The Germans had shortened their range. Their barrage dropped right on us. The company runners were behind me in single file, Slover at the rear. A shell burst behind us, killing him in his tracks before he took a step. We knew nothing of it at the time. We pushed across the field to our front, a field studded with stumps and full of underbrush. Shells were bursting all around; the air filled as if by magic with the stifling acrid smoke of high explosive. Several times the concussion of a close one nearly knocked me off my feet, and the fumes blew against my face like the blast from a furnace door. I wondered vaguely when I’d get it, and shouted “Come on, B Company,” until I was hoarse. Occasionally I heard Schuyler cheering on his men. You couldn’t see ten feet for the smoke. At the far edge of the field we ran into a broad belt of barbed wire. We spread out, looking for a passage. Joe Levy called “Here’s a place, Captain,” and we struggled through; I was dragging a long French VB rifle after me. The wire was about 20 feet across. We found ourselves at the bottom of a wooded slope, on a rough wagon track. Lt. Schuyler, with Sgt. Reid and a couple of men, had gotten through further along, and we started up the hill, sheltered somewhat from the shells, though they were bursting in the treetops overhead. I dumped my pack and V. B. rifle by a tree and christened the place company headquarters. Then we went on up the hill. I got out my map and pencil to be sure this was our objective. It was quite light now; a beautiful September morning. Schuyler and I gained the top of the ridge together. The woods ended there, giving way to a little open plateau, about 250 meters across, with woods on the other side again. I verified the position on my map, and ordered Schuyler to post his men along the ridge under cover of the trees and underbrush, while I did the same further to the left, where men from the 4th platoon were coming up the slope in groups of two and three as they got through the wire. I had not gone twenty paces when Sgt. Reid came running after me and said “Lieut. Schuyler’s been hit, Captain.” I answered mechanically “All right; bring him behind the ridge, take charge of the platoon and post the men as they come up.” Rifle bullets were beginning to snap overhead, coming apparently from the woods across the field, which was held in some force by the enemy, as we soon realized. Our only chance of meeting a counter-attack was to build up a firing line to sweep the plateau in front, and as fast as men from the 4th platoon came up I posted them to command our front and left flank.