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By Root 2415 0

some tangled in the ruins of the bridge, slow movement as the current brushed past them. But he had seen the others as well, the men who had made it across, who huddled in their cover along the base of the high bluff, dozens, perhaps hundreds of men waiting for someone to give the order, someone who knew what might be above them, and how they might make their way up and off the edge of the river. He had been tempted to crawl out, find a vantage point, a way to use the rifle. But the fog was a blessing, and as long as the Germans made no attempt to come down the hill, there was no reason to do anything but wait.

THE MEUSE RIVER—MID-MORNING, NOVEMBER 11, 1918

He followed the lieutenant, a stocky bear of a man named Hopper. There were a dozen men behind him, pulling themselves up through the thick grass, using the choppy unevenness of the hillside as cover. They moved along the side of a deep crevasse, almost directly above the wrecked Maxim gun, the work of Temple’s grenade. If there had been other Maxims along the riverbank, they had been silenced as well, their dugouts and thickets now used by the Marines. The machine guns on the bluffs above had been quiet for a while now, and Temple had been as curious as so many of the others, the men along the river starting to gather, seeking someone in command. Temple was surprised to see how many men had made it across, more than three hundred, the few lieutenants now organizing squads to probe upward, to scout the bluffs, to find out why the German guns had grown silent.

The lieutenant stopped right above him, and Temple saw him crouching low, then raising his head slowly. Hopper made a sound, a quick wave of his hand, then crawled up quickly, and Temple followed, the men behind him keeping pace. He was suddenly in the open, the ground flattening out, the crest of the bluffs extending out to both sides, all along the river, a quarter mile across. The crest of the bluff was as cut up and ragged as the slope itself, pockets of brush and timber. He stood beside the lieutenant, saw the aftermath of the fight, ammo boxes, empty belts, all the debris of a retreating army. Hopper said, “Where the hell did they go?”

The other men were up beside them now, began to spread out, and Temple heard the shots, a single pop, then more.

Hopper said, “Get down!” Temple dropped down flat in the grass, heard Hopper shout, “Back to the slope! Pull back!”

Temple slid on his belly, reached the edge of the cliff, rolled over the side, tumbled into hard clumps of dirt and grass. He caught himself, his feet digging hard, the other men sliding down beside him. Hopper was a few feet away, said, “They were just waiting for us! They pulled back from the edge so the boys across the river couldn’t see ’em! We can’t do any good here. Let’s get back down to the river.”

The descent took only a few seconds, the men down below reacting to the shots, expectant stares upward. Hopper moved out onto the riverbank, officers gathering around him. Temple could see across the river now, the fog burning away, a thick column of men huddled low along the bank. Other men were moving quickly along the edge of the river, the engineers, carrying coils of rope, men hauling stacks of planks to the water’s edge. Temple heard Hopper shout, “Rifles! Back up the hill. We need to keep the Huns back! The men who were with me, let’s get back up there!”

Temple heard grumbles, one man said simply, “Officers.”

Temple followed Hopper to the slope, thought, Yeah, well I guess we could have stayed up there. Hopper began to climb, the others as well, and Temple could see more squads pushing up the hill as well, streams of men all along the hillsides. His legs were aching, hard breaths, sweat, the men around him all making the same sounds. After several painful minutes, they reached the top, Hopper’s words coming through hard gasps.

“Find a good place to shoot. Watch the ground out there as best you can. Keep your damned heads down. Wish we had a damned periscope.”

Temple settled against the soft dirt, sat on a thick clump of grass,