The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1918-12-18

like a current of electricity along the
shivery mess lines, hopping up and
idown and shifting and scuffl1ng as
i ithey waited for the morning coffee.
It spread along the chains OF sing
ing road members, along the creep
ing columns Of camions. Driver CALI
led it to driver and runners tossed the
word over their shoulders as they hui
ried by. Now and again a feet CT
motorcycles would whizz along
through the heavy mist.
'The guerre will be inee at IL
o'clock. Finee la guerre."
| You could hear it called out again
and again.
What time?"
eleven o'clock"
| A pause.
ssay, you, what time is it now?''
J They took it a little incredulously
at first. That was old stuff, that ru-
NOR. They had heard it again and
again during the past fortnight.
"Well, the captain says it's so.''
.'Hell, who's he? Til wait till Foch
comes and tells. me himself
Why, the preceding Thursday night
that was the night the ENJOYS came
over from Spa-news that what the
doughboy seems to prefer calling the
"arstimic'' had been signed spread
like the Spanish flu from Grandpre to
the Meuse.
That night the flares infamed the
skies, the rockets streaked the night.
Bands burst into long-suppressed mu-
sic, and the headlights twinkled all
along the >ad. It did not last long,
this little unbidden furry, and there
was much scoiding; but, as matter
of fact, nothing much more demoral-
izing to the enemy could well have
been staged than this spectacle of
the First American Army celebrating
something he had not heard.
All along the II miles held by the
Americans the firing continued, liter
ally, unto the eleventh hour. At one
minute before II, when a million eyes
were glued to the slow-creeping min
ute hands of million watches, the
roar of the guns was a thing to make
the old earth trenble. At one point
it was where the Yankee division
visiting at the time, with q, French
corps was having a brisk morning
battle to the east of the Meuse, a
man stationed at one battery stood.
with a handkerchief in his up1ifted
hand, his eyes fixed on his watch. 1t
was one minute before II. To the
lanyards of the four big guns ropes
were tied, each rope manned by 200
soldiers, cooks, stragglers, messeng1.
ers, gunners, everybody. At II the
handkerchief fell, the men pulled, the
guns cursed out he last shot of the
battery. And so it went at nun
dred, at thousand, places along the
line
Probably the hardest fighting being
done by any Americans in the final
hour was that which engaged the
troops Of the 2Sth, 92nd, S1st and 7th
Divisions with the Second American
Army, who launched a fire-eating at
tack above Vigneu1les just at dawn on
the 11th. It was no mild thing, that
last flare Of the battle, and the order
to cease firing did not reach the men
in the front line until the last moment,
when runners sped with it from fox
hole TO fox hole.
Then a quite startling thing occur
red The skyline of the crest ahead
Of them grew suddenly populous with
dancing soldiers and, down the slope,
ali the way to the barbed wire,
straight for the Americans, came the
German troops. They came with out
hands, ear-to-ear grins and
to swap for cigarettes, SO
we'll did they know the little weak
ness of their foe. They came to tell
how pleased they were the fight had |
how glad they We're the Kals-
er had departed for parts unknown,
how fine it was to know they would
have a republic at last in Germany.
'No;'' said one stubborn little Prus- |
sian, ''it's kingdom we want"
Whereat his own companions mob
bed him and 'howled him down.
The farthest north at II o'clock on
the front of the two armies was held
at the extreme American left up Sc
dan way by the troops of the 18th Dl-
vision. The farthest east-the near
est to the Rhine-was held by those
negro soldiers who used to make up
the old New York 18th and have long
were in Alsace and their line ran
through Thanh and across the railway
that leads to Colnar.
When the great hour came, across
the trenches from our side swarmed q
small army of civilians bearing food
and clothing to their kith and kin on
the other side. From the highest
steeple in Thann the tricolor fiutter-
ed gavly. and within the church,
there knelt in Thanksgiving ali the old
folks from miles around.
With them, in among them, poilus
knelt and Yankee soldiers, and the
crowd so choled the aisles and steps
that the priest could not move for
ward for his services. But the words
that he preached from the pulpit were
such words as leave the eyes dim and
the heart glowing.
Up to the front. past Montfaucon
and Romagne. past Remonville and