“Obviously. After all, when the die is cast——”
The whole attitude of our soldiers is summed up in that phrase. A private as he passes exclaims with a laugh:
“They’re not up to taking R¹, those Boches.”
* * * * *
Yes, the whole attitude is summed up in this: to stick to one’s post and to think nothing of self.
The 6th Company of the 101st is relieved on June 5, in the evening, by a company of the 298th, which will hold out for three days longer, under more and more critical conditions, but will be outflanked in the night of June 8–9. The enemy has managed to make progress on the right. The fall of the fort, in the early morning of June 7, has given him a tactical point.
R¹, however, throughout the whole siege of the fort, from June 2 to 7, has floated, like a fishing-boat that has mastered the waves, in the wake of the great vessel.