In At the Forks of the Grand he was asked if they were aware what was happening elsewhere. He replied, ‘No, we didn’t know anything beyond what our own platoon or company was doing. That was true of most battles, big and small.’
Did you begin to think the war was coming to an end, he was also asked? On October 10, 1918, when we were going through a little town. It was the first we went through that wasn’t completely destroyed by shell-fire. And the night before people were coming down the road with baby-buggies and all that kind of stuff, getting back of the lines. We also saw dogs and cats. Any place else we had been nearly everything was wiped off the map.
On the chances of getting killed: Well, you always knew that there was a possibility. One method I used to keep from thinking of being badly wounded or killed was to keep busy. I took every opportunity to volunteer for extra duties… After I had been at the front for a few months, they sent me down to the divisional reserve to take a NCO’s course. Towards the end of it, I was all pepped up to go back to the front, but they told me I had to stay on as an instructor. I said, ‘I don’t want to do that’… I saw the colonel, and he said, ‘If you feel that way about it, we’ll see that you go back at the end of the course…’ You see, all my friends were at the front and I felt as though I was deserting them. So eventually I got back. I had weighed all the possibilities. I realized that I might be wounded or killed, but I must say that I didn’t really have any kind of hunch until the day I was wounded. The night before I began to think things over. I said to myself, ‘I wonder how many times I can get away with continually going over the top?’ It was a different kind of war towards the end. In trench-warfare you felt you had a chance. You could take some protection and the casualties were not too heavy in a normal trip into the line. There would be a few wounded and killed, but not many.
*Credit Note: from At the Forks of the Grand, Vol. 2, D. A. Smith, Paris Public Library Board
