The dead had to lie in the trench. Not until later would the rushed first-aid men have time to take them away.
Still the fire step was lined with intrepid Khaki Boys, who proposed to sell their lives dearly when at close grip with their hated antagonists.
Just at daybreak the German barrage fire suddenly lifted. Down the American line the order was passed to be ready. It was a never-to-be-forgotten moment for the Khaki Boys when they heard the man at the periscope shout:
"The Boches are coming over!"
Mounted on the fire step, rifles ready, the Khaki Boys saw wave upon wave of grayish-green-clad figures leaving their trenches to charge across No Man's Land, shooting from the hip as they trotted doggedly forward, driven like cattle by their officers. A German officer never leads his men.
Before they had traversed a dozen yards of No Man's Land an advanced American battery opened fire on that moving gray mass. Other American batteries began to speak and Sammy machine guns and rifles mowed them down with a merciless hail of bullets.
Completely demoralized by the wholesale slaughter of their comrades many of the Boches threw down their guns and ran for the American trenches to give themselves up. They could never have lived to get back to their own trenches. They had started across to take prisoners. Now they were glad to become prisoners.
Thus ended the Boche raid which, thanks to Franz Schnitzel, had been so effectively checked. The raid having failed utterly, the German guns suddenly slackened their fire. Gradually the American batteries ceased. Soon quiet settled down upon that scene of carnage; a stillness that was almost uncanny after the terrible racket that had made night hideous.
Details of Sammies herded their prisoners together and marched them off through the American trenches. What might have been a dreadful defeat to Uncle Sam's Boys had turned into a glorious victory. And all because of one man, who, perhaps, was long since beyond knowledge of the great service he had rendered his country.