r more clear
before them, and any man who flung himself forward was the target of a
hand-grenade.

From front and from flank German bombs came whizzing, falling short
sometimes, with a blasting roar that tore down lumps of trench, and
sometimes falling very close--close enough to kill.

Vickers saw some of his best men fall, but he kept the barrier still
intact by bombing and bombing.

When many of his comrades were dead or wounded, he wondered how long the
barrier would last, and gave orders for another to be built behind him,
so that when the rush came it would be stopped behind him--and over him.

Men worked at that barricade, piling up sand-bags, and as it was built
that young lieutenant knew that his own retreat was being cut off and
that he was being coffined in that narrow space. Two other men were with
him--I never learned their names--and they were hardly enough to hand up
bombs as quickly as he wished to throw them.

Away there up the trench the Germans were waiting for a pounce. Though
wounded so that he felt faint and giddy, he called out for more bombs.
"More!" he said, "More!" and his hand was like a machine reaching out
and throwing.

Rescue came at last, and the wounded officer was hauled over the
barricade which he had ordered to be built behind him, closing up his
way of escape.

All through October 14th the Midland men of the 46th Division held on to
their ground, and some of the Sherwoods made a new attack, clearing the
enemy out of the east portion of the redoubt.

It was lucky that it coincided with a counter-attack made by the enemy
at a different point, because it relieved the pressure there. Bombing
duels continued hour after hour, and human nature could hardly have
endured so long a struggle without fatigue beyond the strength of men.

So it seems; yet when a brigade of Guards came up on the night of
October 15th the enemy attacked along the whole line of redoubts,
and the Midland men, who were just about to leave the trenches, found
themselves engaged in a new action. They had to fight again before they
could go, and they fought like demons or demigods for their right of way
and home, and bombed the enemy back to his holes in the ground.

So ended the assault on the Hohenzollern by the Midland men of England,
whose division, years later, helped to break the Hindenburg line along
the great canal south of St.-Quentin.

What good came of it mortal men cannot say, unless the generals