When the counter attack finally was launched Captain Walter McC. Gearty, also a Philadelphian, acting as major of the First Battalion of the 109th, led the advance of that regiment. They ran into a machine gun nest that was spitting bullets like a summer rain. The stream of lead caught Captain Gearty full in the front, and he dropped, the first officer of his rank in the old National Guard of Pennsylvania to meet death in the war. His men, frantic at the loss of a beloved officer, plunged forward more determinedly than ever and wiped out that machine gun nest to a man, seized the guns and ammunition and turned them on the already fleeing Boche. The Americans had discovered by this time the complete truth of what their British instructors had told them--that the Hun hates and fears the bayonet more than any other weapon of warfare. So they wasted few bullets. Rifle fire, they discovered, was a mighty thing in defense, when a man has a chance to steady himself and aim with precision while the enemy is doing the advancing. But when conditions are reversed, the best rifleman has little chance to shine in pressing forward in an attack, so it was the bayonet that was used this time. The men had gone "over the top" without a barrage, but they had the best protection in the world--self-confidence, which the Hun had not. The Prussians had had a taste of American fighting such as they had thought never to experience, and for thousands of them the mere sight of that advancing line of grim, set faces, preceded by bristling bayonet points, was enough. They did not wait to be "tickled" with the point. Others, however, stood their ground boldly enough and gave battle. As had been the case for several months, they depended little on the individual rifleman, but put virtually their whole trust in machine guns and artillery. With their ranks shorn of their old-time confidence and many of their men fleeing in panic rather than come to grips with the Americans and French, there was little chance to stem that charge, however, and the enemy fell back steadily, even rapidly, to the Marne. CHAPTER VI BOCHE IN FULL FLIGHT It was in following up the German retreat from their "farthest south" back to the Marne, that our men learned the truth of what they had heard and read so often, that the German is as good a fighter as any in the world when he is in masses, but degenerates into a sickening coward when left alone or in small groups. It was during this time, too, that they learned the truth of the oft-repeated charge that Germans were left behind, chained to machine guns so they could not escape, to hinder an advancing enemy and make his losses as heavy as possible. Repeatedly groups of our men advanced on machine gun nests in the face of vicious fire until they were in a position to make a sudden rush and, on reaching the guns, were greeted by uplifted hands and bleats of "Americans, kamerads! kamerads!"