ay they had been under pretty
heavy fire, which means shells all over the place and machine-guns
combing the parapet. Very dull, indeed. Only three men killed and
seventeen wounded.

On the night of May 7th the P.P.s had a muster of six hundred and
thirty-five men. This was a good deal less than half of the original total
in the battalion, including recruits who had come out to fill the gaps
caused by death, wounds, and sickness. Bear in mind that before this
war a force was supposed to prepare for retreat with a loss of ten per
cent, and get under way to the rear with the loss of fifteen per cent,
and that with the loss of thirty per cent, it was supposed to have
borne all that can be expected of the best trained soldiers.

The Germans were quiet that night, suggestively quiet. At 4.30 a.m.
the prelude began; by 5.30 the German gunners had fairly warmed to
their work. They were using every kind of shell they had in the locker.
Every signal wire the P.P.s possessed had been cut. The brigade
commander could not know what was happening to them and they
could not know his wishes; except that it may be taken for granted
that the orders of any British brigade commander are always to "stick
it." The shell-fire was as thick at the P.P.s' backs as in front of them;
they were fenced in by it. And they were infantry taking what the guns
gave in order to put them out of business so that the way would be
clear for the German infantry to charge. In theory they ought to have
been buried and mangled beyond the power of resistance by what is
called "the artillery preparation for the infantry in attack."

Every man of the P.P.s knew what was coming. There was relief in
their hearts when they saw the Germans break from their trenches
and start down the slope of the hill in front. Now they could take it out
of the German infantry in payment for what the German guns were
doing to them. This was their only thought. Being good shots, with the
instinct of the man who is used to shooting at game, the P.P.s "shoot
to kill" and at individual targets. The light green of the German
uniform is more visible on the deep green background of spring grass
and foliage than against the tints of autumn. At two or three or four
hundred yards neither Corporal Christy, the old bear-hunter, lying on
the parapet nor other marksmen of the P.P.s could miss their marks.
They kept on knocking down Germans; they didn't know that men
around them were being hit; th