A Soldier's Life in WWI: Second Battle of the Marne

A frantic call for ammunition: my battery and another received orders to send three caissons each to “Z” Battery, which was to furnish a runner to guide us, and meet us at a certain point. Our route to that point lay over the same roads we traveled the day before, when advancing our guns. Instead of concealing ourselves by dismounting and leading forward behind the crest of the hill, necessity dictated riding openly down the road in view of the German observation balloon. As we rode, winding down the face of the hill, the Germans shelled a town situated on the side of the opposite hill. We watched the huge black eruptions on the outskirts of the town with considerable interest. Great volumes of dirt, big as a house shot upward, spread out and fell, followed presently by the report, and the quaking earth.

The runner missed connections somehow, so we pulled up under the best camouflage available and sent out a scout. They ceased shelling the town just about then, but we attached no significance to the ceasefire, so we waited, sweetly oblivious to our fate. Feeling fairly secure, I looked around at the landscape and noticed our battery well camouflaged on the hill to my right. Nobody was in sight but two men stringing telephone wire. Down in the hollow on my left a sister battery waited in the midst of a yellow grain field. Canopies of camouflage netting swung overhead, but the position remained quite visible by reason of the gig squares of shadows cast upon each gun pit. In front of it, in a ribbon of woods, hid another battery. On top of the hill in my rear, and firing at the moment, the woods held still another battery.

If the balloonist spotted us at the very first, he took plenty of time calculating his firing data, and the battery took great care laying their guns, for some minutes elapsed. How thoroughly the balloonist calculated and how accurately the gunners laid their pieces we learned all too soon.

The first warning sounded, zip-brump! The shell landed ten feet away and deafened us. We pulled in our necks. An instant later dirt showered us heavily. Thankfully, because the shell landed on a high bank to our right, shell fragments spread upward over our heads, into the air.
“Left about!” The sergeant in command of the train shouted. I rode the leading carriage. Turning about, and starting off in the opposite direction positioned us into the rear of the column. We moved ten feet when three consecutive shells landed in the road on the identical spot where we stood seconds before. Shells fell like hail all around us, setting up a deafening roar. Our horses trembled beneath us. I always pray when under shell fire, and I certainly prayed that day.

The carriage in front of us broke a pole attempting to turn in the narrow road, where it slowly, desperately dragged along blocking our escape. The rest of the caissons sped away as we endured tense, impatient moments held up by a crippled carriage. Instead of going back up the road the way we came, we turned off into a narrow farm lane. A row of stone farm buildings walled up one side. A high stone fence sealed the other side, making it impossible for one carriage to pass another. This caught us temporarily in a trap, because the carriage in front of us could go no further with its broken pole. To keep the column together, the carriages ahead halted until the pole could be replaced. Then two stray caissons arrived in the lane behind us, suddenly making the rear of the train still visible on the road, in the balloon’s sight.

Firing ceased while the balloonist adjusted his firing data, so we momentarily played Ostrich. They removed the broken pole, assembled and put in place the spare pole, just as Fritz opened up again with a box barrage. Shells fell on all four sides of us: the farm yard on our left, the field on our right, the road behind and in the lane ahead. The houses and the fence offered some protection for us, but it was simply hard luck for Fritz, not poor marksmanship, that he didn’t get one on us. We trotted across a field, around the corner of the woods, through another field, to the road just behind the crest of the hill, and into a stretch of road invisible to the balloon.
About one kilometer back we hid in a wood, planning to wait there until the scout returned either with the guide or the location of the battery. Telephone communication was established with “Z” Battery and they sent out a second runner.

Fritz now began to shell these woods. No doubt he watched us enter. We moved again and once more sought refuge in another wood and waited. At length the scout returned. He found someone with the correct directions for locating “Z” battery. It was decided to send the caissons forward again, one at a time, at fifteen-minute intervals. Our caisson was last in line, with an hour and a half to wait. Underway at last, we moved down the road slightly before seeing all five caissons bearing down upon us at double time, yelling and waving for us to turn about and flee. We fled.

The runner, found at last, rode on the first carriage. He piloted us through a roundabout network of roads, concealing us from enemy observation all the distance, and we finally delivered ammunition right up behind the infantry, first line of defense. Although considerably shell shocked when we got back to the echelon that night, we ate plenty of beans, drank coffee and slept. By morning we felt normal again. Next day, a big advance took place.
© 2006 Lyn Allyn