Half the battalion was out of action. Of five Lieutenants, Hurley had lost three killed, and one wounded. Merle-Smith was wounded and also three of his four officers, the fourth being killed. Eugene Gannon, a brave and competent soldier, was now his second in command. Ryan, badly wounded, was the only officer left in I, though he had well placed confidence in his first sergeant, Patrick McMiniman, a rock-ribbed old-timer, and Sergeants Shanahan and Patrick Collins. All three commanders decided that the position on the top of the hill was untenable. When they had swept over the last emplacements of the German guns on the hill they not only found that their own further advance was impossible; they had also left the German artillery free to act, and the shelling began with terrific vigor. So the main body drew back a little below the crest, leaving automatic gunners and sharp-shooters to keep the Germans from venturing forward from the woods. Our own machine guns, the Wisconsin lads manning them, had followed the advance, the gunners fighting with desperate courage. The ammunition was carried up by their men and ours at a fearful cost. Five feet or so a man might run with it and then go down. Without a moment’s hesitation, some other soldier would grab it and run forward to go down in his turn. But the guns had to be fed and still another would take the same dreadful chance. Death was forgotten. Every man thought only of winning the fight. Finally the guns were put out of action by shell fire at the top of the hill and there they stood uselessly, their gunners lying dead around them. Death was busy on that hill that morning. It claimed Johnnie Bradley, the baby of the Company, for whom life was still an unexplored field; and Ben Gunnell of the Northwest Mounted Police, who had tried most earthly things and found them wanting. Pat Stanley, who had left his kitchen to fight, found a noble end to his fighting. Arthur Matthews, mortally wounded, spent what remained to him of breath, calling words of encouragement to his companions. Two men worked side by side,—one was taken and the other left. Frank Mulligan and Frank Van Bramer worked an automatic. Van Bramer was called. John O’Hara went the long road and Jim O’Connor stuck it out untouched. Frankie Connolly took the automatic from McCarthy’s dead hands and kept it going all morning. Eddie Martin and Will Corbett, liaison men, were shot down, and Charlie Garrett wounded. The voices of Thomas Curry and Henry Lynch and Arthur Thompson were hushed forever. Frank Courtney, Will Flynn, Earl Rhodes, Thomas Boyle, Carl Moler, John McCabe, Harold Van Buskirk, Louis Ehrhardt, Fred Muesse, Darcy Newman, Melvin Spitz, kept up the fight of that bare hillside with no thought of retreat until their heroic souls were sped. Charles Ford and Spencer Ely, Albert Schering and Thomas Shannon were carried from the field and died of their wounds.