ucceed, for nothing could resist the combined
force of all that preparation when the final word was given. I cannot
but admit that enormous quantity of ammunition, the vast number of
light and heavy guns, the thousands of men ready for the fray, caused
me to feel a certain indescribable sadness, for I knew, that although
success was sure to follow our drive, some of these brave boys were to
pay the price with their lives. On September 11th, the boys were
drilled for the last time. We were then required to strip our bodies
of all our clothes and to smear ourselves with a salve. This was a
preparation that was designed to protect the body from burns in case
we encountered the deadly mustard gas.

After dark and all during the night there was a steady stream of men
going to their positions in the trenches. They knew that the time for
the manoeuver to start was near, but whether it was to be 24 or 48
hours, they did not know. But we of the Flash Service did; we knew
that at one minute past midnight on the morning of September 12th, the
zero hour, the Germans were to be given their great surprise party,
and we counted the minutes as they were ticked off the watch until
that time arrived.

CHAPTER VI

The Great St. Mihiel Drive

It was exactly at 12:01 o'clock on the morning of September 12th, when
the great St. Mihiel drive began, and when all the preparation of
which I told in the preceding chapter was brought into play in the
first great independent movement of American troops, which was to give
the Germans a warning of what they were to expect from the army from
across the seas, of which they had so sneeringly spoken. The drive
opened with a demoralizing barrage, the greatest of the kind that, up
to that time, had ever been laid down by artillery. It greatly
exceeded in the number of guns brought into action and in amount of
ammunition used, any barrage that either the Germans or the Allies
had, prior to that time, attempted. It was like letting hell loose
upon the Germans in the salient at all points within the range of our
guns. Language is inadequate to describe this barrage and none except
those who were actual participants in the drive will be able to
visualize in the mind the terror that General Pershing's guns belched
forth on that momentous occasion. Those who have imaginative minds may
be able to form some faint conception of what this great battle was
like, if they can picture thousands of guns--hea