“Our nerves are strained to the snapping point, gasping, bleeding, feverish! We dare not waver. ‘Steady, men! Steady!’ We must calmly let them come as far as the wire entanglements, as the blacks did. The blacks? Where are they? Disappeared! Only they left their dead behind. The same thing will happen to the whites. We are waiting for them. The death-spewing machine guns are lying over there. They lie there and wait until their time comes. Steady, steady! They lie there and wait impatiently—but yet they are silent— Now!—No—I am raving! ‘Rapid fire!’—I hiss—My neighbor staggers—I only listen and wait, wait and listen, for only one thing. Something that has to come, must finally come, has to come! Great God, otherwise we are lost! Be calm, be calm! Now they will begin reaping! Now they must begin to rattle, our machine guns, our faithful rescuers—now—at once! What can they be waiting for? Why, they are there in the wires already. Hell and Satan! No man can endure that! They are hesitating too long—the enemy is almost in the trenches! Ah! At last! A rattling—a hoarse crackling—Heaven help us, what is that? [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._ Private M. B. Ellis _1st Division, 28th Infantry, Company “C”_ Cited for extraordinary heroism in action. When south of Soissons, July 18-22, 1918, as a member of the 1st Division he showed unusual courage in carrying supplies and in attacking strong points at Breuil, Plaisy, and Berzy-le-Sec.] “A devilish howling rises hoarsely from over there, lacerating, bestial, shrieking! The blacks, the devils! How did they reach our flank over there? That’s where our machine guns are. It cannot be. There! Hell! They are carrying hand grenades, are in their rear! Heaven help us! And the whites! They are at our breastworks. Already they are in the trenches, fighting like wild beasts. Horror makes them crazy. Help is coming to us from the left. The second company has fallen upon their flank. The French run like hunted animals. A shell bursts in their midst, catches twenty or thirty of them and throws them in the air like toys. They run still further, through the air, bowling along on their heads, gruesomely—and fall in heaps to the ground. Heads, legs, twitching bodies! The French run until back of the bodies. The rest of them are cut to pieces, or made prisoners. But now our men must come back. “We struggle for breath. Wounded men writhe around and moan and groan heavily. The trench is bathed in blood. Far more than half of the company has been slain. We are only a handful. I assemble the valiant men and distribute them among the trenches. They stand resolutely, breathing hard and gasping.