e denied, were not to be put off even though
the elements were against them. Realizing now that guns alone were
insufficient, that losses must be sustained if they desired to capture
Verdun and its salient, they had hardened their hearts, and, determined
to risk all in this venture (for part of their success, if they
captured Verdun, would consist in the rapidity of such capture), now
launched the Brandenburg Corps against the Douaumont position,
convinced that if only they could capture what remained of the
shattered fort, and set foot on this upland plateau, they would command
the French positions along the heights of the Meuse, would command,
indeed, those guns, posted on Mort Homme and Hill 304, which had
assailed them so severely on the previous day, and would thereby easily
smash up further French resistance and gain their objective.

"Stand to your arms! Watch the ravines! For we have news that the
enemy are advancing up them. Hold your ground at all cost, no matter
what your losses, for these are the orders."

Without haste, without excitement, with that grim, steady courage which
had stood the French _poilu_ in such good stead already, the men
gripped their rifles and made ready for another German onslaught.

"Hold on, whatever the cost!" one man repeated to another.

"Till death, if need be," came the answer.

CHAPTER XIV

Frenchmen and Brandenburgers

Forbidding and grey, shell-marked and shattered and battered out of all
recognition, yet of such a substantial nature that even the high
explosives and the ponderous shells dropped upon it by the German
gunners could not entirely demolish it, the fort of Douaumont stood up,
cold and black, on that morning of Friday, the 25th February, seeming
even to overshadow the trench, or the apology for a trench--for here,
too, shells had done their work--in which Henri and his friend were
lying. Out beyond them the shell-marked ground, across which flakes of
snow were drifting, descended abruptly to the plain of the Woevre; and
struggling up its slopes came, at that moment, the 5th Division of the
3rd Brandenburg Corps--a corps retired from the fighting-ranks months
ago, specially fed, specially trained and armed, and prepared
particularly for this Verdun fighting. Its 6th Division was, at the
moment, invisible, for it was creeping up the ravine of La Voche, which
sheltered it from the fire of the French defenders.

There is no need for us to repeat th