That was too much for the remaining Frenchman.  He caught Jimmie by the other arm, exclaiming “Vennay!  Vennay!” Apparently that meant to run away; Jimmie didn’t want to run away, but the Frenchman chattered so fast, and tugged so hard, and Jimmie was half-dazed anyhow with pain, so he let himself be dragged back.  And presently they came to a dead soldier lying with a gun by his side, and the Frenchman grabbed the gun and unstrapped the cartridge belt, and then threw himself down behind a big rock.  Jimmie remembered the automatic which he had strapped at his waist; he held it out to the Frenchman, shaking his head and saying, “No savvy!  No work!”—­as if he thought the Frenchman would understand bad English better than good English!  But the Frenchman understood the head-shaking, and showed Jimmie how to move the little catch which released the trigger for firing.  With hasty fingers he tore off the sleeve of Jimmie’s shirt, and bound up his arm tightly with a bandage from his kit; then he raised up over the rock and cursed the sockray Bosh and began to fire.  Jimmie got up the nerve to peer out, and there were the grey figures, much nearer now, and he knew they were Germans because they were like the pictures he had seen.  They were running at him, firing as they came, and Jimmie fired his revolver, shutting his eyes because he was scared of it.  But then, finding that it behaved all right, he fired again, and this time he did not close his eyes, because he saw a big German running straight towards him, the fury of battle in his face.  It was plain what this German meant to do—­to leap on Jimmie with his sharp bayonet; and somehow Jimmie never once thought of his pacifist arguments—­he fired, and saw the German fall, and was murderously glad at the sight.

There were shots from behind him; apparently there had been a lot of Frenchmen hidden in these woods, and the enemy was not finding it easy to advance.  Jimmie’s companion jumped up and ran again, and Jimmie followed, and a hundred yards or so back they came to a shell-hole with half a dozen poilus in it.  Jimmy tumbled in, and the men chattered at him, and gave him more cartridges, so that when the Germans appeared again he did his part.  A bullet took a lump of hair off his temple, and shrapnel exploding near by almost split his ear-drums; but still he went on shooting.  His heart was really in the job now, he was going to stop these Bosh or bust.  With five Frenchmen, two of them wounded, he held the shell-hole for an hour; one of them ran back and staggered up with a supply of ammunition, and loaded up a rifle for Jimmie, and laid it so that he could manage it with one hand.  So Jimmie went on shooting, half-dead, half-blind, half-choked with powder smoke.

The sockray Bosh made another charge, and this was the end, every man in the shell-hole knew.  There were literally swarms of the grey figures, their bullets came like a shower of hail.  Jimmie decided to wait till the enemy was near enough for him to aim the revolver with effect.  He crouched, watching a Frenchman with the life-blood oozing out of a hole in his chest; then he raised up and emptied his automatic, and still there were Germans rushing on.