A great many more of them flung away their rifles and bleated "Kamraden" to men who in that red minute knew no mercy. Some hid in holes or feigned death, to be hunted out as the press thinned. And the rest scuttled through the fringe of trees and back down toward St.-Etienne, while the Marines, lying prone or taking rest with their Springfields, killed them as they ran. This same rifle-fire, directed against the flank and rear of the column which had pushed to the right against the other battalions of the 5th (Marine Regiment), broke that force and dispersed it. There was a battery of field guns down the slope, 500 yards or so. The gunners - those who were lucky - took cover after the first burst of fire.
"Thank Gawd fer a shot at them dam' artillerymen! Battle-sight, and aim low, you birds - don't let any of them ba$***** get away!"…
"Sergeant, reckon the lootenant would let us go down and take them 77s?" Shut up an' work yo' bolt you dam' fool! - Whatinell you think you are - a army core?" - "Besides, Mr. Connor's dead…"
On the hill beyond St.- Etienne new trenches scarred the slope; there were many Germans milling there, some 1500 yards away. "Save your ammunition and lay low" the word was passed. We're on our own out here." And the battalion, a very small battalion now, little more than a hundred men, lay along the crest they had stormed with their dead and wounded and the Boche dead and wounded around them.
Almost immediately the Bosche began to react. He opened on them a storm of fire, high explosive and shrapnel, and his machine-guns dinned fiercely. A counter-attack began to form toward St. Etienne. Sweating gunners struggled into position with the two machine-guns that were left in the battalion, and these, with their crews, were knocked out by shell-fire before either had been in action long enough to fire a clip. But the rifles gave tongue and continued to speak - the last few men are always the most difficult to kill - and the Boche had little taste for rifle fire that begins to kill at 700 yards. That counter-attack shortly returned whence it came, and the one that followed it went back also.