third they sang clear across and into the parapet,
for no figures were left to check their flight. The working party was
wiped out.

It took the excited riflemen another minute or two to realise that
there was nothing left to shoot at except an empty parapet and some
heaps of huddled forms; but the pause to refill the empty magazines
steadied them, and then the fire died away.

The whole thing was over so quickly that the rifle fire had practically
ceased before the Artillery behind had time to get to work, and by the
time they had flung a few shells to burst in thunder and lightning roar
and flash over the German parapet, the storm of rifle fire had
slackened and passed. Hearing it die away, the gunners also stopped,
reloaded, and laid their pieces, waited the reports of their Forward
Officers, and on receiving them turned into their dug-outs and their
blankets again.

But the batteries covering the front held by the Asterisks remained by
their guns and continued to throw occasional rounds into the German
trenches. Their Forward Officers had passed on the word received from
the Asterisks of a sharp attack quickly beaten back--that being the
natural conclusion drawn from that leaping figure on the parapet and
the presence of Germans in the open--and the guns kept up a slow rate
of fire more with the idea of showing the enemy that the defence was
awake and waiting for them than of breaking up another possible attack.
The battalions of Regulars to either side of the Asterisks had more
correctly diagnosed the situation as 'false alarm' or 'ten rounds rapid
on working parties,' and their supporting Artillery did no more than
carry on their usual night firing.

The result of it all was that the Asterisks throughout the night
enjoyed the spectacle of some very pretty artillery fire in the dark on
and over the trenches facing them, and also the much less pleasing one
of German shells bursting in the British trenches, and especially in
those of the K.O.A. They had the heaviest share on the simple and
usual principle of retaliation, whereby if our Section A of trenches is
shelled we shell the German section facing it, and _vice versa_.

The fire was by no means heavy as artillery fire goes these days, and
at first the Asterisks were not greatly disturbed by it. But even a
rate of three or four shells every ten or fifteen minutes is galling,
and necessitates the keeping of close cover or the loss of a fair
number of me