We began scrambling back onto the road. Our war was not against the wounded and suffering, so we would let them pass.
Suddenly the ambulance stopped; the sides of it quickly rose; machine guns showed their ugly muzzles.
“Br-r-r-r-r t-t-t,” they began to sputter.
I leaped backward and fell headlong into the ditch. Everybody was jumping for cover. The bullets lashed the road and ricocheted far upon it. Scarcely a man of us was hit, but we were in wild confusion. I cannot describe the scene. No one seemed to think of putting his rifle to his shoulder. The horror of it—the passionate anger against such vile trickery—drove us into a rage; but—for the moment—it was an impotent rage. We seemed to be at their mercy.
Then the platoon commander’s voice rose above the rat-a-tat of the machine guns:
“Steady, men! Fire at will, but pick your men carefully.”
We had heard him speak in the same tone on parade. It brought us to our senses. The edge of the ditch on each side of the road fairly flamed with the sputter of rifle fire. The “ambulance” was riddled. A Prussian officer toppled into the middle of the road. Half a dozen men sprang from the ditch and rushed at him with bayonets. They killed him like a rat. There was no compunction about it.
There was now heard the thrumming of more motors approaching. Round the turn in the road they came. This time it was transports—laden with German troops. There was no attempt at disguise with this mob. They thought that their camouflaged battery would by now have done its dirty work. Sweating and tugging and straining, we managed to topple the “ambulance” over in the road. The trucks came dashing up as we retreated—retreated only to get in touch with our support. The men cheered wildly as two of our own machine guns came up. We turned the wee fellows loose on the Germans—gave them a taste of their own medicine.
Some of them came running toward us shouting: “Kamerad! Kamerad!” We shot them down as they ran—shot them without hesitation—after the dastardly trick they had played on us. Probably they were even then trying another ruse.
The fight surged backward and forward. The Germans tried to press ahead.