To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [356]
Around him, the men chose their shots carefully, the first wave of Germans punched back, men tumbling away on the hillside. But the Germans did not stop, and Temple fired again, saw the man fall forward, another man right behind him filling the same gap. He fired again, the rattling of the Springfields around him deafening, someone tossing a grenade, a blast of dirt down below, more gray uniforms pushing through it. The firing continued down to the right, louder now, no more than fifty men holding the flank. He heard shouts, glanced that way, a sergeant running toward him, a dozen men following, enemy troops suddenly appearing on the crest a hundred yards behind them. Men were falling, the Germans stopping to fire, more gray uniforms rolling up the hill in front of him. Temple tried to focus, aimed the Springfield, the Germans now pushing up to the flat ground. The gray wave began to flow right into the Marines, and Temple saw a man running straight toward him, the bayonet high over the German’s head. Temple saw the man’s face, the eyes, tried to lift the rifle, heard a hard blast close beside him. It was Parker’s shotgun, and the German folded over, collapsing facedown in front of him. The enemy was swarming up all along the ridgeline, hand-to-hand fighting, no time to aim, targets rising up in all directions. Temple fired the rifle into a mass of gray. He jerked the bolt, the magazine empty, grabbed for cartridges at his belt, Parker’s shotgun erupting again. Some Marines were rising up, confronting the Germans with their bayonets. Temple’s fingers fumbled with the bullets, and he stuffed one into the breech of the rifle, closed the bolt, another man rushing toward him. He fired, the man twisting, falling to the side, but not dead, rising again. Temple was up now, pulled the rifle in close to him, saw the man’s bayonet, high, arcing toward him, a hard shout, the blade coming toward him in a hard thrust. Temple slapped at the bayonet with his rifle, the man stumbling, and Temple lunged his own bayonet hard, caught the man in the side, drove the bayonet deep. The man went down, the rifle jerked from Temple’s hands. He saw more gray, coming closer, another blast from the shotgun, smoke, men falling, a vast storm of rifle fire now roaring behind him. The firing came in a rolling wave that seemed to spread all down behind them. He reached for the rifle, the bayonet still lodged in the man’s ribs, no time, turned, expected to see the enemy, more bayonets, felt his knees buckle, dropped down, pulling hard on the rifle, no time, and now he saw them, another surging wave of men. But the uniforms were not gray. They were khaki. They were Americans.
PERSHING HAD SENT THE THIRTY-SIXTH DIVISION TO SUPPORT THE trapped Marines on Blanc Mont Ridge. The fresh infantrymen had made the hard march through the old trench lines, had pushed out through the brush, across the open clearings, past the ripped ground where so many of the Marines still lay. As the battle rolled in on the Marines from three directions, the first companies of the Thirty-sixth reached the crest of the ridge. The Germans who pushed their fight so close were suddenly confronted by waves of fresh infantry, and by late in the afternoon, the reinforcements helped the Marines to roll the exhausted Germans back. By nighttime, the combined forces had strengthened the position the Marines had fought to gain the day before. The one task that still lay before the Americans on Blanc Mont Ridge was to sweep the last German stronghold off the highest point at the western end of the ridge. With the French finally pressing their attack from the south, the Germans realized their position was untenable. By the evening of the following day, the Germans pulled most of their troops out of their fortified strongholds. Those who could not escape surrendered, the Americans capturing nearly three thousand prisoners. Blanc Mont Ridge was completely in Allied hands.
Within a few days, the Second