The first bridge was nearly completed when a big shell scored a direct hit and it disappeared in a mass of kindling wood. Patiently and tenaciously, the engineers, deprived by their duties of even the satisfaction of seizing a rifle and trying to wreak a little vengeance, started to rebuild the structure. Hampered by the German fire, the bridge building was slow and, the machine gunners having made a good crossing, infantry was started over the ford. The process of throwing men across was greatly hastened when at last the first bridge was completed. Other spans soon were ready, but the engineers knew no cessation from their task, for all too frequently Hun projectiles either tore holes in the bridges or wrecked them altogether. CHAPTER XIII STARS OF GRIM DRAMA In Fismette, the Pennsylvanians ran into a stone wall of resistance. The enemy made desperate efforts to dislodge them and drive them back across the river. One counter-attack after another was met and beaten off by the valiant little band of Americans, supported by the roaring guns on the heights to the south. The Pennsylvanians had the double satisfaction now of knowing their own artillery brigade was mingling its fire with that of the other American and French batteries. On August 8th, Brigadier-General William G. Price, of Chester, rode up to regimental headquarters of the 109th Infantry and greeted his friends among the officers. He informed them that his brigade was immediately behind and that he was hunting division headquarters to report for action. A guide was assigned him and the General left in his motor car. Word soon spread through the infantry regiments that all the Pennsylvania gunners at last were in the fight. The weather turned wet again, varying from a drizzle to a heavy downpour, but never quite ceasing. The penetration of Fismette went slowly but steadily on, in the face of strong resistance, the Germans reacting viciously at every point of contact. Here, as elsewhere along the front between Soissons and Rheims, the action consisted of a series of sharp local engagements, with considerable hand-to-hand fighting, in which American bayonets played an important role. Amid the fever of battle and not knowing what moment may prove their last, men move as if in a trance. Hours and days pass undistinguished and unrecorded. With the fundamental scheme of existence shattered and with friends of years and chums of months of campaigning killed between sunrise and sunset, it is no wonder that men's minds become abnormal and their acts superhuman.