Story: Belleau Wood III.
Clockwise from upper left: Seraphim as statue, Hunting Lodge at Belleau (real photo), Cait, Viajero, US Marine's jacket, Seraphim.
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Click to viewBois Belleau, 4th - 7th June 1918.
In the Northern end of the wood was a hunting lodge, a single tower built of heavy stone blocks, as solid as a castle. The Germans secured the position and used it as a base of operations from which orders and ammunition could be sent to the rest of their forces dug in amidst the leafy canopy of Bois Belleau.
On the 4th of June some hours after nightfall, the communications wire that ran from the Lodge was cut. Those in the wood who discovered the break were irritated more than alarmed. It was assumed to be the work of a lone French soldier, perhaps a lost patrol of five men at most. They knew that the French forces who’d been harried into the wood three days previously were small in number and low on ammunition. In all likelihood whoever had cut the line had been shot soon after; a final brief victory and act of spite by some Frenchman who was now no more than a cooling corpse. Runners were stood by in readiness and a strong patrol was to be sent at first light to lay a new wire.
Half an hour after dawn it was discovered by the German soldiers that the Lodge was empty. Major Fuchs, two Captains, two staffmen, four snipers and thirteen soldiers had all disappeared. There was no sign of battle: no alarm had been raised nor shots fired, there wasn’t a drop of blood. The maps and papers still littered the main room, undisturbed. Ammunition and supplies were still stacked neatly at the back. A half-eaten meal of bread and meat sat where it had been left by the west window.
It was like a land-bound repeat of the Mary Celeste.
Those in command were not so fanciful as to ponder on maritime ghost stories however. It was decided (with much shame) that the Major must have incited his men to desertion - although why he should have done such a thing no one could fathom. Replacements were sent to re-garrison the Lodge and missives were sent to officers reminding them to keep moral high and discipline tight whenever possible.
Two nights later there was a second incident.
The wire was not cut this time; at 2.14am a call was put through to Captain Meier in the trench closest to the Lodge. “Send reinforcements to the Lodge,” came the command, “we are under attack. Send 7th Company...” The only other thing that was said sounded like, “My god, it’s in the walls!” and then there was nothing but shouting and screams.
Captain Meier and a third of his company were the first to reach the Lodge no more than ten minutes later. It was eerily silent. No sentries stood, no watch-word was demanded. Inside it was discovered that several lamps still burned, including one that had been knocked to the floor and lay on its side, casting strange shadows. As before supplies had not been touched; whatever attack had come it had come in an instant and vanished just as quickly, ignoring maps, reports and requisitions and concentrating only on the soldiers. Quite what had happened to the soldiers at the Lodge was unclear. There were bullet marks in the stone-flagged floor and in the walls, a congealing blood stain or two, but not enough of either to suggest that over twenty men had died there.
There were several facts in Captain Meier’s report of that night which were read by Major Krause and then struck out, obliterated. The first concerned the pile of ID tags on the floor by the south wall: the tags belonged not only to the current personnel who’d vanished, but those who’d disappeared with Major Fuchs two nights before; fifty three all told. The second was the strange marbling on much of the flagstones and sections of the walls which had not been there before; rust and shadow hued veins of the type found in rich marbles, not cast-off slabs of pale limestone as had been used. Lastly, yet most inexplicable and suggestively horrific in its way, was the boot they found. It was a cavalry style boot, much loved by the young officers. It was stuck, half in and half out of a section of wall on the east side. It was as if the stone had momentarily become as soft as butter, as sticky as bitumen, and in that moment an officer had kicked at the wall before it became solid again. It was not possible to remove the boot without destroying it utterly, the foot from toe to heel was swallowed in stone, only the polished leather ‘trunk’ stuck out, daring one inadvisably to insert one’s own foot.
Command read Captain Meier’s report with some scepticism and decided to fortify the lodge as if for a siege with stakes and loops of barbed wire. They sent five marksmen there. On the seventh of June just before dawn, one of the snipers was heard to cry out; he disappeared from his bed and no trace of him save for his tags (found hanging off the door latch) was ever recovered.
On Major Krause’s advice, the upper echelons of Command decreed that the Lodge was structurally unsafe and that their base of immediate operations would be better off in the village of Belleau itself.
The fifty four men who’d disappeared were listed in dispatches as killed in action.
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From the diary of Private Pierce, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines under Major Carlton.
6th June - 9th June 1918.
Archer keeps swearing and saying ‘what a gig! Christ, what a gig’ and it’s got so I can’t tell if he thinks it’s exciting, funny, he’s terrified or just sick of it. For me I’ll raise my hand to the last. We drove Fritz back a ways but it was damn hard work.
Made several trips to farm across the ravine on our right after water. Put in a hard slog last night as all French infantry retreated and left us with only four machine guns without any support to hold a considerable stretch of front. All gun crews sent out flankers to the left and HDQ stood by most of the night. Germans made raids up the ravine and tried to capture Lucy and got within 500 yards of it but could not break our line. Wish they’d damn well go home so I can.
Went salvaging in the morning with Archer and we got twelve rabbits, five hens, a bag of beans, some eggs and a goat: Captain Morrow’s dog was responsible for most of the rabbits, snares got the rest. Let her have two and told everyone there were only ten. That should quiet some of the griping; one of the French lads said an army marches on its stomach - he’s right.
About 10: 30 was ordered to lead Sgt. Davidson's section over to Lucy; Captain said he could spare me - which was a lie, but I’m not about to answer back. Keep wondering if he’s still sore about that raven and just wanted me out of his sight.
I took them down through where the French had been the day before and the Dutch opened up on us with machine guns, but we were in a sort of a draw so we had a place to duck behind. Davidson and I left the section there and went forward to reconnoiter the way. Returned and lead section in by taking them down the draw to below the bridge on Lucy to Paris Metz Road and then up road behind bank. The Germans had gotten artillery up and were beginning to shell Lucy as we entered.
Davidson’s section was sent out about a mile to left of Lucy and I remained in town as runner to them. Archer will have to manage to stay out of trouble without me.
Five holes were put through roof of building I was in that night - don’t they know they’re a month early for the Fourth of July?
Marines advanced all afternoon with considerable losses. Steady stream of wounded brought into 1st aid station in Lucy. They shelled the square woods where Lt. Hart's HDQ was that night and killed the goat we had brought in. Bastards. Archer will pitch a fit when he hears, we damn near killed ourselves getting that stupid goat.
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Bois Belleau, 7th June 1918.
Private Durand let out a quiet breath and sighted along his rifle, drawing the bolt.
Corporal Viajero looked up at the noise, fear, expectancy and irritation swirling in his gut. It was early morning with a breeze soughing through the trees and a few foolhardy birds singing, but that was unlikely to be enough to mask the sound of a rifle loading. He just prayed there were no sharp German ears close enough to hear it. He had three men with him (one wounded) and barely a pocketful of ammunition: all that was left of his unit. He was under no illusion; none of them would leave Belleau.
“Movement, coming from north-north-east,” the Private hissed.
Viajero shifted, peering carefully through their spikey screen of bush and branches: they had found a holly that had grown around the base of an oak creating a natural hide in which the four of them could rest, unobserved. It did not take him more than a moment to glimpse the disturbance Durand had seen. It was a small figure, alone and apparently unarmed. It wore a French greatcoat of muddied dark blue that was several sizes too big, and a grey knitted slouch-cap from which escaped wisps of startlingly cream-white hair.
Leaning against the trunk and with his shattered arm strapped across his chest, Laurent was looking too. His sight was sharp, he’d been the best shot in the company - although it would be a miracle if he could keep his arm now let alone use it. “Is a girl,” he stated.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” Savard hissed. Being older that Durand, healthier than Laurent and saner than the Corporal, Savard saw it as his duty to look after everyone, a fact which irritated as much as the responsibility secretly pleased him.
“Maybe she’s lost?”
“Nah, she’s looking for truffles...” Durand chipped in, his words overly cheerful. He hadn’t eaten in two days, none of them had, and he couldn’t help thinking of food.
“She was at Châteaux Thierry four days before the attack,” Viajero muttered.
The others looked at him, partly in disbelief and partly in the hope of more information. “When I was against the wheel.” Soldier’s slang for what was properly called Field Punishment Number One. The Corporal had been punished for being drunk on duty, tied to attention against a cart wheel in the square two hours a day for a week.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” Savard spat. “She gone mad?” He flicked a veiled look in the Corporal’s direction: he’d been caught amidst an artillery bombardment at Thierry when tied to the damn cart, and although still functioning well the experience had left him a little strange.
“She’s looking for someone,” Viajero corrected softly, watching her. “An American officer - Captain. Said she’d come to take him home.”
Laurent stifled a bark of laughter; since being wounded he was inclined to view most things with bleak humour. “Yeah, well, would that we all had some pretty miss to come take us home, eh?”
There was the whip-crack retort of a Mauser rifle, causing Viajero and Laurent both to flinch.
“Merde!”
Unbelievably, the girl was still standing and had neither flung herself down into the undergrowth nor broken into a run. She appeared to be looking around, slowly, calmly, trying to perceive where the sniper who’d fired at her was.
A second rifle shot.
“Mon Dieu,” Durand swore. “How can he miss?”
Viajero couldn’t take his eyes from her even if his life had depended on it. He was transfixed by the gentle surreality of a white-haired girl walking through a sunny wood amidst soldiers and their guns, just as he was transfixed by the image his mind painted over the top: of the girl’s head knocked back, blood and matter exploding from the new-drilled hole in her skull.
A third rifle shot: she twisted left and threw her arm out in that direction as if she was casting a stone into the sea. There was a curious noise such as might be made by someone boring a hole in a melon with a potato peeler. A moment later she had faced her original direction of south-south-west and was continuing on her way, Mauser and marksman silenced.
The four men watched her progress in stunned and uncomprehending silence until she had passed beyond their easy field of vision.
“She’ll hit the central line if she carries on,” Savard muttered. A massacre at the German central line was what they had escaped from and where the rest of their company lay, rotting in the dappled summer sun.
“I think,” Laurent said matter-of-factly, “she will be all right.”
“Even so,” Viajero said to himself, eyes glinting like a well-honed bayonet, “think I’ll give her a little luck, eh?”
“You what?” Savard asked sharply.
Viajero paid him no attention, his hand was held lightly above the surface of the earth like it was a sleeping creature he was about to pet. A wind rustled up, harrying clouds across the sky to dim the sun, and in the lush verdigris shade of the wood, mist began to form.
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Scouts had been sent into Belleau Wood on the night of June 7th to report on the position of the enemy lines.
The sky was unseasonably cloudy that night, masking the moon and rendering the space beneath the trees a maze of shadows and foliage. Added to which a mist (gas, they’d feared, for where the hell had a mist risen up from when the nearest river was five miles south?) had shrouded the earth, muffling sound and making all compass points seem the same.
The scouts had been sent to report on Sector 9, but, turned around in the darkness they mistakenly skulked through Sector 8 and reported it clear. Orders were given for the Marines to advance on Belleau before dawn, with the expectation they’d sweep through until they hit the German mid-line that bisected the wood at Sector 11.
It would be a hard slog, but they had the numbers to do it and could dig in any time they needed the cover. Allied Command were confident it would be successful.
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From the diary of Private Pierce, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines under Major Carlton.
8th June 1918.
Reports have come in.
Oh god.