A Maxim, but from an oblique direction, was firing, and Kahl sprawled on his face, his right arm falling over the shiny barrel of his rifle. Then other machine-guns rained their bullets into the clearing, and the men clawed at the ground in an effort to lower their bodies beneath the sweep of the lead.
“What’ll we do, Hicks?” asked Pietrzak.
The tender green leaves from the trunk of the tree behind which Hicks was secure fluttered to the ground, clipped by the machine-gun fire.
“I don’t know, but we can’t stay here. Why don’t you find the rest of the gang?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Well....” Hicks started to crawl back from the clearing into the woods. After he had wriggled his body about fifty yards he rose to his feet and ran in the general direction of which he had last seen the company. Breaking through the woods, he met Captain Powers.
“Captain Powers, there’s a squad of us up there, and we’re lost. We don’t know what to do. The men are in a clearing, and they’re afraid to move because they’re right in sight of a nest of machine-guns. Do you know where the platoon is? What shall we do?”
And in a Shakespearian voice Captain Powers told Hicks to return to his squad and lead them in a charge on the machine-gun nest.
“Aye, aye, sir.” Hicks turned and squirmed back through the woods to the clearing. “Like hell we’ll advance,” he thought. “The poor fool.”