Around P. C. Anderson there was plenty of shelling but no further casualties until morning broke. At 4:30 the firing died down after a last furious burst over our immediate positions. The French soldiers in front began to trickle back down the _boyaus_ to the defensive positions. Our men crawled out of their burrows, eager to catch the first sight of the enemy. A few wise old French soldiers stood by to restrain them from firing too soon, for in the half lights it is hard for an unaccustomed eye to discern the difference between the Poilu’s Faded-coat-of-blue and the field gray of the Germans. Nearly an hour passed before one of them suddenly pointed, shouting, “Boche, Boche!” The enemy were appearing around the corners of the approach trenches. Rifle and machine gun fire crackled all along the front. The Germans, finding that this was the real line of resistance, went at their job of breaking it in their usual thorough fashion. Their light machine guns sprayed the top of every trench. Minenwerfer shells and rifle grenades dropped everywhere, many of them being directed with devilish accuracy on our machine gun positions. Many of ours were wounded. Sergeant Tom O’Rourke of F Company was the first man killed and then one of the Wisconsins. That day the Badgers showed the fighting qualities of their totem. Several of their guns were put out of action at the outset of the fight, and practically all of them one by one before the battle was over. In each case Captain Graef, Lieutenant Arens and the other officers, together with the surviving gunners, set themselves calmly to work repairing the machines. Corporal Elmer J. Reider fought his gun alone when the rest of the crew was put out of action, and when his gun met the same fate he went back through a heavy barrage and brought up a fresh one. Privates William Brockman and Walter Melchior also distinguished themselves amongst the brave, the former at the cost of his life. There were many others like Melchior, who, when their gun was made useless, snatched rifles and grenades of the fallen Infantrymen and jumped into the fight. As specialists, they were too valuable to be used up this way and an order had to be issued to restrain them. Sergeant Ned Boone, who knows a good soldier when he sees one, said to me: “Father, after this I will stand at attention and salute whenever I hear the word Wisconsin.” Our own Stokes Mortar men fought with equal energy and enthusiasm under Lieutenant Frank McNamara and Sergeants Jaeger and Fitzsimmons with Corporals John Moore, Gerald Harvey and Herbert Clark. They did not take time to set the gun up on its base plates. Fitzsimmons and Fred Young supported the barrel in their hands, while the others shoved in the vicious projectiles. The gun soon became hot and before the stress of action was over these heroic non-coms were very badly burned.