Lieutenant Cook led a smaller number of picked men to work to the right and up the bed of the brook, cooperating with Companies A and B working around the farm. In his command were John Gribbon, his red head an oriflamme of war; Colton Bingham, the fighting nephew of the gentle Bishop of Buffalo, John Curtin, a tall young Irishman who afterwards became regimental standard bearer, Tommy Blake, later Lieutenant Blake, and the steadiest of riflemen, Pat McDonough. Lieutenant Connelly came in the rear of his skirmish line where he could control their movements. With him were his First Sergeants Edward Geaney, Sergeant Hubert Murray, Corporal John F. Moran and others. Tom O’Malley had already been wounded. Some distance out there was a deep, irregular sand pit. O’Neill, carefully rounding the corner of it, suddenly saw right under his eyes a body of about 25 Germans. He uttered a shout of warning and jumped into the midst of them with his pistol cracking. He had shot down three Germans before they realized what was happening, and produced great confusion amongst them. Some rushed to the other side of the pit while others began firing at O’Neill, who kept firing after he was hit, and when finally carried back to the dressing station had seven bullets in him. The Germans who had run across the sand pit found themselves face to face with Lieutenant Connelly and his little group. What followed was as sudden, as confused in plan, and as resolute in spirit as the action around the log house in Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The Company D men came running from all sides to take part in the fighting. On our side Connelly was hit; also Geaney, Gribbon and McDonough. And James J. Gugliere, Paul McGee, Louis Peterson and Rollie Bedient were killed. This all happened in an instant. The Germans paid a fearful price for it. Those that were left scrambled out of the pit to flee in the direction of their own forces. There they saw the advance elements of O’Neill’s section running back toward them, and they turned toward Bois Colas at a headlong gait. The cry went up that a counter attack was coming. Colonel Hough saw it and telephoned to our headquarters. Anderson heard back in the woods and stormed up from the support with reinforcements. Our machine guns were turned on the advancing Germans; and the advent of a few bedraggled prisoners in dirty field gray uniforms let the rear line see that the counter-attack was a myth. The whole business was over in a few minutes. But the Germans in Bois Brulé were again at work sweeping the ground with their bullets and it was under fierce fire that John Burke, Joe Lynch, McAuliffe, Bingham and Blake carried in Lieutenant Connelly and the other wounded. Sergeant Murray took command and kept the survivors going forward until they had outposts established in the approaches to Bois Brulé.