The Night Sky
Abancourt Farm
In two or three days, the moon would be full. They might have noticed, if not for the rain.
Pvt. Rogers called one of his platoon runners and between the two of them, they got the thing running.
He had fetched the crank from the small iron trapdoor to a miniature storage locker inside, walking around to the crankshaft protruding like the stinger on a hornet.
“Magneto’s on!” called a mechanic sitting up front in the driver’s station, and the others hauled mightily while the Renault engine turned once, twice and finally caught on with a rumbling blast of black smoke.
A few minutes earlier, Rogers had carried a long-spouted can with aviation gas, had opened the armored boot plates and carefully poured a tiny paper cup of fuel into the spigots on every cylinder head, four in all.
The material facts passed quickly out of mind from his recent training: manufacturer-Société des Automobiles Renault, Boulogne Billancourt; armor eight to twenty-two millimeters; 4-cyl, 4.5 liter, thermo-siphon water-cooled; Gasoline (petrol) pump; Engine oil pump; Zenith preset carburetor; Magneto ignition; 39 hp (29 kW) at 1500 rpm.
The engine compartment could have been cleaner, thought Rogers. The French manufactured these without oil-tight bearings, and the bushings leaked more oil than they could afford to lose.
“Give me a hand with this tailpiece,” he shouted to a third tanker passing by. “It is God-awful heavy”.
The three of them lifted mightily until the unsteadily-raised iron fixture fit neatly into a clevis on the body, and one mechanic inserted a massive iron pin to keep it in place.
“These tailpieces are supposed to keep us from falling back in a tight space like a trench. Don’t tell the CO: I’m not sure this thing will work.”
The Captain walked the line of vehicles in disarray, having just been offloaded from a flatcar at Clermont-en-Argonne. It was only a moment before the rail yard erupted in spouts of mud and cobblestone as crews sprinted for their positions.
“Run like Hell and tell the damn drivers to get their God-damned tanks started and out of here!” he shouted looking skyward and listening for the next volley.
….
Five weeks later, Weed found himself sitting at a typewriter, trying to recollect all that had happened. He had taken a few notes but during his inadvertent capture in the trench near Boureuilles by what he assumed were our prisoners, but had dropped everything when his captors fled in terror at the earth-shuddering arrival of a vehicle from Co. A/345th Battalion.
That was a close one: it happened too fast, but he had escaped.
He could not recall the driver or gunners’ names. The number “345” had been stenciled on the hull, and he sure remembered the hand-painted turret shield: a white square with a red spade playing card suite painted inside it. There should have been a small number above and to the left of the spade, but he couldn’t remember…
Captain Weed was a New Yorker and cavalryman, as foul-mouthed as the Colonel. He had schooled at Philips Andover before enlisting from New Jersey. To say his memory was good did not quite capture the way the mud of the trenches, the smoke and fog and aroma of cordite sealed the events of that day forever in a well-prepared tactical mind.
The events of September 26th through the first week in November slowly came back now the war was over…
…
From Clermont on the night of September 21st, the Battalion had formed up, or at least the twenty five tanks of his Company B/344th, and taken the road north to Neuvilly, a small ville east of the Foret d’Argonne as his French map had it.
In darkness, they had entered the village, only later realizing it was a left turn south of the village that would have taken them to the staging area four kilometers northeasst of Abancourt Farm.
They were eager, every man Jack of them, to reach the forest staging area that night. With engines idling, they had stopped in Neuvilly to reorient themselves and the men grew nervous, knowing the artillery spotters on nearby Vauquois Hill to the east would be on them the instant they were seen.
Lt. English, Company A/344th in the lead tank, signaled to move and despite the darkness, each driver could just make out the next tank in column ahead as clouds obscured the moon again, and not much more.
Peering out from the open commander’s cupola hatch next in column behind English’s company, Lt. Weed watched the abandoned buildings of Neuvilly slowly pass: it was not like Clermont which had been shelled for years.
Even late at night, activity around the church in the village center came as a surprise as the swung around back toward the south.
They had been briefed on the logistical sites of their fuel depot near Abancourt Farm, and arrival to the sector of the 137th Field Hospital with its associated 110th Sanitary Train a week earlier.
The place was crawling with poilu: the French 73th Division had occupied the front line trenches near Bourieulles until the previous night. The ruse of war-weary Frenchmen as the opposing force seemed to be working against the Saxon and Prussian Guards across No-Man’s-Land.
Weed shuddered watching Yank stretcher bearers transfer the wounded inside through the openings in the battered walls of the church. He hoped never to see the inside of that Church of Saints Peter and Paul, or the 137th Field Hospital, but knew like all the men, there were big things on the horizon to the north.
With its top speed, the Renault FTs were not much faster than a man could walk. The column was able to execute tight turns in the dark village center and correct their error.
…
No one knew when the jumping off would be.
Somewhere north and little to the east, most likely.
To the west overlooking Abancourt Farm, rose the forest in darkness. The farm itself was recognizable only in name: it seemed to be sprouting a maze of wire as its sole crop, and trenches that could be seen from the staging area among the trees, such as were left, north of the farm. They were being watched from the heights, but the concentration of enemy were further north in line to the east with Boureuilles and Petit Boureuilles.
Snipers had been cleared from the slopes to the west, Rochamp, Mont de Villers, du Bas Brue. There were 28th Division machine gunners up there now, six companies of them. The first line of the enemy was Tranche du Boureuilles, and to the right, Hill 185.
They all knew, sitting near the vehicle park and listening ruefully to distant rumbling: it would be soon.
….