t
as well not to here record! At the time, however, it seemed that he sort
of expressed my own feelings on the subject!

Gallant Captain Hall came through alive; but I can see him even now in
the very thick of the fighting that followed a few minutes later.
Standing out on the hillside in full view he fought with his steel blue
"45" a duel to the death with a German officer who rashly attacked him.
For a moment I held my breath, as they deliberately exchanged shot for
shot. Then I saw the German fall heavily; and Hall, his right hand
twirling his gun, and his left fondly stroking his mustache, coolly
surveyed the line looking for another shot.

It was two in the afternoon before the fog began to thicken. The zero
hour was at hand!

Although we had marched many weary miles, had lain motionless in the mud
for five hours, and had meanwhile tasted neither food nor drink, we did
not mind it. One ignores bodily needs under heavy mental stress. I
carried a little meat and bread in my pocket, which, that noon, I shared
with good Father LeMay.

At two-thirty, when the sheltering fog was thickest, quietly the word
was passed down the line "Get ready." At that moment I was near the
western end of the column near a stone quarry, strongly defended by the
enemy with machine guns and automatic rifles.

Promptly the boys made ready, slipping off packs, many even their
blouses. It was to be a bayonet rush up that hill, and the idea was to
feel as cold and shoulder free as possible. The pain of mustard gas is
not so intense if one's body is cool and dry. Officers as well as men
were lightly clothed; their only weapons, automatics. I substituted a
sweater for my blouse. All felt the tense strain, and throats grew dry
and temples throbbed.

At that moment was given a final General Absolution and Blessing.

Sharply, along the crouching line like a flash of fire, boomed the
command to advance--"Guns and bayonets now, boys, and give them hell!"
Instantly leaping forward, the men hurled themselves up the hill.
Helmeted, masked, their bayonets flashing, like the crested foam of some
giant wave they swept forward.

We had not advanced fifty feet when over the hillside there burst a hail
storm of lead. The enemy hurled into our faces every manner of
destruction; bullets and steel fragments screamed through the air,
"thudding" into every foot of ground!

The first boy to fall was Riorden of New Jersey, who pitched forward,
terribly tor