e six in flames the day before the
attack the others have been very coy."

His young officers were all New Army products; he, the commander, being
the only regular. There were still enough regulars left to provide one
for each of the New Army battalions, in some cases even two.

"The men were splendid," he said, "just as good as regulars. They went
in without any faltering and we had a stiffish bit of trench in front of
us, you know. It's jolly out here, isn't it?"

He was tired and perhaps he would be killed to-morrow, but nothing could
prevent him from going some distance to show us the way to the trenches
that his men had taken. They were heroes to him and he was one to them;
and they had won. That was the thing, victory, though they regarded it
as a matter of course, which gave them a glow warmer than the sunlight
as they lay at ease on the grass. They had "been in;" they had seen the
day for which they had long waited. A quality of mastery was in their
bearing, but their elation was tempered by the thought of the missing
comrades, the dead.

"I wish as long as Bill had to go that he hadn't fallen before we got to
the trench," said one soldier. "He had set his heart on seeing what a
Boche dugout was like."

"George was beside me when a Boche got him with a bomb. I did for the
Boche with a bayonet," said another.

"When the machine gun began I thought that it would get us all, but we
had to go on."

They were matter-of-fact, dwelling on the simple essentials. Men had
died; men had been wounded; men had survived. This was all according to
expectation. Mostly, they did not rehearse their experiences. Their
brains had had emotion enough; their bodies asked for rest. They lay
silently enjoying the fact of life and sunlight. Details which were lost
in the haze of action would develop in the memory in later years like
the fine points of a photographic plate.

The former German trench on a commanding knoll had little resemblance to
a trench. Here artillerists had fulfilled infantry requirements to the
letter. Areas of shell-craters lay on either side of the tumbled walls
and dugout entrances were nearly all closed. The infantry which took the
position met no fire in front, but had an enfilade at one point from a
machine gun. Where the dead lay told exactly the breadth of its sweep
through which the charge had unfalteringly passed; and this was only a
first objective. As you could see, the charge had gone on to its