“Oh, if we can only hold out until they come!” muttered Dave. He was beginning to feel the strain and could hardly keep on his feet.
The engineers were now ordered to withdraw to one side of the road in order to give the infantry and the machine-guns a chance to come up. Of course the machine-guns could not be used on the Germans while they were mixed up with the Americans, but it was thought they could be brought into play in case the enemy did any massing or started to retreat.
“Hurrah, here they come!”
“Now those Huns will get what is coming to them!”
“Rush ’em all the way back to the Rhine!”
A company of American infantry was coming down the rough forest road on the double-quick. A short distance behind were two other companies, and then followed a machine-gun detachment.
“Our other men are coming up from the other side of the hill,” announced the American officer, who was in command of the newly-arrived troops. “They’ll be here inside of five minutes, I believe.”
At first the Germans were rather discomfited when they saw the American infantry coming up. But seeing only the three companies and the single machine-gun detachment, they plucked up courage again and went at the fight almost as vigorously as before.
The infantry leaped into the fray with all the speed at their command, and then the contest became more bloody every instant. In one place among some rocks at least fifteen men from each side fought in such a close space that it was almost impossible for any of the soldiers to get elbow room. Several of the men grabbed each other by the throat, and two of the wounded were all but trampled to death in the mêlée.
Phil and Roger had both sustained several small wounds, but they still kept on fighting, in spite of the loss of blood which was steadily making them weaker.