Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Eight


Major William Donovan

Major William Donovan



Nearby to U.S. Army Field Officer’s School, France

Major William Donovan showed his guest into the restaurant, then signaled for the maître d’.

Many of the U.S. Army officers attending the Field School organized by the French Army took every opportunity for furloughs in Paris, nights out drinking and eating in the local bars and restaurants, as well as any other opportunities for pleasure and ease, but Bill Donovan was not one of them. He’d kindled a friendship with a local doctor with whom he took frequent meals and practiced his French, but beyond that, Donovan focused mind, body, and spirit on absorbing everything useful the French veterans had to give so that he could get back to his battalion even better prepared to lead them into the trenches.

Tonight, though, he dined at the finest restaurant available—ascetic preferences aside, it wasn’t every night the son of Theodore Roosevelt looked you up for a social call before heading to the front. Captain Archibald Roosevelt was a young man, with prominent forehead and elongated nose—not a terribly handsome lad, but possessed of an infectious and enthusiastic manner. A bottle of Andrew Jameson’s private stock Irish Whiskey sat between them.

Donovan had experienced the pleasure of Theodore Roosevelt’s company once in the officer’s mess during his deployment to the Mexican border, and again back in New York when Roosevelt had been canvassing National Guard units for likely officers to command his volunteer regiments “Over There.” The former president had lived up to the legend, and he suspected the apple had landed well within blast radius of the tree.

“So, how is your father, Archie, have you heard from him lately?” Donovan asked.

“As frequently as the mail comes,” Archie said, swirling the whiskey in the glass a bit. “He’s still furious with Wilson for ordering him to stand down on his volunteer divisions. He was ready to give you your own regiment, you know.”

Donovan nodded. The official reason the War Department gave for ordering Roosevelt to stand down was that too many promising National Guard and Regular Army officers wanted to join. The official reason made sense as far as it went, but Donovan suspected at least some petty jealousy and paranoia on Wilson’s part.

“I know, and it would’ve been an honor commanding a regiment in Roosevelt’s Volunteers,” Donovan said. “But at least we’re here, ready to get into it. Are all the Roosevelt boys in France now?”

“We are indeed,” Archie said. “Ted has a battalion over in the 26th, Kermit was in Mesopotamia with the Brits but now he’s got an artillery battery here, and Quentin,” Archie shook his head, “Quentin is a fly boy. I’ll be honest with you, sir, my kid brother is so damned bold, he’s the one I’m worried about getting his tail shot off.”

“I’ll make sure to include him, all of your brothers, in my prayers,” Donovan said, draining his glass and pouring another measure. He held the bottle inquiringly, and Archie nodded, holding out his own glass for a refill.

“What do you make out of all the noise in Russia?” Archie asked.

“I don’t know, Archie,” Donovan said. “It’ll certainly be a damn bad turn if the Kaiser gets forty divisions freed up from the East. But all I know about Russia is what I read in the papers. I’ve never made it as far as Russia in my travels, and I doubt I ever will.”


69th (165th) Infantry Regiment, Near Luneville, France

When Donovan and the men of the 1st Battalion of the 69th Infantry (now labeled the 165th Infantry on the American Expeditionary Force’s Table of Organization for consistency with the numbering of other federalized National Guard units) reached the front, they found their trenches in ill-repair.

The parapets were higher than the parados in several places—meaning that a man sticking his head and shoulders out of the trench to fire upon the enemy would be silhouetted rather than having a backdrop of earth to break up the outline of his Brodie helmet. For long stretches there was no fire-step to stand on when engaging the enemy, so his men would have to crawl further up the forward berm to put their rifles into action. The duckboards that were supposed to keep his men’s feet out of the mud and muck were either rotted through or nonexistent and he hadn’t seen so much as a yard of corrugated iron to reinforce the sides of the trenches. The sandbags they had were mostly ripped and leaking their contents to create yet more sludge to traverse.

Donovan, with the aid of a helpful French captain named Mercier, searched for the commander of the French battalion they were relieving in this sector. After an hour of traipsing around, he found the man at a command post situated under cover of a culvert in the road. In contrast to the conditions in the trenches, the dugout for the battalion CP was solid, reinforced with both timber and intact sandbags. The interior was relatively free from water.

The French battalion commander was a short, sallow major with a thick black mustache and sunken eyes. He did not offer to shake hands and his possessions were already packed. His eagerness to join his men departing the front was readily apparent in his distracted expression and the way he leaned toward the door. As they talked, the French battalion staff officers and NCOs departed one by one after hastily exchanged words with Donovan’s own staff.

At the end of a frustrating conversation, Donovan’s counterpart shrugged with Gallic nonchalance and said, “Listen, friend, this is a quiet sector. The Germans over there don’t want to get their heads blown off this close to the end and neither do we. No heavy fighting means we’re not on the priority list for any of that shit.

“If you’re smart, you’ll hold the line quietly here. If you’re stupid, you’ll get your men killed trying to make a splash. That’s your affair.”

Mercier’s tone and expression were somewhat contrite, but he said nothing to contradict the French major before the man turned and walked away, summarily ending the conversation, the final word being the squelch of his departing boots in the mud. Donovan glowered at his back. Mercier quickly followed the French battalion commander, giving Donovan some room to stew.

“My, isn’t he a helpful fellow?” a lilting voice asked.

Donovan stuck his head out of the dugout. The regimental chaplain, Father Duffy, stood regarding him with a smile that mingled sympathy and amusement. Duffy had such a reputation for character and courage that, despite being a chaplain rather than an infantry officer, he’d been considered for command of the 69th.

A mustachioed, shorter, and heavier, but still fit, man stood next to Duffy; this was Corporal Joyce Kilmer, one of the regiment’s intelligence section NCOs. A poet of no small renown before the war, Kilmer had been offered a commission twice. He’d refused each attempt to promote him because becoming an officer would have necessitated a transfer to another regiment, and Kilmer, with a devout faith in the martial virtues of his fellow Irishmen, wouldn’t be persuaded to fight with anyone other than the 69th.

“Well, if I was at this for four years, I imagine I’d be a little short on patience with the man standing between me and the rear, too,” Donovan said with all the good grace he could muster. “Come on in, Father, Corporal Kilmer.”

“Gracious of you to say so, sir,” Kilmer said as they joined him in his new command post. “But no one believes it for a second.”

Duffy chuckled. Donovan didn’t respond, save for a deprecating wave of his hand.

“Sir, if it’s all right, I’d like to accompany a reconnaissance patrol tonight, if you’re going to send one out,” Kilmer said. “I’d like to start developing our own picture of the German positions. I’m thinking perhaps our allies haven’t been terribly eager to head out for a looksee . . .”

Kilmer shot a meaningful glance out the door of the dugout whence the French had departed.

“Couldn’t agree more, Corporal.” Donovan gestured to where his adjutant, a handsome young lieutenant, was poring over a topographic map laden with red and blue operational graphics depicting German and French—now American—positions and suspected positions. “Get with Lieutenant Ames, he’s plotting our patrol route for the evening.”

“Our? Sir?” Kilmer asked. “Are majors supposed to be crawling around no-man’s land?”

“Kilmer, if you refrain from asking if battalion commanders need to crawl around in no-man’s land, I’ll refrain from asking the same of regimental staff NCOs.” Donovan quirked an eyebrow.

“Point taken, sir, I’ll go talk to Lieutenant Ames.”

Once Kilmer was engrossed in conversation with Ames, Donovan turned back to Father Duffy and offered him a seat on one of the camp stools. Duffy accepted gratefully. Seated, he removed his wide-brimmed Brodie helmet and ran a hand over his shiny bald pate.

“How are your men settling in, Bill?” Duffy used Donovan’s first name with confidence, speaking, as he was, to a member of his flock as much as a brother officer of the same rank.

“Well enough, Father,” Donovan said. “A, B, and C companies are on the line, I’ve got D in reserve back in Camp New York. I wish we’d had more time for maneuvers as a battalion, especially more live fire exercises, but Lord knows the men are eager for a fight.”

“And they trust you, Bill. I recall, back at Blooey,” Duffy referred to the town in France where the 69th had done its final train-up, “I heard two of the lads talking after one of your cross-country runs. The first boy said, ‘Major Donovan is a man among men, he ought’a be the King o’ Ireland.’ The second, one of the pudgier privates, said, ‘Major Donovan is a sonofabitch!’ A third piped in, ‘Wild Bill’s a sonofabitch, aye, but he’s a game sonofabitch.’”

Donovan laughed from his gut for the first time in weeks. He clapped Duffy on the shoulder with a grin.

“Father, if my luck should fail on this adventure, I want that as my epitaph.”


Donovan and his reconnaissance party crawled on knees and elbows through the grass and mud, under skeins of barbed wire, into and out of the craters made by hundreds of cannons and mortars over the course of the war. Many of the craters already had grass creeping back into them, indicating that his French predecessor had been correct, this sector had seen less shelling in recent days.

A waxing moon shed adequate light to move by, but that was a double-edged sword. Adequate light to see by was also adequate to be seen in. Thus, they traversed nearly two miles of no-man’s land with agonizing slowness. They were exhausted and caked in dirt when Sergeant Kilmer, traveling at the point, held up a hand for a halt. They all froze, lying flat on the ground in a deep ravine.

Donovan and his men lay still and silent for several minutes, looking, listening, even smelling for any sign that the enemy had observed them. Once Donovan was fairly certain they were uncompromised, he low-crawled forward, dragging himself up the side of the trench, body pressed to the mud; his party followed, holding their long, Enfield 1917 rifles just off the ground by the slings.

He sidled up shoulder to shoulder with Kilmer, close enough to hear the other man’s breath. Bathed in moonlight, a series of jagged gashes ripped through the field before them, dotted here and there by occasional dull gray domes—German steel helmets.

The German forward firing trenches were separated from one another laterally to prevent the fall of one trench from precipitating the collapse of the entire firing front. Each firing trench connected with narrow, perpendicular trenches that led back to a more extensively interconnected support trench system. Admittedly, Donovan could only make out so much detail in the moonlight, but the German positions appeared deeper and better maintained than the French ones they’d inherited.

“All right, Kilmer,” Donovan breathed. “We got our looksee, time to head back.”

Back at his command post under the culvert, safe from direct enemy observation, Donovan and his men sighed in relief and exchanged exhausted laughter. Lieutenant Oliver Ames, Donovan’s adjutant, was awake and perked up like a loyal puppy when his boss walked into the dugout.

“Did the recon go well, sir?” he asked.

“It did.” Donovan nodded. “We got within sight of the German firing trenches. Kilmer and I are going to update our enemy situation maps.”

Father Duffy joined Donovan and Kilmer as they sat around a table, transferring their new knowledge of the German trenches onto the map provided them by the French.

Does the man ever sleep?

“Good evening, Father,” Donovan said.

“Good morning, actually,” Duffy said, sidling up to the map table. “The sun’s well up, lads. I hear the patrol went well.”

“Yes, Father, thanks to Sergeant Kilmer’s daring and intrepidity,” Donovan said.

“I thought it was my sins, sir,” Kilmer said, yawning through the sentence. “Not my boldness.”

“It can be both, after all, Aquinas told us to sin boldly, did he not, Father?” Donovan turned to Duffy.

“Yes, but I’m not sure that’s what he meant, Bill,” Duffy said, settling down onto a camp stool across from them.

“In any event, I think we’ve got it all down now, Sergeant,” Donovan said, turning back to Kilmer. “I think you can go get some sleep, we can look this over again after we’ve rested and you’ve updated regiment. Thanks for helping us out.”

“My pleasure, sir,” Kilmer said. “Looking forward to the next patrol with 1st Battalion.”


Donovan, with the regimental commander’s support, implemented a consistent program of sniping and harassing artillery fires. The Germans responded to the Americans’ violation of the informal truce with heavy artillery bombardment every morning for the rest of the time the 1st Battalion stayed on the line. This ritual, so the French had informed them, already had a name, “The Morning Hate.” They lost a few men wounded and killed to fragmentation from the shelling, but the most devastating impact of the consistent shelling was likely psychological.

Being under artillery fire was as close a thing as Donovan could imagine to experiencing the wrath of God firsthand. The eardrum-shattering blasts, the waves of concussion that loosened bowels, and the utter lack of control as men were occasionally maimed or eviscerated about him hammered at his calm. Only his duty and responsibility kept a sane, banal smile on his face.

Forcing his own terror aside, Donovan trooped his line between volleys, calmly extolling his men to keep their nerve and watch their sectors, and not to worry, the American artillery would be giving Jerry much better than they got. Sure enough, the American 75 mm and 6-inch cannons opened up in a cacophonous retaliation every morning like clockwork.

The Germans supplemented the shelling with occasional forays by their riflemen and light machine gunners just far enough into no-man’s land to pepper the American lines with direct fire. For his part, Donovan ordered his men on an even more aggressive patrol schedule, killing and capturing more Germans night by night. Day by day they repaired and replaced duckboards, filled sandbags, ensured the field phones were operational and deepened the communication trenches leading back to the support trenches.

Finally, it was 1st Battalion’s turn to rotate off the line. They were replaced by the 2nd Battalion of the 69th. It was a fine unit, and Donovan was satisfied with the hand-off his company commanders conducted with their counterparts, but he was less enthused about the 2nd Battalion commander. The man had always been a bit too remote from the action, even in training, and willing to ride on the accomplishments of his junior officers and NCOs. In fact, Donovan thought it the regimental chaplain’s only failing that he seemed to overlook the 2nd Battalion commander’s numerous iniquities.

Donovan stayed on the line for several days after his battalion had already departed back to Camp New York, encouraging the 2nd Battalion commander to give rational orders, and occasionally exceeding his authority to ensure that 2nd Battalion’s troops were making proper preparations against German shelling and harassing direct fires.

During stand-to on the fourth day after his battalion’s departure, the German shelling was particularly vicious. The German shells were landing in thick, gut-wrenching volleys, punctuated by the lower-pitched thunk of Minenwerfer mortar rounds. Donovan observed from the command post, his teeth gritted, preparing to go forward to encourage the 2nd Battalion’s men as their own commander appeared content to stay in his command post dugout.

The American troops had reacted to the GI Cans with disdain at first, thinking the short, fat rounds a pale imitation of genuine, high-explosive artillery rounds. That disdain had evaporated the first time they’d seen what a direct hit from a GI Can did to earthworks and fortifications—and the men inside them. Rarer than standard high-explosive rounds, the fact that the Germans were expending so many Minenwerfer in today’s shelling was concerning.

They wouldn’t be using so many if they didn’t feel like they’d zeroed in . . . 

A direct hit on one of the platoon dugouts sent earth and stone into the air in an ugly brown and gray fountain and basso crack-THOOM. Donovan watched, horrified as the structure fell in upon itself. He turned back into the command post.

“One of the platoon dugouts took a direct hit,” he said.

“We know,” the 2nd Battalion commander said, not bothering to look in Donovan’s direction. His executive officer was on one of the field phones.

“Collapsed?” the captain was saying. “Understood, we’ll send help. Do what you can—”

“I’m going to help,” Donovan announced, turning to leave.

“Donovan, majors are not expendable, you will stay here,” the 2nd Battalion commander snapped.

Donovan turned slowly back toward his counterpart, fists balling at his sides. He advanced on his fellow major, eyes glacially cold. The command post was suddenly quiet.

“Major, you are going to give me permission to go help those men, and you’re going to do it right now,” Donovan said, his voice low, lethal.

Under Donovan’s flint-hard gaze, staring at the fists that had dismantled the regiment’s toughest men in the boxing ring, his fellow commander quailed. Clearing his throat, he took a step back and spoke.

“Major Donovan, I would appreciate your assistance with the emergency at C Company’s position,” he said, voice cracking on, “emergency.”

Donovan stormed out of the CP without a reply.

As he sprinted through the communications trench to reach the front, he saw a soldier who was supposed to be on guard huddled at the bottom of his trench, his rifle gripped in white-knuckled hands. All along the line he saw the sentries shying back from their posts.

Damn it, if the shelling creates a gap for the Germans . . . 

Donovan leapt to the first boy and shook him by the shoulder.

“What’s your name, son?” Donovan shouted over the barrage.

“Kelly, sir!” the lad shouted in reply.

“Well, Kelly, are you going to let those goddamned Krauts rattle you?”

The boy couldn’t have been a day over nineteen, but his hazel eyes hardened, his chin jutted forward, and he dragged himself to his feet.

“Hell no, sir,” he said, settling in on the firing step, his rifle pointed across no-man’s land once again.

“Good boy!”

Donovan repeated the process up and down the line for a few minutes, making sure the boys were ready to meet any German assault. Any rescue attempt at the collapsed dugout was sure to fail if their lines collapsed under enemy assault.

Once he was satisfied that the men were bolstered, Donovan ran to the collapsed dugout and dove in among his soldiers shoving aside earth, stone, and shattered timbers. They could all hear cries and shouts from men still under the rubble. Donovan grabbed and flung another chunk of stone out of the way, then a segment of log, ignoring the splinters that dug into his hand deep enough to draw blood.

“Hold on,” he screamed. “We’re coming for you!”

A hole, just narrower than Donovan’s shoulders, appeared in the ruins. Duffy appeared next to Donovan.

“O’Malley, you and Malloy grab my feet,” Duffy said, addressing two of the privates. “I’m going in there.”

“Father, you can’t, it could come down on you,” the young soldier protested. Both looked at Donovan, who was the only infantry officer present, for guidance.

Donovan considered for only a moment.

“Do as he says.”

With a man grasping each ankle, Duffy crawled into the crevasse. Donovan schooled his features to stern impassivity as Duffy emerged with one man clinging to his arms, then returned to the narrow passage to retrieve another, and then one more, gasping and wiping debris out of his eyes as the men pulled him and Duffy clean. Duffy took only a few seconds before he made to return again.

Before Duffy could return to the narrow passage, the ground shifted dangerously beneath their feet. Donovan struggled to remain standing as the narrow passage collapsed, along with the skeletal remains of the dugout. Within seconds, only flat, debris-strewn ground marked where the dugout had once been.

They dug for several more hours, to no avail. Nineteen men remained buried, with no way to reach them. Donovan called for the engineers. Long after the wounded had been evacuated, Donovan stood with Kilmer and Duffy, staring at the impromptu tomb.

On his way back to the command post, Donovan saw another body in the trenches—it was young Private Kelly, missing his helmet, along with a chunk of his skull. Donovan’s lips pressed firmly together and he shook his head, uttering a quiet prayer. He continued on his way as Kelly’s mates removed the boy’s remains.

Damn this bloody business, but if I have to go, I at least hope it’s that quick.




Back | Next
Framed