Don’s orders were to run in close to the American fighting forces without too grave risk, and if there was an advance, to keep pretty near to it, as there would necessarily be many casualties. As the Germans had learned already to recognize the Yanks as their most formidable foes, they were sending some of their best troops to stop them.
The Red Cross was showing splendid efficiency now. From stretcher bearers to dressing stations, from its own evacuation hospitals to ideally equipped bases and convalescent camps, it was the model for all things humane in warfare. Eager were its men and women in doing their share of the arduous and dangerous work, and proud, indeed, those who were identified in any way with its glorious efforts.
“Drive the enemy from Bouresches and Belleau Wood!” was the order from headquarters. Again, as one man, the marines went forward. The Huns must be taught that their advance at the Château-Thierry front was at an end.
“Pound the enemy’s lines in Bouresches!” came the order to the artillery as a forerunner of the charge of the marines, and the artillery pounded. Across the grain and flowering fields marched the soldiers, advancing in thin lines, one after the other, the marines in the center and on either flank a battalion of doughboys, regulars of the United States army. This was the good old training in American fighting methods: Advance on a run and lie down, advance and lie down, the front rank shooting all the while, and when these fellows, who must bear the brunt of the strong defense that the enemy was making, were thinned out reinforcements were rushed from the rear to fill up the broken ranks.
[Illustration: THEY WENT RIGHT TO WORK DISLODGING THE HUNS FROM THE HOUSES.]
In every conceivable point of shelter, from every thicket, bit of woodland, hollow or knoll around the village there were enemy machine-gun units, with here and there larger calibre quick-firing fieldpieces, sending a perfect hail of lead and iron across the fields at those ever-advancing boys in khaki.
But it mattered little to the boys in khaki how fast and furious came this death-dealing rain of bullets, for they kept right on into the village, and they went right to work dislodging the Huns from the houses, using rifle, hand-grenades, bayonets and pistols. The enemy sought every means of protection; they fortified themselves behind walls which the American artillery had left standing, or behind piles of débris the shelling had made. They poked their rifles and machine-guns out of windows, and cellar-entrances, and down from roof tops. They made street barriers of parts of ruined buildings, and thus contested every inch of ground until the Americans were upon them and when they could no longer fight, they surrendered. Some ran away while some went down fighting, for they had been told it was better to die than to be taken prisoner by the cruel Americans.