“All the Time I Was A-Using My Rifle”
York, when he dropped at the first fire of the machine-guns, found himself in a little path by a clump of bushes; the machine-guns were peppering from a distance of less than thirty yards, cutting off the tops of the bushes about York. On his return to the United States May 22, 1919, York said to a reporter: “I sat right where I was, and it seemed as if every gunner was a-firing straight at me. All this time, though, I was a-using my rifle, and the enemy he was a feeling the effects of it. One of our boys yelled that it was impossible to get the best of the situation, but I yelled back ‘Shut up!’ I knew one American was better than ten Germans if he kept his wits.”
He had no thought of surrender and “Somehow, I knew I wouldn’t be killed.” Aiming as he used to when shooting off the heads of the turkeys, he spotted Germans in the “fox-holes,” those firing from behind trees or over logs, with deadly precision, himself lying low to have the protection of the German prisoners prostrate between him and the machine-guns. He was not the man to miss a mark at that range. One boche had the indiscretion to rise in order to fling a small bomb at the rifleman. The bomb missed its object; not so the responsive bullet. “I got him square,” said York.