enemy was to be seen, although they knew that there were thousands of
them hidden away in their immediate neighbourhood. Now all depended on
their gaining the back of the church unseen.

Far away on the right they could hear an English cheer, and knew that
the battalions on that flank of the brigade were making good, while
their own portion of the line was held up.

In front of them lay a team of dead horses, attached to the fragments of
a wagon, and the flies were buzzing about them. A little farther on was
a German reservist on his back with his knees up, and the flies were
busy with him too. The rest was an extraordinary wilderness of shattered
homes and shell craters, which seemed of no possible value to anybody,
but it had to be captured, and time was flying.

"You see that third heap in front of us?" said Dennis. "We'll make for
that, and, if we reach it, then dash straight across the open for the
back of the church, and leave the rest to chance. It's rotten work
fighting broken bricks and mortar, but there it is; it's got to be
done."

He jumped up suddenly and ran forward, his companions streaming out
behind him, everyone bending double, for bullets were flying in every
direction, some from their own battalion, and some no doubt from hidden
snipers, who would have to be reckoned with later on.

"Are we all here?" said the lad, as they reached the third heap, which
had been an estaminet before a British 9.2 had brought it down like a
house of cards. "Now for it!" And they bolted across the open square,
and gained their goal at last.

Only the skeleton of the church walls remained, and the sun slanted in
through the ruined windows on to a scene of indescribable wreckage.

Where the roof had fallen in the debris formed a barrier across the
aisle, and the eastern end of the ruin had evidently been used as a
dressing-station. Several stretchers lay on the floor there, and on one
of them was a dead man with a tourniquet still clamped on his thigh.

The saw on the ground, and the ugly contents of the bowl beside it, told
of an interrupted amputation--perhaps the other man huddled up in the
corner had been the surgeon himself!

But they had no time to waste on idle speculation, for beyond the pile
of beams and tiles, red bricks and plaster, the machine-guns were still
firing; and, motioning his companions to caution, Dennis crept round a
broken pillar.

Under what remained of the belfry tower behind the rampa