not his presence, was urging them forward. They reached the point
where the landmarks compared with their map indicated their stopping
place--about one-quarter of the number that had left the British trench.

They had enough military sense to realize that if they tried to go back
over the same ground which they had crossed there might be less than
one-quarter of the fourth remaining. They preferred to die with their
faces rather than their backs to the enemy. No, they did not mean to
die. They meant to hold on and "beat the Boche," according to their
teaching.

As things had been going none too well with the brigade on their left
their flank was exposed. They met this condition by fortifying
themselves against enfilade in an old German communication trench and
rushing other points of advantage to secure their position. When a
German machine gun was able to sweep them, a corporal slipped up another
communication trench and bombed it out of business. Running out of bombs
of their own, they began gathering German bombs which were lying about
plentifully and threw these at the Germans. Short of rifle ammunition
they found that there was ammunition for the German rifles which had
been captured. They were not choice about their methods and neither were
the Germans in that cheek-by-jowl affair with both sides so exhausted
that a little more grit on one side struck the balance in its favor.

This medley of British and Germans in a world of personal combat shared
shell fire, heat and misery. The British sent their rocket signals up to
say that they had arrived. In two or three other instances the signals
had meant that a dozen men only had reached their objective, a force
unable to hold until reinforcements could come. Not so this time. The
little group held; they held even when the Germans got some fresh men
and attempted a counter-attack; they held until assistance came. For two
sleepless days and nights under continual fire they remained in their
dearly won position until, under cover of darkness, they were relieved.

In the most tranquil of villages the survivors looking in shop windows
and trying out their French might wonder how it was that they were
alive, though they were certain that their brigadier thought well of
them. Ask them or their officers what they thought of their brigadier
and they were equally certain of that, too. Theirs was the best
brigadier in the army. Think what this kind of confidence means to men