Through the Wheat

by Thomas Boyd

  Hicks, lying in the wheat, divided his attention between the manœuvring of the tanks and the frantic scampering of the insects on the ground and in the wheat, whose manner of existence he had disturbed by his sitting down. Black little creatures, they waddled over the ground with as great a seriousness and importance as if they supported the burden of the world. Disorganized, they ran in all directions, even toward Hicks’s hobnailed boots and upon his awkwardly rolled puttees. It was the first time since he had enlisted that he had thought much about bugs, save for the kind that infest the body. Now he wondered whether their lives were not as important as the lives of men; whether they were not conscious of a feeling that, were they no longer to exist, the end of the world would come. He compared them with the hustling, inane little tanks, and almost concluded that one was as important as the other. He stood by carefully so as not to step on any of the insects.

  So far the German shells had burst either far behind the platoon or far in front of it. But now the whine, ever increasing, of a shell informed him that in a moment he would be listening to the ripping sound of flying pieces of shell casing. He waited, breathless. Fifteen yards behind him the shell exploded terrifically. He looked back. “Oh, Larson,” he called. Larson was nowhere to be seen. “Damn these tanks,” he fretted. “They’ll have us all killed, first thing we know.”

  The dread of the attack was forgotten in the more immediate danger of the enemy artillery finding the exact range of the platoon by means of the sputtering tanks. A flock of shells left the long, black mouths of the German guns and began their journey toward Hicks. He winced, tied his muscles into knots, and threw himself flat on the ground, quite forgetful of the insects. The shells all struck within a radius of twenty yards, throwing up dirt, grain, a black cloud of smoke. The whistle blew and Hicks rose again.

  As he started forward, abreast of the first wave, he had never before felt so great a stiffness in his legs, nor so great a weight in his shoes. It was as if they were tied to the earth. For a moment the jargon and melody of a once-popular song flooded his brain. Then he thought of the platoon joke about the man from the wilds who had come barefoot to a recruiting officer to enlist, and who, upon putting on a pair of shoes, had stood still for hours, believing that he was tied. “Ha,” thought Hicks, “that’s a funny one. They had to put sand in his shoes before he would move.” War was a business of tightening things, he observed, as he fastened the chin strap of his helmet more tightly. Corroborating the evidence, he tightened his belt over his empty stomach. The men were marching along, an interval of three yards between each. A shell struck directly upon the moving front wave a few yards to the left of Hicks. An arm and a haversack foolishly rose in the air above the cloud of smoke of the exploding shell. Slightly farther on machine-guns began an annoying rat-tat-tat, the bullets snipping off the heads of grain. More men fell. The front rank went on with huge gaps in it. On they stolidly marched. Hicks, glancing back, saw that the four waves had been consolidated into but two. But the bayonets glistened as brightly as before.

  “Close in there, Hicks,” somebody yelled, and Hicks asked whether the men were not being killed swiftly enough, without grouping them together more closely. They advanced to a point where they were enfiladed by the enemy’s machine-guns. As the four lines had become two, so now the two lines became one. But on they marched, preserving a line that could have passed the reviewing stand on dress parade.

  Beyond a cluster of trees was a village which had been named as the objective of the attack for that day. The road, canopied by green tree boughs, led to it from the town which that morning the platoon had left. The road was level, more level even than the field. It made a path as directing as a bowling-alley for the machine-gunners and riflemen in the village. Thus, the road was almost a certain death-trap for any one who tried to cross it. The right section of the platoon had begun the attack on one side of the road, the left on the other. As the ranks thinned and a greater distance between each man was required to preserve contact with the advancing line, the men on the right, where the heavier firing occurred, spread out, drawing away from the road.

  The shells continued to fall, using as their target the slowly moving tanks which regulated the advance of the infantry. Suddenly a large six-inch shell struck the turret of the tank nearest the platoon. The tank recoiled and stood stock-still. A moment later two men, like frightened rabbits, scurried out of the tank and ran back toward the rear.

  Three airplanes, white stars in a field of red on their wings, flew gaily over the field and toward the German lines. They floated gracefully and haughtily out of sight. Not much later on they precipitately returned with three Fokkers after them like angry hornets. Shriven of their grandeur, they flocked in disorder back to their hangars, the machine-guns of the German planes spitting bullets after them. The aerial entertainment was changed: Four large German bombing planes, pursuing a businesslike course, arrived above the advancing men and began to drop bombs and fire machine-gun bullets at them. The bombs reported as noisily as the seventy-seven-millimetre guns, but they made only a shallow hole in the ground. More devastating were the machine-gun bullets which zinged off the steel helmets of the men or bored their way through to the skull. Under the combination of direct artillery fire, enfilade machine-gun, rifle sniping, bombs dropped from airplanes, the ranks of the advancing men had become so sparse that the attack was brought to a temporary halt.

  It was now afternoon and the heat of the sun was unendurable. It burned upon the helmets and through the clothing and caused sweat to trickle down the skin, irritating the scratches, bruises, and burns with which the bodies of the men were covered. The four bombing planes continued lazily to circle overhead, “kicking out their tail-gates,” as the men graphically phrased it. Hicks and Pugh, with four of the new men, were at the farthest point of advance. Lying flat, they tried with their bayonets, their mess knives, to throw up a protection of ground in front of them. Thoroughly tired, they worked slowly, in spite of the danger. They were half-way finished when a bullet zipped through the wheat and penetrated the bone of the crooked elbow with which the man next Hicks was supporting himself.

  “Here it is,” said Hicks, picking up a small steel-jacketed bullet.

  “By God, that hurts. Help me get my shirt off.”

  “Je’s, you’re lucky,” Hicks murmured enviously. “You’ll never come back to the front any more. And what a fancy place to get hit!” The shirt off, the bullet was seen to have gone through the forearm just above the elbow, coming out on the other side.

  “Don’t you think so?” eagerly. “It don’t hurt so much.”

  “No, but you better hurry up and git outa here or you’ll have somep’n more than a busted arm,” one of the new men advised.

  The arrival of a salvo of shells decided the new man upon an immediate departure. Throwing away all of his equipment, he hurried away, his elbow pressed closely to his side.

  Behind Hicks, a few yards, some one began to whimper.

  “What’s the trouble, buddy?”

  “I d-d-on’t kn-now,” the voice stuttered, half sobbing, half crying.

  “Well, why don’t you beat it back?”

  “I’m af-f-fraid.”

  “Damn it, get the hell out of here. Do you want us to go nutty with your bawlin’!” This from one of the new men.

  “You’ve got a good excuse to go back, you know,” Hicks assured. “Go back with Hensel. A wounded man’s supposed to have somebody go back with him.”

  “I c-c-can’t-t. I went b-back once s-s-shell-shocked, and the d-doctors raised hell with me. I’m af-f-frai-d-d to go back again.” The man started to laugh unpleasantly. His laughter changed to violent sobbing. The men grew doubly frightened. “I can’t stay here and hear that,” one of them said. “It takes all the starch out of me.” But he didn’t move.

  Near the road King Cole lay upon the ground, his lips pressed against the dirt. B
y his head his hands were clinched, the knuckles flat. His helmet had fallen forward so that it covered his brow, but not the back of his head. His legs were as rigid as death. On his right leg the puttee had become unwound, the spiral-shaped cloth stringing out behind. The leather, worn through by much marching, a glimpse of his bare foot appeared where the sole of his shoe had worn through. His shirt was tattered, and in the middle of his back a large hole had been blown. Surprisingly, there was very little blood on his shirt or upon any other part of his body, save where the gaping hole showed the raw flesh. Hours earlier King Cole had been struck by the explosion of a shell. Since then he had lain—alive.

  A molten mass of flaming gold all day, the sun, from sheer exhaustion of vengeful burning, dropped weakly out of sight. Declining, it filled the sky with mauve and purple, gold and crimson designs. Swaying mournfully in the wisps of evening wind, the full heads of grain were like slender lances raised by an army of a million men. The village ahead, toward which the platoon had advanced within a distance of five hundred yards, was a vague blur against the soft gray sky.

  It was an hour before nightfall, and firing along the front had partly ceased. The men in the advance line were lying prone, thankful for the surcease offered by the approaching night. Heard behind them was a swishing sound. Hicks turned, forgot even for the moment the piteous moans of the shell-shocked man when he saw troops swiftly walking.

  “We’re going to be relieved. We’re going to be relieved.” The thought pounded through his brain. The oncoming troops were now near and distinct. Hicks could see the red, brimless stovepipe hats, the black, shiny faces, the picturesque and decorated tunics of the Foreign Legion. They carried small rifles and long knives and looked frightfully dangerous. Hicks reflected that these were the fellows who were supposed to treasure the ears of the enemy as keepsakes. Swiftly, their huge leg muscles bulging under their puttees, they walked through the wheat and passed. Hicks felt dismal.

  “Relief, hell. They’re going to attack.”

  And they were. As silent as ghosts they fled straight for the village. The enemy, seeing them, opened up with their rifles and machine-guns with extraordinary furiousness. The black soldiers advanced unhesitatingly. Some of them dropped flat, never to rise again of their own volition; others clasped a hand to the part of the body where a bullet had entered and turned back, walking quickly and nervously, but failing to speak. Hicks had never seen so many men wounded without their exclaiming. Usually, when some American was struck he would cry some such absurdly obvious statement as “Oh, my God, I’m hit.” A German would shriek his inevitable “Kamerad.” A Frenchman would jabber. But these fellows—Hicks marvelled. But the remaining five hundred yards were too difficult to cross. Where five of the fleet blacks set valiantly forth, but one of them returned.

  Darkness fell, closing the world in on four sides. Off to the left, on the farther side of the road, a tank suddenly and unexpectedly burst forth with an internal explosion. Its grim little body showed solidly in the glorious blazing red. The report that followed sounded as if the armor of the tank would have been burst into a million pieces. Up shot another flare of redness, brightening the sky. As if there were some understanding among them, two other tanks began, at regular intervals, to belch their fireworks into the air. It was a wondrous sight. Far enough away not to be harmful, it had also the advantage of being a spectacle uninspired by malice or hatred. It was a thing in itself, a war of its own, in which nobody shared, totally objective, non-utilitarian and spontaneous. Hicks gleefully considered the sight. But after a while the side-show stopped and the dampness stole through the clothing of the men. A lone star twinkled forth, trembled violently for a moment and then disappeared. In the heat of the day many of the platoon had thrown away their blankets. Now they lay shivering with cold and fear and hopelessness.

  Over the wheat-field the night mist hung like a thick, wet, flapping blanket. Elephantine, it touched against the faces of the men, sending shivers along their spines. Machine-gun bullets spattered perfunctorily. The shell-shocked man moaned like a banshee. Disgusted, feeling as if his stomach were about to crawl away from his body, Hicks rose, deciding to cross the road and find out whether there was any possibility of relief before dawn.

  On the other side of the road the ground was softer and the men had dug deeper holes. The little mounds of freshly thrown dirt were hardly perceptible.

  “Where’s Lieutenant Bedford?” Hicks asked in a low voice.

  “Dead as hell,” he was answered.

  “Then who’s in charge?”

  “I am.”

  “Who’s that, Thomas?”

  “Yeh.”

  “When are we going to be relieved?”

  “We’re standing by now. They ought to be here any minute.”

  “Well, if that’s so, I’m gonna take my squad back. We’re pretty bad off, way up there, and one of the new fellows is making such a hell of a lot of noise that I’m afraid the Squareheads will begin firing again.”

  “’Smatter with him?”

  “Shell-shocked, I guess.”

  “Well, maybe you’d better shove off.”

  Hicks felt his way back through the darkness, through the curtain of mist.

  Supporting the weaker man between them, the small party moved off, with Hicks in the lead. He was travelling lightly, with little equipment. At the first of the advance he had thrown away his pack, containing an empty condiment can and three boxes of hard bread. Finally he had disposed of all but his pistol, belt, canteen, helmet, and respirator. Leaving, he threw away his automatic rifle and the musette bag in which ammunition was supposed to be carried. He walked along, his chin high, stepping briskly through the hip-high wheat. Somewhere beyond was rest and security, warm food, and plenty of blankets.

  It irked him that the rest of the squad did not walk as swiftly as he walked. His ears seemed to flatten against his head at being held back. The distance was so alluring. It promised so many things of which his body was in want. There was the hot coffee. Hicks fancied that he could smell the soul-satisfying aroma of it. He remembered that the American army little knew the value of coffee to the man who is cold and tired and awake in the early dawn. But there would be, no doubt, French galleys, with black kettles in which they brewed strong black chicory. Hot coffee! He thought of it and felt ready to faint. At any moment a shell might drive into the ground near him and blow him high in the air. Reins seemed fastened to his shoulders, holding them back, delaying his progress. He wanted to cry out against the inhumanity of being forced to walk so slowly in so dangerous a place after the work in hand was done. He thought of forging ahead, of leaving the blubbering man to himself. He measured the distance back to the woods and guessed the length of time it would take to arrive. An hour at the most. But if he ran he could make it in half an hour. The responsibility of the safety of the squad held him back. Revolted at his cowardly thoughts, he offered to help carry the burden. The men objected. “You lead the way.” But he was insistent. With one arm of the blubbering, nerveless mass around his neck, he forged ahead, feeling powerful and exultant under the added weight.

  Whining lazily over their heads, gas shells soared and struck softly in the town in front of them. They reached the valley and passed down into the town. Over the ground and on the weeds a coating of yellow had formed. The air was heavy with an asphyxiating smell. The yellow from the ground bit through the puttees and penetrated the clothing; the odor was inhaled in deep gulps that caused the men to choke.

  There was a moment of indecision in which the men hesitated between putting on their respirators, thereby retarding their steps, and hurrying through the town, their lungs exposed to the poisonous gas. With the shells continuing to come over in droves, it was not difficult to decide. The men breathed in the gas.

  Had they not, they would not have seen the aperture in the side of the gulley, where a gas blanket covered a dugout f
illed with wounded. There they stopped, while Hicks informed the receiving officer that their burden had been badly gassed. He said nothing about his being shell-shocked.

  Relieved of the great impedimenta, their progress quickened, and they were through the town almost as soon as they could have wished.

  Chapter XI

  BEFORE daybreak they arrived at the woods where the battalion had been ordered to assemble. On entering the woods, Hicks was halted by one of the company lieutenants who had offered to remain out of the attack in order that, should the company be annihilated, he would be able to form the nucleus of another company with the orderlies of the officers, the soiled assistants of the kitchen, and the like. Hicks, having thrown away most of his equipment, had annexed on the road to the woods parts of uniforms of all descriptions. On his head was a bright red kepi which formerly had belonged to a French Colonial. A pair of soft leather boots that reached above the calves of his legs had been salvaged from some officer’s bedding roll. His blouse had been discarded and his shirt was unbuttoned at the throat. Hanging in cowboy fashion, a forty-five calibre Colt flapped against his right hip. From his left side was a Luger pistol that he had taken from a dead German officer.