sault when the supporting batteries of the attack were
compelled to hold their fire for fear of obliterating their own
attacking lines, barked at four-second intervals, opening great gaps in
the racing line at every discharge.

In rear of the supporting lines of the assault, which were closing up at
a dead run, galloped the batteries which were to make a rallying point
in case the assault failed, or occupy the trenches, should the defenders
be driven out, and the cannoneers clutched the side rails as the pieces
swayed and rocked across the rough ground and clustered bodies which
strewed the field.

At the crest of the parapet the lines, attack and defense met with a
ring of steel. Bayonets flashed, darted, parried and struck. Rifle butts
whirled above bare heads and the stocks crashed down through bone and
flesh. From both sides came a rain of hand grenades, bombs which
exploded upon touch. From the rear of the trenches there came running
formed troops, to assist in the repulse of the Russians, and as the
supporting lines of the attack threw themselves into the fray, the
whirling, struggling, fighting lines on the trenches' top thickened and
swayed.

The line sagged, bulged, trembled, and broke in huge gaps. Into the
splaying breaches there rushed fresh troops from front and rear, and the
lines thickened and swayed again. Men discarded their arms to lock in
one another's embrace, fighting to the last.

The din was deafening, yet above it there rang out the detonation and
shock of a great explosion, where a delayed mine belched upward under
the pressure of the hastening troops coming up with the attacking
reserve. Earth, stones, wire entanglements, arms and men shot upward in
a dense geyser of death, and came down in the midst of the fierce
fighting.

Then the line broke again, and the shattered reserves of the attack,
summoning the last resources, poured into the breach with bayonet and
magazine.

The defense gave way.

Crumpled under the last despairing hurling of last reserves, the
entrenched line shuddered along its length, then the line lost its
cohesion, stood irresolute for a moment, then fled precipitately to the
rear.

The whistles of the Russian officers blew again and again. Officers had
fallen until corporals and sergeants commanded platoons and companies;
yet they, too, had their whistles and knew their duties; and out of the
scramble of the attack, regardless of company, regiment or brigade, the