As the semicircle formed with Alvin York on the left end, he stepped
beyond the edge of the thicket--and what he saw up the hill surprized
him.
Just forty yards away was the crest, and along it was a row of machine
guns--a battalion of them!
The German gunners had heard the shots fired by the Americans in front
of the major's shack, or they had been warned by the fleeing
stretcher-bearers that the enemy was behind them. They were jerking at
their guns, rapidly turning them around, for the nests had been masked
and the muzzles of the guns pointed down into the valley at the foot of
Hill No. 223, to sweep it when the Eighty-Second Division came out into
the open.
Some of the Germans in the gun-pits, using rifles, shot at York. The
bullets "burned his face as they passed." He cried a warning to his
comrades which evidently was not heard, for when he began to shoot up
the hill they called to him to stop as the Germans had surrendered. They
saw--only the prisoners before them.
There was no time for parley. York's second cry, "Look out!" could carry
no explanation of the danger to those whose view was blinded by the
thicket. The Germans had their guns turned. Hell and death were being
belched down the hillside upon the Americans.
At the opening rattle of these guns the German prisoners as if through a
prearranged signal, fell flat to the ground, and the streams of lead
passed over them.
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