The trench grew; the day wore on.  Two rifles to one were now playing against his devoted company, which had had neither food nor drink since early morning.  As he scanned his thinning line he saw a look of bloodlessness and hopelessness gathering on the set faces of which he had grown so fond during this ordeal.  Some of the men were crouching too much for effective aim.

“See that you fire low!  Keep your heads up!” he called.  “For your homes, your country, and your God!  Pass the word along!”

Parched throat after parched throat repeated the message hoarsely and leaden shoulders raised a trifle and dust-matted eyelashes narrowed sharply on the sights.

“For the man in us!” growled Stransky.  “For the favor of nature at birth that gave us the right to wear trousers instead of skirts!  For the joy of hell, give them hell!”

“For our homes!  For the man in us!” they repeated, swallowing the words as if they had the taste of a stimulant.  But Dellarme knew that it would not take much to precipitate a break.  He himself felt that he had been on that knoll half a lifetime.  He looked at his watch and it was five o’clock.  For seven hours they had held on.  The Grays’ trench was complete the breadth of the slope; more reserves were coming up.  The brigade commander of the Grays was going to make sure that the next charge succeeded.

At last Dellarme’s glance toward regimental headquarters showed the flag that was the signal for withdrawal.  Could he accomplish it?  The first lieutenant, with a shattered arm, had gone on a litter.  The old sergeant was dead, a victim of the colonial wars.  Used to fighting savage enemies, he had been too eager in exposing himself to a civilized foe.  He had been shot through the throat.

“Men of the first section,” Dellarme called, “you will slip out of line with the greatest care not to let the enemy know that you are going!”

“Going—­going!  Careful!  Men of the first section going!” the parched throats repeated in a thrilling whisper.

“Those who remain keep increasing their fire!” called Dellarme again.  “Cover the whole breadth of the trench!”

Every fourth man wormed himself backward on his stomach until he was below the sky-line, when his stiffened limbs brought him to his feet and he started on a dead run down into the valley and toward a cut behind another knoll across the road from the Galland house.

“Tom Fragini, with your corporal dead I put you in charge of the first section!  What are you waiting for, Corporal Fragini?”

Tom was bending over Grandfather Fragini, who had been forgotten by everybody in the ordeal.  The old man was lying where he had fallen after the first burst of shrapnel.

“Can’t go!  Got a game leg!” said grandfather, pointing to a swollen ankle that had been bruised by a piece of shrapnel jacket that had lost most of its velocity before striking him.  “You do your duty and leave me alone.  I ain’t a fighting man any more.  I done my work when I steadied you young fellows.”