Back in the regimental lines, while the four companies were being mauled badly by the Germans, anxiety had gone steadily from bad to worse.
Enduring the storm of shells with which the Germans continued to thresh the back areas for miles, the troops did not have, for some time after the battle began, the excitement of combat to loosen their tight-strung nerves.
They saw the French come filtering out of the woods before them, and watched eagerly for their comrades, but their comrades did not come and, as time passed, it was realized the detached companies were having a hard time.
The vanguard of the Prussians reached the edge of the woods shortly before daybreak. Men on watch in the American trenches saw hulking gray-clad figures slinking among the trees close to the forest's fringe and opened fire. As the day grew the firing on both sides waxed hotter, and soon a long line of the enemy advanced from the shelter of the bois. They were met by a concentration of rifle, machine gun and cannon fire such as no force could withstand. The first waves seemed simply to wither away like chaff before a wind. The following ones slackened their pace, hesitated a moment or two then turned and ran for the timber.
From that moment, our men were themselves again. They saw the Germans were not invincible. They themselves had broken up a Prussian Guards' attack. All their confidence, self-reliance, initiative, elan, came to the fore. They felt themselves unbeatable.
But one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one repulse of an enemy make a victory. Time after time the Germans returned to the assault. Groups of them gained the wheat fields, where they felt protected from the fire of our men. Obviously, they expected to crawl through the wheat until they were on the southern edge of the fields, where, lying closely protected, they could pick the Americans off at leisure.
Whole platoons of our men volunteered to meet this move and were permitted to crawl forward and enter the wheat. Then ensued a game of hide and seek, Germans and Americans stalking each other as big game is stalked, flat on their faces in the growing grain.
But the Germans were no match for Americans at this kind of thing. There is something—a kind of heritage from our pioneer, Indian-fighting ancestors, probably—that gives to an American lad a natural advantage at this sort of fighting, and scores of Germans remained behind in the shelter of the wheat when the tide of battle had passed far away, with the spires of grain nodding and whispering a requiem over them.
Before dawn of that fifteenth of July, word was received from Colonel McAlexander, commanding the 39th Infantry of the old regular army, which was in front and to the right of the 109th, that the Germans had crossed the river and penetrated the Allied lines. He added that if they gained a foothold in the Bois de Conde, or Conde Wood, a high, wooded tract just north of Monthurel, the position of the 39th would be seriously menaced.
Captain William C. Williams, commanding Company H, 109th, and Captain Edward J. Meehan, commanding Company D, of the same regiment, and both Philadelphians, were ordered into the wood. The companies were led out and took positions on both sides of a narrow ravine in the wood.