It was just before sunrise, and the sky was the colour of molten silver. A light fog had settled over us, and the dampness settled right to the bone. The air was crisp and cold enough to see your breath, and there wasn’t a sound to be heard.
We lay hunkered down in the trench, waiting for the first sign of Fritz (our name for the enemy) to appear on the horizon. Minutes passed into hours, and it seemed like we’d be in that trench forever. Some of the men dosed while others cleaned their rifles. No one was prepared for what was about to happen.
Our watchman, gazing through the handheld periscope we carried with us, suddenly sat up in alarm. “There’s a green cloud rolling along the ground towards us. It’s…”
I cut him off and grabbed the periscope. Looking out and fearing what I would see, I spied it – this green cloud rolling along the ground like tumbleweeds being pushed along by the wind. I swallowed the lump of fear that clogged my throat. Grabbing the bayonet laying at my feet, I began banging on an empty shell casing – our signal to one another to don our smoke helmets.
The smoke helmets were made of cloth and treated with chemicals. There were two windows (our “glass eyes” as we jokingly called them) through which one could see. Inside was a rubber covered tube which went into the mouth and was constructed to prevent accidental inhalation of the gas. A solider was supposed to breath in through his nose, the nasty gas being filtered through chemicals in the helmet, and out through his mouth, the foul air being forced out through the tube. One of these helmets was good for five to six hours, so we had to have two for each man on hand at all times.
The seconds ticked by slowly as the entire regiment struggled into their helmets.
The gas, which was much heavier than the surrounding air, poured into our trench and lingered there, unable to escape because of its density. I tried not to panic and just breathe deeply while the moment passed.
A scream cut through the silence like a pair of scissors through paper. One of the new men, a young man from Ohio, had been too slow putting on his helmet. The gas had filtered into his nose and mouth, and he sat there, hands clutching at his throat, unable to breathe. As the oxygen depleted in his brain and blood, his body began to spasmodically twitch, and our watchman started to retch.
The regiment pulled together and, grabbing the young man, we began to filter out of the trench. The goal was to seek a new place to hide, but our goal was short-lived.
A group of German soldiers was standing there, helmets on and bayonets at the ready, waiting for us to emerge. One man stood up without looking, and Fritz sliced open his belly with a bayonet, kicking him backwards so that his entrails spilled out.
Our soldiers began to fire, trying to clear a path to safety for the regiment. Shrapnel was bursting over our heads and all around us as we fought back against Fritz. As some of the enemy soldiers were felled by gun fire, others took their places. Nothing could stop their mad rush.
Suddenly, there was a loud cracking in my ear. My head became light; my throat got dry. A heavy pressure on my lungs and an overwhelming dizziness told me that my helmet was leaking. Turning my gun over to a man by my side, I changed helmets. The trench began to undulate and wind like a snake, and the sandbags surrounding us appeared to float on the air. The noise was horrible, and I sank to the ground. Needles seemed to be prickling my flesh. Then, as sudden as the onset, my world went black.
A friend removing my helmet cajoled me to consciousness on a now quiet battlefield. How delicious the cold, damp air felt in my lungs, fresh and untainted. They told me I had been unconscious for hours and that they had feared the worst.
I sat up and examined the first smoke helmet I’d been wearing. A bullet had penetrated it on the left side, just grazing my ear. The gas had seeped through the hole in the cloth and into my nostrils.
I gazed up at a twilight sky, thanking God I was still alive and more determined than ever to fight back all of the enemy horde that was threatening our American way of life.
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