It now became necessary to straighten the American line. The 109th had come up and was just behind the 110th. It had taken shelter for the night of July 28th in a wood just south of Fresne, and early on the morning of July 29th received orders to be on the south side of the Ourcq, two miles away, by noon of that day.
The men knew they were closely in touch with the enemy once more, but this time there was none of the nervousness before action that had marked their first entrance into battle. They had beaten back the Prussian Guard, the flower of the Crown Prince's army, once, and knew they could do it again.
Furthermore, there were many scores to settle. Every man felt he wanted to avenge the officers and comrades who had fallen in the earlier fighting, and it was a grimly-determined and relentless body of men that emerged from that wood in skirmish formation before dawn of July 29th.
Almost immediately parts of the line came into action, but it was about an hour after the beginning of "the day's work" that the first serious fighting took place. Company M, near the center of the 109th's long line, ran into a strong machine gun nest. The new men who had been brought into the company to fill the gaps that were left after the fighting on the Marne had been assimilated quickly and inoculated with the 109th's fighting spirit and desire for revenge.
Although the company had gone into its first action as the only one in the regiment with the full complement of six commissioned officers, it now was sadly short, for those bitter days below the Marne had worked havoc with the commissioned personnel as well as with the enlisted men.
Officers were becoming scarce all through the regiment. Lieutenant Fales was the only one of the original officers of the company left in service, so Lieutenant Edward B. Goward, of Philadelphia, had been sent by Colonel Brown from headquarters to take command of the company, with Lieutenant Fales second in command.
The company had to advance down a long hill, cross a small tributary of the Ourcq, which here was near its source, and go up another hill—all in the open. The Boche were intrenched along the edge of a wood at the top of this second hill, and they poured in a terrible fire as the company advanced.
Lieutenants Goward and Fales were leading the first platoons. The company was wild with eagerness and there was no holding them. Here was the first chance they had had since the Marne to square accounts with the unspeakable Hun, and they were in no humor to employ subtle tactics or use even ordinary care.
With queer gurgling sounds behind their gas masks—they would have been yells of fury without the masks in place—they swept forward. Lieutenant Goward ran straight into a stream of machine gun bullets. One struck him in the right shoulder and whirled him around. A second struck him in the left shoulder and twisted him further. As he crumpled up a stream of bullets struck him in the stomach. He fell dying.
Seeing him topple, Lieutenant Fales rushed toward him to see if he could be of service. He walked directly into the same fire and was mortally wounded. Goward managed to roll into a shell hole, where he died in a short time.