in these moments. The company commander organized them into defense position. Glenn looked at his old friend Sam Cummings beside him. Their look was brief. Neither wanted to show their fear. They were positioned next to a small wood bunker in the rear line.
German troops came pouring over the vital ridge. Allied artillery and machine gun fire rained down on them. The rush was unfazed, despite heavy German casualties. Desperately, the two Americans retreated to the open door of the bunker, sharing the frame as a makeshift shield as the Germans reached the range of their rifles.
Orders were being shouted somewhere but instinct had taken over. Glenn could barely hear his own rifle amid the din.
Bullets began to rip into the walls of the bunker. What poor protection a doorframe was, when one had grown accustomed to a trench.
Captain Cummings fell. Glenn saw the scream of agony on his face, though he couldn’t hear him yell. Glenn’s fear gave his emotions no space to process sorrow for his friend. Soldiers were falling all around as the Germans got closer. If anyone sounded a retreat, it wouldn’t have been heard. Intent on survival, men began to run back.
A line of machine gun bullets slapped Glenn’s rifle out of his hand. He could feel the wind from the shots blow the hair on his fingers.
In the split second he had, Glenn looked around. Men were running back and falling all around him. Even if he could outrun the Germans, he couldn’t outrun their bullets. For a moment he knew he would die, but refused to accept it. He ducked inside the bunker. Bullets and shattered wood flew past his face.
A single beam supported the interior. He could think of only one plan to live. He had never climbed a bare beam before, but the jaws of death inspired him. He scaled the beam as if he had done it a hundred times.
At the top, he tried to punch through the roof but his position gave him no leverage. He only succeeded in bruising his hand before starting to lose his grip on the beam. He jumped back down to the floor of the shed.
Time was running out. He had certainly lost the chance to flee. He had to hide here or else surrender and hope this was a convenient day for the Germans to take prisoners.
He had a small grenade on his belt. Hurrying to the back side of the shed, he threw the grenade onto its flat roof, hoping to blow a hole he could climb through and hide. He waited, with his revolver in his hand. The grenade exploded, sounding like a dull pop amongst the deafening shells all around him. But instead of merely blowing a hole in the roof, the entire shed quickly crumbled around him.
Idiot. Glenn couldn’t believe his stupidity. This was life or death.
He burrowed into the pile of shattered wood, ignoring the splinters that scraped at his hands and face. The boards shifted on top of him, pinning one leg, but not crushing him. He laid still. Through the cracks of the pile on top of him he saw bodies everywhere on the field. His sweat made a puddle of the hard ground around him. He didn’t know if he was well hidden or not. But he had taken his chance and it was too late to do anything else.
A pair of boots tramped by. He saw them not ten feet away from his eyes. Then another pair, then a dozen, a hundred, a thousand pairs of gray boots. The ground shook from them, the massive German infantry, parting and merging again for a pile of shattered wood. The air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder, hot metal and thousands of dirty men.
Glenn waited, hardly daring to breathe, for what seemed like hours. Still, the army came. Having escaped from the first men in no way eased Glenn’s fear. Those who followed would be more eager to kill than those who had already killed today. His fingers shook around his pitiful Colt revolver with its six bullets. All it would take would be for one man to carelessly stumble into the ruins of the shed and he would be found. But no soldier stumbled. The Germans were well trained. They knew how to march efficiently through ruined forests, abandoned villages or vanquished battlefields.
The stampede finally passed. Glenn felt as if he could breathe for the first time in hours. Shellfire sounded from further down the valley. Now that the troops were past he could hear the horrible cries of the dying. He waited another hour or so, he couldn’t really tell, then climbed out of his hiding place. Bodies were strewn as far as his eye could see. The field was oily and slick, reeking of fresh blood.
Six months ago, he would have worried over the men who were still alive. But not today. He wasn’t a medic; these were beyond his help. He only hoped he had the strength to save himself.
He ran north.
To the west was the onrushing German army and to the east was Germany itself, with whatever reinforcements might come after the advancing front. He didn’t pause to think what hope there might be to the north—it was German held territory—but he couldn’t stay still. A hostile army separated him from the nearest ally.
The stretch of front the Germans had broken through in the battle was startling. It must have been twenty or thirty miles wide. Now they would have a clear path toward Paris, rushing forward with three hundred thousand men, four thousand heavy artillery guns and Big Bertha, that horrifying cannon with a thirty-mile range.
Glenn’s path traversed the corridor of death the Germans had cut across the countryside. He tried to shield his eyes from the stilled faces and mangled bodies, but it was impossible. Some of the dying moaned and reached out toward him. He ran on in terror. He didn’t think to gather supplies or even to pick up a fresh rifle from one of the dead. The sight and smell of the field sickened him too much to think straight.
Medics began to appear among the bodies. Though German soldiers and armed, they had no interest in accosting the lonely American. Their job was to save lives, not take more. Still, Glenn saw their uniforms and feared them. He ran in wide circles around anywhere the medics worked.
Most of the dead were German. The Americans had inflicted heavy losses in their brief stand. He didn’t venture near the trench. He knew the British IX corps had been in it. His only hope was that the Germans had captured a few and not killed them all. He could still hear guns in the distance, moving farther away but still loud and clear.
As he came into areas where the battle had passed less recently, the medics were no longer soldiers but Red Cross volunteers.
Though he ran straight, it felt as if he stood still, while death circled closer and closer. As if in a dream, his feet seemed rooted to the ground in a vast field of death. No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t escape the field of death. Tears and sweat were indistinguishable to him.
His paranoia swept into a new fear. Figures were moving parallel to him about fifty yards away. These men weren’t medics.
There was nowhere to hide. Trees no longer grew anywhere near the front. In a panic, he dropped to the ground, hoping to hide among the bodies.
It was too late. They had seen him.
Sweat poured through his clothes and down from his helmet into his eyes. He tried to stand up but his knees buckled. He lifted himself to his knees and tried to slip his finger around the trigger of his pistol but his soaking fingers couldn’t grasp it. He dropped the weapon.
The shapes of four men swirled in his weary eyes, coming quickly toward him. He still couldn’t stand but tried to crawl away.
Arms reached around him and held tightly, not in capture, but in embrace. His whole body shook violently.
“He’s been through the ringer,” someone said.
“It’s all right, mate,” said the man who held him. The soothing Scottish voice, so recognizable as an ally, broke through Glenn’s panic. He wept on the Scotsman’s shoulder. Finally, Glenn controlled his hysteria and stood up.
“So, it was no better for ye than for us in the trench?” the man asked in his thick brogue.
“Bloody Francs should have been up front with us,” said another of the men. Glenn saw that all four were in British uniforms.
“How many of you survived?” Glenn asked. It was a stupid question, but it felt good to speak again.
“They did take some prisoners, thank God. But you’re the first survivor we’ve seen since we got out of there. It was a good routing.”
“I’m sorry for my panic, gentlemen,” said Glenn. The human contact brought him fully back to his senses. “I suppose you’ve been just as frightened as me today. Where were you heading when you saw me?”
“Don’t know,” said one of the men.
“Well, we can’t stay here,” said Glenn. “More Germans will be coming through here by tomorrow.”
“Where, then, Captain?” asked the Scott.
Glenn looked at each man in turn. There was one sergeant and three privates. He realized that, as an officer, they were looking to him. He felt ashamed for having been found in such hysteria. He hoped this wasn’t their first encounter with an American soldier. He determined to earn their respect and trust.
“We must stay out of sight until we can determine the position of our own troops.”
“If the French make a stand and force even a partial German retreat, they’ll fall back on us,” said the English sergeant.
“You’re right,” Glenn agreed. “The farther behind the front lines we get, the safer we’ll be, even though it puts us deeper in German territory. How badly destroyed is your camp at the front?”
“The men are all dead, but we could gather some supplies and ammunition.”
A sudden bombardment of artillery thundered to the west. Though it was miles away, they all shuddered.
“Let’s move across the trenches, gathering what we can, and get far from this battlefield by nightfall. In the future we should move at night. Who knows how long it will be before we find our companies again.”
Glenn put his pistol back in his belt as the others slung their rifles over their shoulders.
“Since we are to be companions,” he said, “we should get to know one another. I’m Captain Streppy, from New York.”
“Sergeant Fulwider, from Cornwall.”
“Private Hageman, London.”
“Private Sanders, Stratford-upon-Avon.”
The Scotsman offered Glenn his hand. “I’m Private MacLeod, from Dundee. But call me Fergus.”
Their time in the British trench lasted longer than they expected. There were still a lot of wounded in and around the trench. The German military medics moved closer behind their army. The decimated British trench was being serviced by Red Cross, as well as some civilians. Private Hageman had some medical knowledge and stayed to help.
Others who had wandered east after the battle returned to tell that German reinforcements were on the way. These, along with any lightly wounded who could still march, joined together. Now a company of twenty-one, they journeyed southeast as night fell, well behind the German front, with a vague hope of finding their way to the French army stationed at Reims.