They went to it, with a muffled cheer that the Germans must have thought was an expression over a game or a joke, perhaps; anyway, it seemed apparent that, until two powerful searchlights were thrown upon the advancing enemy, they had believed they were taking the Americans entirely by surprise.
But when the beams of light suddenly glared upon them, to be followed instantly by the staccato of the three machine-guns and the crack of rifles, the first phalanx of Teutons became demoralized for a moment, with more than half their number struck down.
The second rank also had suffered, but their purpose now was a big one and with that dogged determination for which the German soldiers under training and supported by each other in close touch are noted, rather than a dashing bravery that sweeps all before it, they rallied and returned to the charge.
On they came again, in open formation, and at a run, the darkness enveloping them, except when the flashes of gun fire illuminated dimly the surroundings. For they had instantly shot out the searchlights and their objective was now the black hillside in the center of which they knew the gun pit and dugout lay. And they meant to penetrate that spot and wipe it out past further injury to them.
Is it not best, even when the most graphic recital seems necessary in the portrayal of a battle scene, to draw the mantle of delicacy over those details of horror that follow a close conflict between forces long trained and superbly fitted to kill?
It suffices to say that the Americans found their Southern leader, experienced in the choice of weapons with which man can do most injury to his fellowman when he so desires, was right concerning the revolver as a most effective means of defense and offense.
Even in the dark the pet American weapon worked wonders. An arm drawn back to hurl a grenade or bomb was pretty sure to drop limp, with its owner down and out, and a flashing bayonet in the hands of a chap tumbled over by the same means was hardly a weapon to be feared, even against vastly inferior numbers.
After the machine-guns and rifles had performed their work the ready revolvers, each hand holding one trained in its use to practical perfection, did a work that was more murderous than anything the Huns had so far witnessed.
It is not pleasant to think even of enemies going down in such numbers. The death of one man, forced into a death grapple by the red-tongued furies of war, is enough to draw pity from all who are humane, but when dozens, scores, in the space of a few minutes are made to suffer and die for a cause not rightly known to them, and others also, because of the inhumanity of a power-mad despot, it is beyond the full telling.