The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-09-05

waded the OurcQ and, through a rain
of machine gun bullets, rushed up the
slope on the other side. 1t would
have been as easy to stop an ava
lanche with a protesting hand.
Such advance battalions, stornling
the hill without the advantage Of any
artillery whatever, and obliged to hold
the crest for an hour or so before
they could have fellow battalions
shoulder to shoulder with them, were
not exactly playing according to
Hoyle, but some who shared in it be-
lieve that if they had waited for a
more orthodox and perfectly prepared
advance, the Germans, too, would
have been better prepared, the low
lying mists in the valley of the Ourcq
would have lifted their s~heltering cur.
tain, and the Yanks might never have
crossed at all.
Once across, the leading battalicns
dropped back to hide behind the crest
of the first slope and there dug them
selves in feverishly, dug themselves in
with their bayonets, with their mess
tin covers, with their fingers-any,
thing for a little hole in the ground.
Then, as never before, they learned
to cherish the shovel, and those who
had brought them along %tound--as
many a dead German can not testify
that they are not half bad as of
fensive weapons in the hand-to-hand
fighting such as followed the first rush
across the river.
The charge of the infantry was an
unforgettable spectacle to those priv
LEGGED to watch it, for the valley CT
the Ourcq is one of those basins FROM
whose rim you can see a whole bat
tie in panorama.
Such a watcher would have seen the
doughboys advancing in skirmish for
nation as pretty and as perfect as
ever they knew in the pleasant train
ing felds-nor faltering in the least
when any of their number fell, as
many did.
He would have seen companies adj
vancing warily on German machine
gun nests, the captains exhorting and
directing them like the football
naoaboe IN thn C;In1innc ot hnnon Ho
would have eel lean, rangy Yankees
standing up as bold, shining targets,
because, in that position, they could
pour their fire into the enemy gun
ners with a deadlier aim.
He would have seer a single COM
pany snuff out eight separate machine
gun nests and doughboys turning the
captured guns on the enemy. This
rejoiced their hearts, for the guns
captured were the very type on which
they had taken their first lessons back
home, and the thousands of rounds of
captured ammunition came in ever so
handy.
He would have witnessed prodigies
of courage and endurance, man after
man of all ranks wounded, but stub
bornly refusing to be carried back.
He would have e e wounded men
escaping from the ambulances and
fainting on their way back into bat
tie, a wounded sergeant. ~persuading
his litter bearers to prop him against
a fallen tree and let him take a few
more shots.
There is not room in these pages
to print a tenth of the names Of the
men who showed this spirit. But for
illustration consider Capt. Ryan
Capt. Richard j. Ryan, once a fighter
in the Boer War and more recently a
lumberman from Watertown, N. Y.
Capt. Ryan was wounded three
times in the course of the first day,
but it was not until his third and
most serious wound, seven hours af-
ter his first, that he let them carry
him away. Even then, just before he
yielded, he might have been seen
hosting himself painfully from his
little dugout, reaching for a rife and,
at a distance of 400 yards, bring down
a Boche he had seen standing to d.
rect the machine gun fire.
Capt. Ryan had led of the first
companies to cross the Ourcq.
Drop your packs!" he called to his
men as the dawn glowed in the east,
drop your packs! If you come back,
you can have them again, and If you
don't. you won't want them! All you
want now is CUTS and b%ayonets!"
"Guts and bayonets!"
Company l caught it up gleefully,
repeated it rythmically. and made it
their battlecry as they went down and
across the OurcQ and up.
"Guts and %bayonets! Cuts and bay
onets! Cuts and b~ayonets!"
ApJ CO ~ xpoc