And when they went over the boys yelled and cheered, rushing onward to the Hun trenches, "Remember the Lusitania," "Remember the Antilles," "Remember the U. S.," "Remember dear President Wilson and the Stars and Stripes."
They kept on gaining, facing death and danger. We followed them up with our machine guns. The Huns started with their artillery. They thought they could stop us but they couldn't. We always had our fighting spirit with us.
The German Prussian Guards came over to meet us. Our infantry went at 'em, facing them. Some yelled, "Kamerad," but that didn't go with us. We gave them the cold steel instead. We had 500 yards to go to before we could take Cantigny. "Little Jimmie" Doyle was working hard at the gun and he would say, "I wonder if my mother is thinking of me." We kept moving our gun and giving them all they wanted. All of a sudden "Little Jimmie" fell with a Hun machine gun bullet through his head. The blood was pouring down his cheek. I went to him, gave him my first aid packet with bandages, put it around his head,—but in vain. He was taking his last breath. He said:
"George, good bye, I knew this was my day."
He wanted to say a few more words, but could not. He lay still without breathing. He was dead, and he died with a smile on his lips. The poor lad was always happy and had a smile for whoever he met. "Little Jimmie" died for his country and died like a man.
After taking Jimmie away I ran back to my machine gun. The Prussians were coming over, driving back the infantry. They overpowered us but the machine gunners all said: "We are going to hold this line until the infantry gets reinforcements." We eight machine gunners were checking the Germans finally. Now and then we stopped firing. Then the Huns would rush at us, thinking that they had killed us, but we were very much alive and as soon as they advanced a hundred yards or so, we would open up our machine guns again and give 'em Hell. Four of the machine gunners were killed and it was up to the remaining four to hold them back until the infantry came.
Our ammunition was getting low and I was shot through my leg by a high explosive shrapnel, but I kept on with my machine gun until our infantry came up with the reinforcements, and went over with a yell and chased the Huns back and captured Cantigny. We got that town in two and a half hours.
My leg was bleeding and I had an awful pain but I stuck to it. We went into the Hun trenches, which we had captured, and there I was treated by the Red Cross dressing station and then we went in and brought out the German prisoners who were hiding in the dugouts and cellars of the town.
Then the Germans, who were driven back to their reserve trenches, wanted to get square on us, and fired over the poisonous gas. We got the signal and put our masks on, and kept them on for seventy-two hours. Mine was an old mask and it began to leak, until suddenly I fell, and was unconscious for twenty-four hours. When I awoke I was in the hospital, in a nice white bed such as I had not been in for ten months. Oh! didn't I sleep. They couldn't get me up for anything.