While all this was going forward, shells had wrecked all the bridges over the river but one and it was so damaged as to be considered unsafe, so the little force in Fismette had to hold on as best it could until reinforcements could be thrown across. It was at this juncture that there entered into fame a new set of candidates for military decorations.
The men of the 103d Sanitary Train of the Twenty-eighth Division had been performing their arduous and perilous tasks in a gallant and self-sacrificing manner, but they now achieved the apotheosis of bravery.
In the cellar of a house in Fismette there had been assembled twenty-eight American wounded, and it was necessary to evacuate them across the river in order that they might reach hospitals and receive proper treatment. Five times the house had been struck by shells and Sergeant William Lukens, of Cheltenham, Pa., and a few other men had to scrape the débris off the wounded. Four times the comrades of Lukens had to dig him out when shells buried him under an avalanche of earth.
Captain Charles Hendricks, of Blairsville, Pa., remained in the cellar three days and four nights, and twice was buried by shells.
The ambulance men who finally carried the wounded back across the river, after hairbreadth escapes and thrilling experiences, were headed by Captain George E. McGinnis, of Philadelphia, and were members of Ambulance Company 110, formerly Ambulance Company 2 in the National Guard.
The advance party of rescuers set out for Fismes in a touring car. It was made up of Major Frederick Hartung, of Pittsburgh; Major Edward M. Iland, of Coraopolis, Captain McGinnis and Privates Walter McGinnis and Walter Frosch, both of Philadelphia, and all members of the medical corps.
Frosch was at the wheel. They took the road down the hill on the southern slope of the Vesle at breakneck speed, for caution was useless. They were in full view of scores of enemy gunners and their car at once became a target, being hit several times. Frosch drove on "without batting an eye," as the officers remarked.
Over the unsafe bridge they rushed at top speed and, to the amazement of the watching Americans on the south bank, the structure held. Then the car tore up through Fismette to the dressing station, around which big shells were beating a terrible tattoo. The men hurriedly looked over the situation and then made a preconcerted signal to the ambulanciers waiting on the other side of the river.
When the signal was received, the ambulances came out from cover and dashed for the river. They were conspicuously decorated with the red cross, but that seemed only to make them a special target for the enemy. The machines were manned by James T. O'Neill, of Aldan, Pa.; James R. Gunn, Joseph M. Murray, Samuel Falls, Alfred Baker, Originnes Biemuller, known among his comrades as "Mike," James R. Brown, Jack Curry, Harry Broadbent, Raymond Onyx and Albert Smith, all of Philadelphia, and John F. Maxwell, of Williamsport.
On the trip into Fismette, the ambulances escaped a hit, miraculous as it may seem. They went around corners on two wheels, thundering and rushing through the narrow little streets littered with dust and débris, and came to a halt in the lee of the dressing station. Their crews leaped to the ground and set to work loading the wounded.