The platoon was faltering. More than half the ranks were either dead or wounded. Yancey, brandishing a .45 revolver now, kept trying to rally the platoon. Repeatedly, the Chinese burst through the lines, only to be driven back in spasms of close-in fighting. The battlefield was all clamor and confusion, with random scrums of men locked in mortal combat. Yancey’s boys were using their bayonets and firing point-blank. They were fighting with fists and pistols, knives and entrenching tools. But the Chinese kept boring in.
