fore the
Battalion goes over. We can't spare too many men, and I don't
like to send out more officers than I can help; it won't do to
reduce the Battalion for the major operation. Do you think you
two boys could manage it with a hundred men? The point is, you
will have to be out and back before our artillery begins at three
o'clock."

Under the hill where the village stood, ran a deep ravine, and
from this ravine a twisting water course wound up the hillside.
By climbing this gully, the raiders should be able to fall on the
machine gunners from the rear and surprise them. But first they
must get across the open stretch, nearly one and a half
kilometers wide, between the American line and the ravine,
without attracting attention. It was raining now, and they could
safely count on a dark night.

The night came on black enough. The Company crossed the open
stretch without provoking fire, and slipped into the ravine to
wait for the hour of attack, A young doctor, a Pennsylvanian,
lately attached to the staff, had volunteered to come with them,
and he arranged a dressing station at the bottom of the ravine,
where the stretchers were left. They were to pick up their
wounded on the way back. Anything left in that area would be
exposed to the artillery fire later on.

At ten o'clock the men began to ascend the water-course, creeping
through pools and little waterfalls, making a continuous spludgy
sound, like pigs rubbing against the sty. Claude, with the head
of the column, was just pulling out of the gully on the hillside
above the village, when a flare went up, and a volley of fire
broke from the brush on the up-hill side of the water-course;
machine guns, opening on the exposed line crawling below. The Hun
had been warned that the Americans were crossing the plain and
had anticipated their way of approach. The men in the gully were
trapped; they could not retaliate with effect, and the bullets
from the Maxims bounded on the rocks about them like hail.
Gerhardt ran along the edge of the line, urging the men not to
fall back and double on themselves, but to break out of the gully
on the downhill side and scatter.

Claude, with his group, started back. "Go into the brush and get
'em! Our fellows have got no chance down there. Grenades while
they last, then bayonets. Pull your plugs and don't hold on too
long."

They were already on the run, charging the brush. The Hun gunners
knew the hill like a book, and when the bo