There had been the engrossment of transcendent emotion in repelling the charge.  What followed was like some grim and passionless trance with triggers ticking off the slow-passing minutes.  Dellarme aimed to keep down the fusillade from Fracasse’s trench and yet not to neglect the fair targets of the reserves advancing by rushes to the support of the 128th.  Reinforced, the gray streak at the bottom of the slope poured in a heavier fire.  Above the steady crackle of bullets sent and the whistle of bullets received rose the cry of “Doctor!  Doctor!” which meant each time that another Brown rifle had been silenced.  The litter bearers, hard pressed to remove the wounded, left the dead.  Already death was a familiar sight—­an article of exchange in which Dellarme’s men dealt freely.  The man at Stransky’s side had been killed outright.  He lay face down on his rifle stock.  His cap had fallen off.  Stransky put it back on the man’s head, and the example was followed in other cases.  It was a good idea to keep up a show of a full line of caps to the enemy.

Suddenly, as by command, the fire from the base of the knoll ceased altogether.  Dellarme understood at once what this meant—­the next step in the course of a systematic, irresistible approach by superior numbers.  It was to allow the ground scouts to advance.  Individual gray spots detaching themselves from the gray streak began to crawl upward in search of dead spaces where the contour of the ground would furnish some protection from the blaze of bullets from the crest.

“Over their heads!  Don’t try to hit them!” Dellarme passed the word.

“That’s it!  Spare one to get a dozen!” said Stransky, grinning in ready comprehension.  He seemed to be grinning every time that Dellarme looked in that direction.  He was plainly enjoying himself.  His restless nature had found sport to its taste.

The creeping scouts must have signalled back good news, for groups began crawling slowly after them.

“Over their heads!  Encourage them!” Dellarme commanded.

After they had advanced two or three hundred yards they stopped, shoulders and hands exposed in silhouette, and began to work feverishly with their spades.

“Now let them have it!”

“Oh, beautiful!” cried Stransky.  “That baby captain of ours has some brains, after all!  We’ll get them now and we’ll get them when they run!”

But they did not run.  Unfalteringly they took their punishment while they turned over the protecting sod in the midst of their own dead and wounded.  In a few minutes they had dropped spades for rifles, and other sections either crawled or ran forward precipitately and fell to the task of joining the isolated beginnings into a single trench.

Again Dellarme looked toward regimental headquarters, his fixed, cheery smile not wholly masking the appeal in his eyes.  The Grays had only two or three hundred yards to go when they should make their next charge in order to reach the crest.  But his men had fifteen hundred to go in the valley before they were out of range.  After their brave resistance facing the enemy they would receive a hail of bullets in their backs.  This was the time to withdraw if there were to be assurance of a safe retreat.  But there was no signal.  Until there was, he must remain.