Fabrizio was crouching inside of one of the muddy holes which he and the others had dug out in the Argonne Forest. It was raining as it had been all day long and so he and the others were thoroughly soaked and dirty and chilled to the bone. All around them there was a tremendous lot of firing from rifles, and exploding of bombshells, and horrendous buzzing from artillery planes overhead. It seemed the conditions couldn't have been worse for them.

Day after day they had hiked from place to place and engaged in fierce battles in between them. They hiked by night also when there was no light at all which made it especially dangerous for them. Their surrounding woods were all completely and totally ruined from the war, and all along the roads they would find what seemed hundreds of dead bodies of fallen soldiers. Some were more bloodied than others, some had their eyes and mouths still open.

For Fabrizio it was a truly wakeful nightmare to be in and the words of Alexander came back to haunt his mind often at such sights. "We're all going to die," Alexander had said before they had left for overseas. Fabrizio tried not to think of such a thing too literally, because all of them couldn't possibly be lost to the war no matter how bad it got. He tried to reason that if none of them survived than the war would never be really won.

He soon observed that he was not the only one who was living in misery because of their grim surroundings and conditions. Jack once mentioned that it reminded him most hauntingly of the North Atlantic on the night of the Titanic's sinking. Alvin also said them it made him think of the end of days as described in the bible.

Of course, Fabrizio was no longer a believer in the bible since the day in August when he had actually taken a look into it. He fully realized and accepted now and for good that there was absolutely no such thing as a gracious and loving higher power watching out for him or for anyone else. And so it was he knew that in times like this he and everyone just had to look out for themselves and for each other if they wanted to survive this war and also put an end to it as soon as possible.

That night they had hiked in the drizzling rain all the way to the hill at Chatel Chehery. They had stayed in the holes in the mud all day long with their gas masks on as the bombshells had dropped down and exploded all around them, and with their rifles aimed and firing.

At three A.M. in the morning on the morning of October the eighth, their Captain came to them and told them they were to move on to Hill 223, which was to be the jumping-off place for their attack, which was to be at daybreak. Their objective was the Decauville Railroad, which was about three kilometers to the northwest of the hill, and further on almost in the center of the Argonne Forest. They were to bust the railroad so as to stop the Germans from sending in their troops and supplies.

With the Captian leading, they marched over the the Aire River on a little shaky, wooden bridge which the engineers had thrown up for them, on through the town of Chatel Chehery and on up to Hill 223. It was completely pitch dark and hard to see each other or find the hill, but they found it just the same though not before daybreak as they had hoped.

As soon as daylight came upon them the Germans sent a most wild barrage in their direction. They were all horrified as they saw one of their shells explode right in the middle of one of their squads and wound or kill every man. They kept pressing onward though, slipping, and sliding, and falling into holes and tripping over all sorts of things all the while.

When they at last reached the hill they found the remains of a previous battle all around them. With German machine guns and some snipers strewn all around in brush and in fox holes. Then at the zero hour, which was 6:10 A.M., with fixed bayonets, they went over the top. Then the battle began anew and none of them could tell for certain where the terribly heavy fire was coming from as it literally seemed to be all around them. Fabrizio laid down as flat as he could on the ground along with many others as they gave the enemy their best shots while they did as well.

They all knew they just had to make it to the railroad somehow. So after a careful strategy, their platoon sergeant and Captain decided their best course of action would be to put the Germans weapons out of action before they could go on. He ordered the left half of their platoon to go back and try to jump the machine guns from the rear. So three squads dropped back and made their way around the left.

There were seventeen of them, among them were Jack, Fabrizio, and Alvin. They advanced forward through the brush towards where they could the machine-gun fire. They went quickly and quietly, keeping well to the left and deep in the brush. When they were nearly three-hundred yards to the left and in front of their own front line on the ridge that the Germans were on, they stopped and had a conference amongst each other for their plan of attack. They all decided it would be best to keep on until they were behind the German lines, and then swing in and try to jump them from the rear.

So then when they went around and fell in behind the guns, they first saw two German soldiers with a Red Cross Band on their arm. So they took their fire in their direction and they raced away and they chased after them, while calling to them to surrender. They wanted to capture them before they gave the alarm.

Then they jumped across a stream and then about fifteen to twenty German soldiers jumped up and held up their hands and said "Comrade!" So the one of them who was in charge told them not to shoot if they were giving up anyway.

They then went to the enemies headquarters, where they found a major and two officers sitting or standing around what seemed to be a small wooden shack. They could all tell that they never suspected there were any Americans near them. Of course, they were as surprised as they were, to be coming on them so suddenly. So they all jumped in and covered them and told them to put their hands up and keep them up. And they did.

Then their sergeant in command of them told them to hold their fire, as they had them, but to keep them covered and to hurry up and search and line them up. Then, just as he was turning around from giving this order and they were all moving forward to obey, some machine-guns up on the hill in front of them and between them and the American lines, suddenly turned around and opened fire on them.

A dozen in their army was instantly wounded or killed, and the German prisoners fell flat on their faces, and so did all of the American soldiers who were still standing. They realized exactly what was happening instantly. The Germans who were on the hill had seen them capture the ones at headquarters and so they had just turned around and fired at them.

Fabrizio laid down flat with his rifle aimed as best he could and he began firing away as did all the ones of them who were remaining. He could see Alvin not too far from him as he was taking down a great many of the Germans firing. He watched as he did so with such ease, precision, and skill of a professional and was in awe as he did his best to try to imitate it.

The enemy kept on firing and firing over and over again. Fabrizio knew he could and should never give up, and he did not, not even when his clips ran out as he just put more in as quick as he could. He also watched as a few more of their men fell down when the fire reached them and this mcaused him to break into a bit of a cold sweat but still he pressed on.

Then, all of sudden, he felt a horrendous pain strike him in his left shoulder. He knew at once what it was. He had been hit. He could feel the blood beginning to trickle down his arm and soak through his dirty uniform. Still he did not falter for a second and did his best to ignore the intense pain he felt from the shot.

Then he saw a German officer with five men jump out of a trench and at once charge towards Alvin who was still firing away as vigorously as ever. He watched as Alvin took down each of the men one by one from the back end which once again made him marvel at his skill. He soon began to faintly hear Alvin yelling to the Germans to surrender. But they either couldn't understand his language or couldn't hear him through the racket that was going on all around.

Then finally, a German major came down and told Alvin and asked, "English?"

"No, not English," Alvin replied simply.

"What?" he asked.

"American," replied Alvin.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the German. Then he said, "If you won't shoot any more I will make them give up."

So he told him alright if he would do it now. So then the German major blew on a whistle and they instantly quit shooting and gave themselves up. They all dropped their guns and equipment and began to gather around. There was one of them, however, who threw a small hand grenade he had with him at Alvin. Though it missed him and struck on of his own men. The rest of them though surrendered without any more trouble.

Alvin then took charge of everything and gave out orders for their prisoners to pick up and carry the wounded back, and for the German Major to get in front of him and keep his hands in the air. They then started back to the Patrol Camp. Along the way they were met once more with open firing Germans, but then Alvin quickly told the Major to blow his whistle and he did and they all surrendered also.

When they were back at Patrol Camp they had taken a total of a hundred-and-thirty-two German soldiers, and all thanks to Alvin.

It was there that Fabrizio had his shoulder wound looked at, and carefully cleaned and bandaged. He was told also that the bullet had really just grazed his shoulder and he was fortunate to have come through so much with so minor an injury. Then he was told that if he had been in a somewhat different position it could have been his neck that was hit which made a very cold chill run down his spin.