“The big thing happened before we had time to know it was comin’ off. Some bird—Foch most likely—pushed a button and the whole damn French and American lines jumped up and busted the Boches right on the nose and in the eyes.
“Say, O. D., we better cushay before I get talkin’ ’bout them mad days from Torcy up to Sergy Plateau. I could keep you awake all night listenin’ to that Château-Thierry stuff,” said Jimmy. His blue eyes were shooting fire and his face showed the excitement that just the mention of Château-Thierry caused.
“If you stop now, Jimmy, I won’t ask Mary to write to you,” warned O. D.
“You win, toot sweet,” answered McGee, quickly.
“Encore, then. If that’s the way you say it in French,” begged the brother of Mary.
“My outfit was stuck up on the top of a little ant-hill with the old howitzers pointed slam-bang at the Germans who was on a small mountain right across the way, when our drive got under way. The Yankee doughboys was down on the side of the ant-hill, hangin’ on the roots and different kind of bushes to keep from slidin’ down to the bottom and boggin’ up to their necks in mud. The Boches had all the high places.
“The doughboys started over. We had to grab a place called Torcy. Now you must remember that country had seen beaucoup battlin’ and was all shot up—so much so it was mighty hard traveling. There was so much rubbish and ruins. All that was left of some towns was names. As I said, the infantry jumped at ’em. The Boches was sure caught nappin’—didn’t have an idea that we would come back so quick and hard. Toot sweet they began givin’ us hell with their damn machine-guns. Course that was while they was makin’ a stab at gettin’ their yellow doughboys over the big scare that we threw into ’em. But our boys had got such a start that machine-gun fire, even as hellish as what they pumped into us, couldn’t stop ’em. They was out for the Kaiser’s scalp.
“We took Torcy on the short end of bayonets and barrage. The old artillery banged the Boches into a lot of sausage meat. The bodies used to trip us up, and how some of the guys cussed them dead Germans. Toot sweet after we started the drive a drove of prisoners began comin’ in—privates, non-coms., loots, majors, and even colonels. We called ’em all Heinie and Fritz, you know, and some of the Boche officers got mad as the devil and wanted to be treated as officers. The Yanks prodded ’em with stiff bayonets when they pulled that stuff.
“From the first minute of the drive there was no let-up in battlin’. None of that trench-line fightin’. Open warfare, buddy. Open as a doorless barn, I mean. The noise never stopped like it did at Seicheprey, a few hours after it started. No, O. D., it was just one continual roarin’, bangin’, crashin’, swearin’, moanin’, and prayin’. That’s all. Gosh! there was so many kinds of different things that could kill a man, goin’ at the same time that it’s a wonder anybody was left to tell ’bout the Second Battle of the Marne.
“Time we took Torcy they said to get Hill 190. Maybe you know that’s right ’bove Château-Thierry itself. You can imagine that the Boches made some stand to hang on to that place. They sure did. We had beaucoup boys put out of business gettin’ up to Hill 190, believe me.