Read Ebook: Sergeant York And His People by Cowan Sam K Sam Kinkade

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Ebook has 695 lines and 46239 words, and 14 pages

They centered on that point.

Around York the ground was torn up. Mud from the plowing bullets besmirched him. The brush was mowed away above and on either side of him, and leaves and twigs were falling over him.

But they could only shoot at him. They were given no chance to take deliberate aim. As they turned the clumsy barrel of a machine gun down at the fire-sparking point on the hillside a German would raise his head above his pit to sight it. Instantly backward along that German machine gun barrel would come an American bullet--crashing into the head of the Boche who manned the gun.

The prisoners on the ground squirmed under the fire that was passing over them. Their bodies were in a tortuous motion. But York held them there; it made the gunners keep their fire high.

Every shot York made was carefully placed. As a hunter stops in the forest and gazes straight ahead, his mind, receptive to the slightest movement of a squirrel or the rustle of leaves in any of the trees before him, so this Tennessee mountaineer faced and fought that line of blazing machine guns on the ridge of the hill before him. His mind was sensitive to the point in the line that at that instant threatened a real danger, and instinctively he turned to it.

Down the row of prisoners on the ground he saw the German major with a pistol in his hand, and he made the officer throw the gun to him. Later its magazine was found to have been emptied.

He noted that after he shot at a gun-pit, there was a break in the line of flame at that point, and an interval would pass before that gun would again be manned and become a source of danger to him. He also realized that where there was a sudden break of ten or fifteen feet in the line of flame, and the trunk of a tree rose within that space, that soon a German gun and helmet would me peeking around the tree's trunk. A rifleman would try for him where the machine guns failed.

In the mountains of Tennessee Alvin York had won fame as one of the best shots with both rifle and revolver that those mountains had ever held, and his imperturbability was as noted as the keenness of his sight.

In mountain shooting-matches at a range of forty yards--just the distance the row of German guns were from him--he would put ten rifle bullets into a space no larger than a man's thumb-nail. Since a small boy he had been shooting with a rifle at the bobbing heads of turkeys that had been tethered behind a log so that only their heads would show. German heads and German helmets loomed large before him.

A battalion of machine guns is a military unit organized to give battle to a regiment of infantry. Yet, one man, a representative of America on that hillside on that October morning, broke the morale of a battalion of machine gunners made up from members of Germany's famous Prussian Guards. Down in the brush below the Prussians was a human machine gun they could not hit, and the penalty was death to try to locate him.

As York fought, there was prayer upon his lips. He was an elder in a little church back in the "Valley of the Three Forks o' the Wolf" in the mountains of Tennessee. He prayed to God to spare him and to have mercy on those he was compelled to kill. When York shot, and a German soldier fell backward or pitched forward and remained motionless, York would call to them:

"Well! Come on down!"

It was an earnest command in which there was no spirit of exultation or braggadocio. He was praying for their surrender, so that he might stop killing them.

His command, "Come down!" at times, above the firing, was heard in the German pits. They realized they were fighting one man, and could not understand the strange demand.

When the fight began York was lying on the ground. But as the entire line of German guns came into the fight, he raised himself to a sitting position so that his gun would have the sweep of all of them.

When the Germans found they could not "get him" with bullets, they tried other tactics.

Off to his left, seven Germans, led by a lieutenant, crept through the bushes. When about twenty yards away, they broke for him with lowered bayonets.

The clip of York's rifle was nearly empty. He dropped it and took his automatic pistol. So calmly was he master of himself and so complete his vision of the situation that he selected as his first mark among the oncoming Germans the one farthest away. He knew he would not miss the form of a man at that distance. He wanted the rear men to fall first so the others would keep coming at him and not stop in panic when they saw their companions falling, and fire a volley at him. He felt that in such a volley his only danger lay. They kept coming, and fell as he shot. The foremost man, and the last to topple, did not get ten yards from where he started. Their bodies formed a line down the hillside.

York resumed the battle with the machine guns. The German fire had "eased up" while the bayonet charge was on. The gunners paused to watch the grim struggle below them.

The major, from among the prisoners crawled to York with an offer to order the surrender of the machine gunners.

"Do it!" was his laconic acceptance. But his vigilance did not lessen.

To the right a German had crawled nearby. He arose and hurled a hand-grenade. It missed its objective and wounded one of the prisoners. The American rifle swung quickly and the grenade-thrower pitched forward with the grunt of a man struck heavily in the stomach pit.

The German major blew his whistle.

Out of their gun-pits the Germans came--around from behind trees--up from the brush on either side. They were unbuckling cartridge belts and throwing them and their side-arms away.

York did not move from his position in the brush. About halfway down the hill as they came to him, he halted them, and he watched the gun-pits for the movement of anyone left skulking there. His eye went cautiously over the new prisoners to see that all side-arms had been thrown away.

The surrender was genuine.

There were about ninety Germans before him with their hands in air. This gave him over a hundred prisoners.

He arose and called to his comrades, and several answered him. Some of the responses came from wounded men.

All of the Americans had been on York's right throughout the fight. The thicket had prevented them from taking any effective part. They were forced to protect themselves from the whining bullets that came through the brush from unseen guns. They had constantly guarded the prisoners and shielded York from treachery.

Seven Americans--Percy Beardsley, Joe Konotski, Thomas G. Johnson, Feodor Sak, Michael A. Sacina, Patrick Donahue and George W. Wills--came to him. Sergeant Early, Corporal Cutting and Private Muzzi, tho wounded, were still alive.

He lined the prisoners up "by twos."

His own wounded he put at the rear of the column, and forced the Germans to carry those who could not walk. The other Americans he stationed along the column to hold the prisoners in line.

Sergeant Early, shot through the body, was too severely wounded to continue in command. York was a corporal, but there was no question of rank for all turned to him for instructions. The Germans could not take their eyes off of him, and instantly complied with all his orders, given through the major, who spoke English.

Stray bullets kept plugging through the branches of the trees around them. For the first time the Americans realized they were under fire from the Germans on the hill back of them, whom they had seen when they came out of the deserted trench. The Germans stationed there could not visualize the strange fight that was taking place behind a line of German machine guns, and they were withholding their fire to protect their own men. They were plugging into the woods with rifles, hoping to draw a return volley, and thus establish the American's position.

To all who doubted the possibility of carrying so many prisoners through the forest, or spoke of reprisal attacks to release them, York's reply was:

"Let's get 'em out of here!"

The German major looking down the long line of Germans, possibly planning some recoup from the shame and ignominy of the surrender of so many of them, stepped up to York and asked:

"How many men have you got?"

The big mountaineer wheeled on him:

"I got a-plenty!"

And the major seemed convinced that the number of the Americans was immaterial as York thrust his automatic into the major's face and stepped him up to the head of the column.

Among the captives were three officers.

These York placed around him to lead the prisoners--one on either side and the major immediately before him. In York's right hand swung the automatic pistol, with which he had made an impressive demonstration in the fight up the hill. The officers were told that at the first sign of treachery, or for a failure of the men behind to obey a command, the penalty would be their lives; and the major was informed that he would be the first to go.

With this formation no German skulking on the hill or in the bushes could fire upon York without endangering the officers. Similar protection was given all of the Americans acting as escort.

Up the hill York started the column. From the topography of the land he knew there were machine guns over the crest that had had no part in the fight.

Straight to these nests he marched them. As the column approached, the major was forced by York to command the gunners to surrender.

Only one shot was fired after the march began. At one of the nests, a German, seeing so many Germans as prisoners and so few of the enemy to guard them--all of them on the German firing-line with machine gun nests around them--refused to throw down his gun, and showed fight.

York did not hesitate.

The remainder of that gun's crew took their place in line, and the major promised York there would be no more delays in the surrenders if he would kill no more of them.

As a great serpent the column wound among the trees on the hilltop swallowing the crews of German machine guns.

After the ridge had been cleared, four machine gun-nests were found down the hillside.

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