n, shortly to my right. Onward and upward swept the line. As
I paused a moment beside Riorden to absolve him, Walsh of Syracuse, New
York, running some thirty feet in advance, waved his arm for me to
hurry. "Holy Joe" was the name given the Chaplain. I never knew its
origin, but it was the title most generally used and always with the
utmost respect.

Even then could be heard the horrible crash of steel on steel, hand to
hand bayonet contact, screams of terror and pain, when the blade
dripping blood was withdrawn from its human scabbard. The advance soon
reached the hilltop and the gray-clad Germans resisted desperately. The
most terrible, horrible, and indescribable of all sights and sounds were
now before me. Wild-eyed, panting, fiercely visaged boys in American
khaki and German gray, feinting, parrying, and madly lunging with
glittering bayonets--the crash and shrill metallic stroke of steel on
steel, and Oh! the grunt and scream of agony when the blade sank to its
hilt in a blood-spurting human breast! Each boy, in that moment of
deadly shock, was fighting for his own life--it was destroy first or be
destroyed, and the first to get in a fatal blow survived. No alien
soldier lives however, who can withstand that most terrible and supreme
of all fighters--the American Doughboy! Hands were being raised and
cries of "Kamerad" heard from every side. The grim heights of
Rembercourt were ours; but, my God! see the price we have paid for that
eight minutes of struggle.

Boys are down all over the hillside, dead and dying. Tossing, moaning,
begging for help, their cries of agony pierce the heart. From the
military point of view, indeed, it was called a splendid, clean-cut
piece of work. Rembercourt and its approaches in our hands at last, with
hundreds of prisoners and spoils of war--all at a loss to us of but nine
killed and fifty-two wounded.

[Illustration: IN THE CHURCH AT DOMREMY.]

Ah! but who shall measure the cost of those nine dead boys to mothers
and beloved ones at home! See their lifeless forms lying there amid the
wreckage of the hillside. A few minutes ago they knew the thrill of
vigorous young manhood; they knew that death might claim them in that
charge; bravely they went over the top, hoping for the best.

From one to another I hurried with service for all. The dying claimed
first care; the dead had to wait; and the chill shadows of night had
crept to the hill crest before all the wounded were removed a