It seemed hard to believe in the actuality of those first grim casualties. On the way up odd parties could be seen moving about here and there in the vicinity of La Targette and my stomach took nearly a complete somersault when someone said, “There’s ‘Bunny’ Garde.” We had heard of Bunny’s death also the night before. I expected to see his body, but it was actually Bunny in the flesh and even the sight of him was another shock to a stomach which was much “in a wind up” condition. Bunny said the report of his death (like Mark Twain’s) had been greatly exaggerated. Bunny was wrong, however; the report was only anticipated by about one month.
We finally came to a halt in a big crater and the adjutant appeared from nowhere with Bernie Brown at his heels and we were detailed to companies. The old-timers were called out first and they disappeared without further preliminaries. The new men were then detailed and it fell to my lot along with two others to go to “D” Company. So we accompanied L/Cpl. Joe Stehl over a maze of shell holes to — well how anyone found “D” Company or anything else I couldn’t figure out, it all looked the same to me as Heinie’s counter barrage had sure made a mess of almost anything that resembled a trench. The CSM then appeared unshaven — without a head-covering, tunic open at the neck and a sweater underneath. What a hell of a Sergeant Major he looked to us, in our ignorance. But he was friendly, took our names and numbers, religion, next-of-kin, etc. In the meantime the mess hogs appeared with rations. We got in at the tail end, and coffee was our only sustenance that meal. But there was one bright spot. Harry Dibble appeared, and great was our joy to be in the same company. He said he’d get us into his dugout, only to return to us sitting on a bump in the snow later, with the discouraging news that they were all filled up — nowhere could we go; all the dugouts were filled up even to the stairways in some cases.
I will draw a veil over the rest of the day and night that followed. How we kept from perishing then and there will always be a mystery… one I don’t care to dwell on. To give CSM Bill Squib his due though, he told the Company clerk to find us quarters, but there the matter ended.
continued…
