Three or four Germans suddenly get up from some hole in No Man’s Land, and bolt for their trench like rabbits.  Within forty yards of the German parapet the leading men in our line find themselves alone.  The line has dwindled to a few scanty groups.  These are dropping suddenly—­their comrades cannot say whether they are taking cover in shell-holes, or whether they have been hit.  The Germans are getting up a machine-gun on the parapet straight opposite.  The first two men fall back shot.  Two or three others struggle up to it—­they are shot too; our men are making desperate shooting to keep down that machine-gun.  But the Germans get it up.  It cracks overhead.  In this part of the line the attack is clearly finished.

One remembers a day, some months back, when a Western Australian battalion, after a heavy bombardment of its trench, found a German line coming up over the crest of the hill about two hundred yards away.  The Western Australians stood up well over the parapet, and fired until the remnant of that line sank to the ground within forty or fifty yards of them.  That line was a line of the Prussian Guard Reserve.  We have had that opportunity three or four times in the Somme battle.  This time it was the Germans who had it.  The Germans were of the Prussian Foot Guards—­and it was Western Australians who were attacking.

In another part, where the South Australians attacked, they found fewer Germans in the trench.  They could see the Germans in small groups getting their bombs ready to throw—­but they were into the trench before the Germans had time to hold them up.  They killed or captured all the German garrison, and destroyed a machine-gun, and set steadily to improve the trench for holding it.

Everything seemed to go well in this part, except that they could get no touch with any other of our troops in the trench.  As far as they knew the other portions of the attack had succeeded, as well as theirs.  And then things changed suddenly.  After an hour a message did come from Australians farther along in the same trench—­a message for urgent help.  At the same time a similar message came from the other flank as well.  A shower of stick-bombs burst with a formidable crash from one side.  A line of Germans was seen, coming steadily along in single file against the other end of the trench.  A similar shower of crashes descended from that direction.  A machine-gun began to crackle down the trench.  Our men fought till their bombs, and all the German bombs they could find, were gone.  Finally the Germans began to gain on them from both ends, and the attack here, too, was over.  They were driven from the trench.

CHAPTER XXVII

A HARD TIME

France, November 28th.