To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [350]
The enormous shell fell two hundred yards farther along the hillside, another great blast, another platoon cut in half. The shouts began again, sergeants climbing to their feet, Lucas now up on the crest of the ridge, waving to them, move. Parker grabbed him hard, said, “Let’s go!”
Temple pulled himself up, said, “Dan . . . Gino’s gone.”
Parker glanced at the crater, stood still for a long second, put a hand on his shoulder. “We have to go, Roscoe.”
Parker started up the hill, and Temple followed, saw the wave of men flowing up and over the low crest, heard Parker say, “God bless you, Jersey.”
BLANC MONT RIDGE—SEPTEMBER 4, 1918
BY DARK, THE SIXTH MARINES HAD TOPPED THE EASTERN END OF Blanc Mont Ridge, and had driven the Germans completely off that part of the high ground. But to the west, the Germans still held tightly to the ridge’s highest point. As the Marines pushed up and over their objective, the French forces who began the day on their left flank attempted to clear the Germans out of their trenches, but the attacks had bogged down, the Germans holding firm. As night fell, the French were still back on the south side of the great ridge, had failed to match the progress of the Marines, and so had failed to protect the Americans’ left flank.
On the Marines’ right, the Second Division’s infantry regiments, the Ninth and Twenty-third, had skirted past the northern edge of the ridge, had nearly reached their objective, pushing the Germans back to their defensive lines north of the Medeah farm. But the Marines had pressed their success too far. As the Sixth drove down the north side of the ridge, they had far outpaced not only the French but their own infantry support. Though much of Blanc Mont was in their hands, the result was a deep bulge pushed into the German defenses. As darkness settled over the ground, the Fifth Marines moved up and relieved the Sixth, the proud, exhausted men who believed that they accomplished the goal the French had said was impossible. In the darkness, the men of the Fifth protected themselves as best they could from continuous artillery attacks, completely unaware that their flanks were in the air. With the new dawn only hours away, it was the officers who first began to understand that the Marines were now facing the enemy on three sides. And if the Germans took advantage, and sliced across the rear of the American salient, the entire regiment would be surrounded.
The battalion was now spread along a narrow ravine, a natural trench that gave the men cover from the sporadic shelling. Temple had carved a soft place for himself in the dirt, a depression protected on the uphill side by a fat rock. Parker was close to him, had dug out a shelter of his own, the same muffled sounds repeated all through the cut in the earth. They had no idea what lay out in front of them, had found their place in the line only by following Lucas. There had been talk again of French guides, the furious officers cursing the absurdly unreliable men who never seemed to appear. Lucas had simply followed a compass, aided by runners scrambling through the dark. All along the battalion front the officers had spent much of the night trying to find each other, to pull their units into some kind of cohesive line. In the shadowy darkness Temple could see the great hulking shape of Blanc Mont Ridge, behind them now. Despite the success of the Sixth, Temple shared the uncomfortable feeling with the men around him that there had been an enormous price for that success. The Fifth had paid a price as well. Back on that gentle sloping hillside, the open ground on the far side of the ridge, the German artillery had been brutally accurate. As they moved up to support the men who fought on the hill itself, the Fifth had left several hundred casualties behind, entire platoons gone, several companies now faint skeletons of their strength. Temple knew little of what had truly happened, knew nothing of maps and mistakes. But the rumors had already found their way through the darkness,