“Rat-ta-ta-tat! went the machine-guns. The boys began droppin’ like rain. Wiped out companies at times. Our own machine-gunners said, ‘To hell with waitin’ on horses and mules.’ They dragged their little babies right up to that wheat-field and gave the Boches some of their own medicine. Will you believe me that lots of the Boche gunners was found chained to their guns? Yep. It’s a fact. The Boche morale had got so low till they had to chain their men to posts. “The old _cheveaux_ that used to drag our pieces ’round was half dead, anyway, when the drivin’ started, and we had one hell of a time tryin’ to keep up with the doughboys. Everybody had to get on the wheels and push and cuss at the same time. I tell you, man, the damn _chevaux_ was dyin’ in the traces. We managed to keep within range, but had to get some trucks to help us move. “The Boches was thrown so hard from the top of Hill 190 that you could hear their necks breakin’ when they landed down in the valley. I never saw such a gory-looking hill in all the days of drivin’. There was men piled waist high. Mostly Germans. Nobody had time to stop and bury dead people at a time like that. There wasn’t time for nothin’ but fightin’ and movin’. “Takin’ 190 meant gettin’ into Château-Thierry. We found _beaucoup_ Boches down there. They put up a scrap because there was a pile of stuff in the town that they wanted to try and save. Down in some parts of the joint, even after most of the Germans had started sprintin’ for the Fatherland, there was some terrible battlin’. “The main _rues_ and _boulevards_ was all chock-ablock with breastworks. They had pianos, tables, beds, big lookin’-glasses, sofas, bags stuffed with rotten smellin’ rags and rubbish, piled up—well, Lord knows what wasn’t used to stop us. Behind these things was the Boche machine-guns. They was just like a bunch of hose and played as wicked a stream of lead as you can think of. Americans and Frogs both forced these works and _fineed_ the machine-gun fire. “After that there ain’t no way to describe the fightin’. It got all over the place. Like scrambled eggs in a fryin’-pan. The Yanks used rifles for clubs and waded into the Boches like a bunch of good cops. Bayonets and trench dirks came in with a noise like _finee_ for the Germans—chased ’em up alleyways, dug ’em out of cellars, laid ’em cold—that’s all there was to it. “Long, black shadows were camouflagin’ what was left of Château-Thierry as we rumbled through it. I ain’t much at tellin’ how things look, any more. But Château-Thierry looked like a plowed-up graveyard and then some. The moonlight got turned on and made everythin’ seem ten times worse, as the effect was kinda weird. Houses looked like a bunch of crumblin’ skeletons. Troops was movin’ over every street. Supply-trains and ammunition trucks rattled up and down. Ambulances crawled by so slow till we could hear the groans of the poor guys in them.