To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [294]
“Scarabelli raised his head slightly, stared ahead into the wheat.
“Bastards.” He rolled to one side, pulled a magazine from his pocket, tossed it forward. Parker grabbed it, kept the bayonet working at the chauchat. The big man jerked at the bolt again, the breech opening, said, “The lieutenant was right. This is a piece of junk.”
He worked the bolt, slid the new magazine into place, and suddenly there was an explosion of rifle fire, and a new sound, loud voices, screams, coming from the wall. Temple felt his heart freeze, heard the high-pitched shouts of the officer.
“They’re coming! Fire! Fire!”
Temple raised his head slightly, could see through narrow slits in the wheat, saw men behind the wall, some standing, one man tumbling, falling over into the wheat. He rose farther, heard another man shout, “They’re not coming! What the hell . . . ?”
The men began to peer up through the wheat, and Temple raised the rifle, saw a German standing behind the wall, aiming his rifle out to the left, some target back behind the wall. Temple found the man in his sight, eased his finger on the trigger, but the German disappeared, seemed to fall straight down. The Marines began to rise up slowly, every man ready, some firing at targets behind the wall. Temple scanned the top of the rock, looked for targets, the patches of gray, saw something different, blue instead, and egg-shaped helmets.
“Wait! They’re French!”
More men could see what Temple saw, the fight behind the wall growing, a surge of troops pouring in from behind the Germans. The Marines were up now, sergeants shouting, “Move! Charge!”
Temple climbed up out of the wheat, ran forward, stumbled over a body, bloody khaki, could see dead men scattered all through the wheat. He picked his way, kept his eyes on the fight rolling across the ground behind the wall, heard machine guns in the distance, the air still cut by German gunners. He was close to the wall now, crouched low, men coming up around him, heard Scarabelli.
“What the hell . . . ?”
There was a confused jumble of hand-to-hand fighting, the Germans trying to escape, some running back toward the farmhouses, pursued by the blue uniforms, bayonets cutting down the men who couldn’t run. There was almost no gunfire now, the sounds human, metallic, cries and shouts. He saw another cluster of blue uniforms emerging from the left, close to the wall, men running up in front of the Marines, shouting into their faces, meaningless words, odd cries, waving them across. Temple stared in wide-eyed shock. The uniforms were French. But the faces were black. He heard the word now, echoing all along the wall.
“Moroccans.”
THE GERMAN DEFENSES COULD NOT WITHSTAND THE HARD PUSH INTO the western flank of the salient, and by midafternoon, the Marines were firmly in control of the Verte Feuille farm, their first major objective of the attack. Far behind the fight, the chaos and confusion of troop and supply movements had continued, but by early afternoon, the division’s artillery companies had begun to move forward, and the Marines were relieved to be joined by their own machine-gun companies, whose Hotchkiss guns were more effective against the German network of Maxim nests. Though the tanks continued to open the way for several advance movements, by dark, most of the tanks were out of action, either destroyed by German artillery or more often, rendered useless by mechanical failure. But the Marines could not simply rest at the farm. Under orders to wheel their battalions to the east, the attack was to resume, the exhausted infantry and Marines of the Second Division continuing their push. By nighttime, Temple and his squad had become part of a drive that included not only the Moroccans to their left, but beyond, the American First Division, who had accomplished as much as their comrades to their south. With darkness finally bringing the attack to a halt, the Germans had been pushed eastward, forced to retreat across an area several miles deep. In the twilight, the Second Division was scattered across a