“Smash ’em! Tear ’em to pieces!” Clem found himself yelling again and again and he heard similar shouts on all sides of him.
“Give ’em ballyhoo!” howled young Giddings.
And they did--if that expresses something like annihilation! Before the Huns could do more than fire a round or two from a score of well-placed machine-guns on the hillside the marines, like waves of avenging devils, were upon them with a fury that those long-practised death-dealers of the Fatherland had not before experienced and totally unprepared for. They were used to seeing their accurate shooting from such an array of fire-spitters stop their enemies and drive them back but no such result was in evidence now.
Many of the Huns broke and ran, some tried to hide, some threw up their hands and shouted: “Kamerad! Kamerad!” A few stuck to their guns until overpowered, and died fighting. Many, threatened with the bayonet, surrendered at once. And the marines went yelling on, overtaking the fleeing Germans, stabbing to death, shooting or clubbing with rifles those who still resisted. Breaking up the machine-gun nests, they rounded up the prisoners until the hillside was entirely in American hands. Then the Yanks halted and sought shelter from the German artillery which now began to throw shells upon the eastern and northern side of the hill from enemy positions beyond. On the southwestern slope, where they were out of danger from this fire, the victorious regiments re-formed for further duty, bringing in all scattered units and trying to count the cost.
The taking of the hill had not been entirely one-sided, except in the matter of a victory. The machine-gunners had been placed in position to hold this strategic bit of ground and to make it hot for those who attempted to take it from them, and they were past masters at that sort of thing. The reception they gave the marines exacted a heavy toll.
Following fast upon the heels of the men from overseas came the wonderfully efficient American Red Cross. Ambulances rushed across the fields, many of carrying capacity only, a few fitted up for field dressing stations. Doctors and nurses, braving the enemy shells, attended the most urgent cases only, sending the majority back to the newly established evacuation hospitals which had, within two days, supplanted those of the overtaxed French, or to the bases that also had moved nearer this fighting front.