Sergeant York and His People | Page 6

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.
It took all the woodcraft the young mountaineer knew to get to his own command. They had come back over the hilltop and were on the slope of the valley in which the Eighty-Second Division was fighting. They were now in danger from both German and American guns.
York listened to the firing, and knew the Americans had reached the valley--and that some of them had crossed it. Where their line was running he could not determine.
He knew if the Americans saw his column of German uniforms they were in danger--captors and captives alike--of being annihilated. At any moment the Germans from the two hilltops down the valley--to check the Eighty-Second Division's advance--might lay a belt of bullets across the course they traveled.
Winding around the cleared places and keeping in the thickly timbered section of the hillslope whenever it was possible, Sergeant York worked his way toward the American line.
In the dense woods the German major made suggestions of a path to take. As York was undecided which one to choose, the major's suggestion made him go the other one. Frequently the muzzle of York's automatic dimpled the major's back and he quickened his step, slowed up, or led the column in the direction indicated to him without turning his head and without inquiry as to the motive back of York's commands.
Down near the foot of the hill, near the trench they had traveled a short while before, York answered the challenge to "Halt!"
He stepped out so his uniform could be seen, and called to the Americans challenging him, and about to fire on the Germans, that he was "bringing in prisoners."
The American line opened for him to pass, and a wild cheer went up from the Doughboys when they saw the column of prisoners. Some of them "called to him to know" if he had the "whole damned German army."
At the foot of the hill in an old dugout an American P. C. had been located, and York turned in his prisoners.
The prisoners were officially counted by Lieut. Joseph A. Woods, Assistant Division Inspector, and there were 132 of them, three of the number were officers and one with the rank of major.
When the Eighty-Second Division passed on, officers of York's regiment visited the scene of the fight and they counted 25 Germans that he had killed and 35 machine guns that York had not only silenced but had unmanned, carrying the men back with him as prisoners.
When York was given "his receipt for the prisoners," an incident happened that shows the true knightliness of character of this untrained mountaineer.
It was but a little after ten o'clock in the morning. The Americans had a hard day's fighting ahead of them. Somewhere out in the forest York's own company--Company G--and his own regiment--the 328th Infantry--were fighting. He made inquiry, but no one could direct him to them. He turned to the nearest American officer, saluted and reported, "Ready for duty."
What he had done was to him but a part of the work to be done that day.
But York was assigned to the command of his prisoners, to carry them back to a detention camp. The officers were held by the P. C.--for an examination and grilling on the plans of the enemy.
Whenever they could the private soldiers among the prisoners gathered close to York, now looking to him for their personal safety.
On the way to the detention camp the column was shelled by German guns from one of the hilltops. York maneuvered them and put them in double quick time until they were out of range.
Late in the afternoon, back of the three hills that face Hill No. 223, the "All America" Division "cut" the Decauville Railroad that supplied a salient to the north that the Germans were striving desperately to hold. As they swept on to their objective they found the hill to the left of the valley, that turns a shoulder toward No. 223--which the people of France have named "York's Hill"--cleared of Germans, and on its crest, silent and unmanned machine guns.
Americans returned and buried on