CHAPTER IX
The Church of Roncheres
Meanwhile, the 110th had been having a stirring part of the war all its own, in the taking of Roncheres. As was the case with every other town and village in the whole region, the Germans, without expecting or intending to hold the town, had taken every possible step to make the taking of it as costly as possible. With their characteristic disregard of every finer instinct, they had made the church, fronting an open square in the center of the town and commanding roads in four directions, the center of their resistance.
Every building, every wall, fence and tree, sheltered a machine gun or a sniper. Most of the enemy died where they stood. As was the case 99 times out of every 100, they fired until they dropped from bullets or thrust up their hands and bleated "Kamerad," like scared sheep, when our men got close enough to use the bayonet.
Some time before, however, the Pennsylvanians had undertaken to make prisoners of a German thus beseeching mercy, and it was only after several men had fallen from apparently mysterious fire that they discovered the squealing Hun, hands in air, had his foot on a lever controlling the fire of his machine gun. Thus, he assumed an attitude of surrender in order to decoy our men within easier range of the gun he operated with his foot.
So it is small wonder that the men of the 110th went berserk in Roncheres and made few prisoners. They played the old-fashioned game of hide and seek, in which the men in khaki were always "it," and to be spied meant death for the Hun. From building to building they moved steadily forward until they came within range of the village church, when their progress was stayed for some time.
There was a cross on the roof of the church of some kind of stone with a red tinge. Behind it the Germans had planted guns. Three guns were hidden in the belfry, from which the bells had been removed and sent to Germany. Gothic walls and balconies, from which in happier days the plaster statuettes of saints looked down on the fair, green fields and peaceful countryside of France, sheltered machine gunners, snipers and small cannon.
Sharpshooters of the 110th finally picked off the gunners behind the cross, but the little fortress in the belfry still held out. Detachments set out to work around the outer edge of the town and surround the church. When they found houses with partition walls so strong that a hole could not be battered through easily, sharpshooters were stationed at the windows and doors and they were able to hold the German fire down so well that other men could slip to the shelter of the next house.