At the very outset they met machine-gun fire; and out of the wood, after they were in it, came the persistent rattle of rifle fire, varied by veritable storms of machine-gun fire. Wounded began to flow back from the ravines. Calls came for Stokes’ mortars from the hidden scene of that vicious medley, along with the report that Colonel Catlin had been wounded half an hour after the attack began.
Machine-gun positions in the outskirts of the woods had been taken; but they were only the first lot. Hal had been through many woods where German machine gunners ensconced themselves, and none that he remembered afforded better positions for defense against any enemy.
Not only was the undergrowth advantageous, but there were numerous rocks and ravines and pockets, all of which favored the Germans. There was nothing new in the system which the enemy applied, but not until troops go against it for the first time do they realize its character.
When they could locate a gun, the marines concentrated their rifles upon it. The wounded crawled back behind rocks or into ravines, or to any place where they could find a dead space. Hot cries accompanied the flashing drives of the cold steel through the underbrush. Many bayonets might drop from the hands of the men who were hit, but some bayonets would “get there.”
Hal, stopping to get his breath, found time to say to Chester, who was near him:
“Hot work, old man; but we’re going through!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHATEAU THIERRY
That was the thing—to get there!
The marines have always fought in that way. It is tradition—and their nature.
German gunners ran from their guns in face of such assaults; others tried to withdraw their guns; still others were taken in groups huddled in ravines as youth, fearful in its white rage of determination, bore down upon them and gathered them in, or, again, drove the bayonet home into gunners who stuck to their posts until the instant that forms, with eyes gleaming, leapt upon them.