The 2nd's engineers now came up for a fighting part in protecting our hard-pressed flanks. We withdrew our front to the town, which we held. Meanwhile, though the French had taken Médéah farm, the division's right was still well back of the line of Saint-Etienne. All day of the 9th was spent in re-forming our position after the see-sawing conflict of the 8th; but the Germans, far from showing any signs of withdrawal, made a counter-attack on the French beyond Médéah farm and on our Regulars, who repulsed it with their rifle fire.
The race-horse division, which had been hurried from the mud of the Saint-Mihiel sector without time to rest, had been doing a steeple-chase for nine days. Physical exhaustion claimed it for its own. As it withdrew, with casualties of 4,771 and the capture of 1,963 prisoners from eight German divisions, the Regulars and Marines and the French of the Twenty-first Corps had the satisfaction of knowing that German guns had fired their last shot at the cathedral and the ruins of the city of Rheims.
The Texans and Oklahomans who now took up the battle were assigned the tired artillery of the 2nd, as they had no guns of their own. They lacked horses, transport, and nearly everything a division should have, except rifles, which were in the hands of men who knew how to use them. On the morning of the 10th their reconnaissance in force showed that the enemy artillery and machine-gun fire was as powerful as ever. It was hardly in the books that an inexperienced division should begin a movement in the dark; but the French being ready to advance on the left, the 36th began an attack that evening.
The Germans, already preparing for retreat, still had large forces of field artillery in range. Evidently they were determined to take revenge on these new troops by expending in the rapid fire of a prolonged bombardment all they could of their ammunition, instead of leaving it behind to be captured. The accurate and moving sheet of death which was laid down upon the advancing infantry of the 36th was the kind from which men will withdraw in the sheer instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, a panic would have been excusable. But the lean tall Texans and Oklahomans had not come all the way from home to be in a battle at last with any idea of celebrating the occasion, or gratifying the Germans, by a retreat, because of a display of fireworks. Among the leaping flashes in the dark, with voices unheard and men revealed for an instant in shadowy outline, with officers who had the direction of units being killed and wounded, with gaps being torn in the line, there was bound to be some disorganization. But there was no faltering. The Texans and Oklahomans are not by nature panicky. They accepted stoically this screaming tumult of destruction. Particularly it was not the nature of the Indians among them to be distracted by a "heap big noise." Officers agreed that there was no problem except that of keeping units together. All the men wanted was to "get back" at the German, straight into his barrage. Pressing on as they closed up their gaps, the charging groups with the bit in their teeth took the village of Machault.
The enemy resistance had suddenly broken. After this final spasm of splenetic reprisal, all the German guns were moving fast toward the Aisne. The Texans and Oklahomans did not waste much time over the machine-gunners who attempted a rearguard action, but "hiked" ahead for fifteen miles in a single day, as a reminder to the 2nd, which had considered them "tenderfeet," that in the matter of long-distance racing they yielded the honor to nobody. Bridges destroyed, machine-gun nests established on the north of the river, the German served notice that he was to make another stand. The Texans and Oklahomans enjoyed themselves in swimming across on scouting trips and in a period of active sniping gratifying to ranger inheritance. The last day they were in line they completed their brief service by cleaning up Forest farm, east of Attigny, in an uninterrupted rush which gave them the opportunity to make the most of their qualities, and in ejecting the enemy from a bend in the river which he still held. Their casualties were 2,651, and they had taken 813 prisoners and an engineer depot worth ten millions of dollars, which had supplied that section of the German line for four years. It was their only battle, but they had fought it in a way to make the most of it, in attest to the enemy of what might be expected of such a new division, if, fully equipped, it should take to the war-path again.
[XV]
VETERANS DRIVE A WEDGE
Skill essential to break the heights east of the Aire—The "per schedule" 1st Division—The much-used 32nd Division—A combined frontal attack on October 4th—A thin wedge to Fléville on the Aire—Which is broadened to the east the next day.
After this diversion to the accounts of divisions detached for other offensives, we return now to our own battle in the Meuse-Argonne, where we had learned to our cost in the two last days of September that no nibbling attacks at the close of a drive that had spent its momentum would serve our purpose against the gathering power of the enemy. There was no abatement in our industry as we rested our weary divisions still in line, replaced exhausted with fresh divisions, brought up fresh material, improved our road facilities, and tightened our organization during the temporary deadlock of furious nagging under incessant fire at the front.