line.
Fritz tried the flank, came on in waves stretching far over the hill
crest. A fire stopped him--COULD there be only ONE corps before him. He
rallied, swept on again, swarming over the canal banks and close up into
the outer Masnieres' defences; but on his lines hailed a rapid fire from
the Normans, the like of which he had never deemed possible. Savident
ran alone into the centre of a roadway with his Lewis-gun and poured
every solitary shot by him in one long sweep up and down the wavering
lines. Rifles cracked with the rapid reloading action of marksmen until
the barrels burned hot in the hand. The Germans fell back. The Normans
went forward in that reckless rush.

Rues Vertes was retaken!

In the outskirts of this village a number of the draft were isolated,
became tangled in one great bloody melee with the angrily retreating
enemy. There was nothing for it but a fight to the death.

Through the glasses they could be seen to hold off the Hun for a few
brief minutes, met him in a ghastly lunging of bayonets, from which
beads of blood were dropping ... but they went under one by one, until
one thick-set lad remained, seized two Huns one after the other by the
neck, twisted them with his own hands and went over the Divide, a
bayonet through his heart.

But their example put the fear of death into the enemy and for an hour
the thinning line of Normans had no attack.

He reformed, sent a large number of machine-guns with his first wave,
concentrated a fearful artillery fire on the villages, and swept
forward. The same fire met him, again the lines wavered, but that hail
of lead was more than the men could withstand. They went back--many of
the gunners without their machine-guns, not back a hundred yards or so
but almost out of RIFLE RANGE.

The artillery fire had created havoc among the Normans. Twenty figures
writhed in agony in so many feet, a stream of blood-soaked lads were
moving slowly away towards Marcoing. One Lewis-gun team was lying about
in all directions, forms distorted, limbs missing and great bare
stretches of red flesh showing with sickening brilliancy of colour--and
the gun itself was UNTOUCHED. Irony of fate.

On the sloping grass seven inert khaki forms could be counted, on the
lower levels another five: stretched across the mound to the east of the
canal a dozen or more were visible at intervals of eight or so yards.
All from ONE spot without moving the head.

The casualties were more t