ivors, York was questioned on his efforts to escape the onslaught of
the machine guns:

"By this time, those of my men who were left had gotten behind trees,
and the men sniped at the Boche. But there wasn't any tree for me, so I
just sat in the mud and used my rifle, shooting at the machine gunners."

The officers recall his quaint and memorable answer to the inquiry on
the tactics he used to defend himself against the Boche who were in the
gun-pits, shooting at him from behind trees and crawling for him through
the brush. His method was simple and effective:

"When I seed a German, I jes' tetched him off."

In the afternoon of October 8--York had brought in his prisoners by 10
o'clock in the morning--in the seventeenth hour of that day, the
Eighty-Second Division cut the Decauville Railroad and drove the Germans
from it. The pressure against the American forces in the heart of the
Argonne Forest was not only relieved, but the advance of the division
had aided in the relief of the "Lost Battalion" under the command of the
late Col. Whittlesey, which had made its stand in another hollow of
those hills only a short distance from the hillside where Sergeant York
made his fight.

As the Eighty-Second Division swept up the three hills across the valley
from Hill No. 223, the hill on the left--York's Hill--was found cleared
of the enemy and there was only the wreckage of the battle that had been
fought there.

York's fight occurred on the eighth day of the twenty-eight day and
night battle of the Eighty-Second Division in the Argonne. They were in
the forest fighting on, when the story went over the world that an
American soldier had fought and captured a battalion of German machine
gunners.

Even military men doubted its possibility, until the "All America"
Division came out of the forest with the records they had made upon the
scene, and with the clear exposition of the tactics and the remarkable
bravery and generalship that made Sergeant York's achievement possible.

Alvin York faced a new experience. He found himself famous.

VII
Two More Deeds of Distinction

Alvin was not prepared for the ovations that awaited him. The world
gives generously to those who succeed in an extraordinary endeavor where
the resource and ability of men are in competition. For intellectual
achievement there is deference and wonder, for moral accomplishment
there is approbation and love, but for physical courage there are all of