They reckoned without the American machine gunners, who had been suddenly thrown into Château-Thierry with French colonial troops. The Americans immediately took over the defense of the river bank, especially the approaches to the bridge. They began operations by poking the muzzles of their weapons through broken walls, bushes, and holes knocked in the sides of the houses. The guns were skillfully hidden and the Germans were unable to locate them. The latter wavered under the American fire, their advance was brought to a standstill, and a counterattack by the French colonials drove them from the town. As usual the Germans attempted a counterassault. The next night, June 1, 1918, taking advantage of the darkness, they stole toward the large bridge, in which direction they penetrated through the western suburbs to the banks of the Marne. In order to mask their movements, they made use of smoke bombs, which made the aim of the machine guns very difficult. At the same time the town underwent an extremely violent bombardment. A surprise, however, was in store for them. They were already crossing the bridge, evidently believing themselves masters of both banks, when a thunderous explosion blew the center of the bridge and a number of Germans with it into the river. Those who reached the southern bank were immediately captured. Holding the south end of the bridge, the Americans covered the withdrawal of troops across the bridge before its destruction, and although under severe fire themselves, kept all the approaches to the bank under a rain of bullets, which nullified all the subsequent efforts of the enemy to cross the river. Every attempt of the Germans to elude the vigilance of the Americans resulted in disaster to them. The upshot was that the Germans abandoned the occupation of the northern part of Château-Thierry, which American machine guns made untenable, and it became a part of no-man's-land. The Americans altogether made a brilliant defense of the town. A French staff officer described it as one of the finest feats of the war. There was little left of the town itself. It was shot to pieces and became a pile of bricks and stones. CHAPTER L A DRIVE BY THE MARINES