attered units of
the Ten Hundred impressed upon the Hun mind a fear of those riflers that
was pregnant enough to force him to rapidly verge away from the spot to
a safer distance of a mile or so.

The little village near the Crucifix was withdrawn from at dusk with no
molestation. Shelling slackened to a mere initial salvo from Rumilly.
The lull followed in which enemy reinforcement were being brought up to
be thrown in large forces upon those stubborn British regiments who were
clinging tenaciously, with unshaken obstinacy, to shattered trenches.

Lieut. Stone (afterwards M.C.) led a bombing raid under cover of night
into Rues Vertes, originating there an uproar that startled every Fritz
within a mile into a bad degree of "windy" apprehension. He fired into
the air a frenzied array of Verey lights in hope of discovering the
extent of the raid. Had the Ten Hundred been less war-worn they would
have chuckled delightedly over this successful bluff, but they hardly
commented upon it, stared wearily and disinterestedly at the flashes of
bursting grenades, turned away and banged arms and hands noisily on
thighs to enforce some little circulation into those cold, clammy limbs.

So utterly exhausted were a few of the youngsters that they had fallen
into unsettled sleep across their rifles, startled now and again into
fearful wakedness by a mind that had for days been awaiting something
that would inevitably come.

Men were little more than mechanical figures, but the brain ran rampant
and uncontrolled until the wild memories of furious German attacks
earlier in the day surged up with acute pregnancy and the victim fell
prey to poignant hallucination. The endless rows of grey figures would
advance yard by yard ... five hundred range, four hundred, three
hundred. God, we can't stop him. The crackle of rifles and machine-guns
shrieked higher ... two hundred; one hundred. Breath comes and goes in
sobs--in one minute he will be on you. Then he wavers. Now is the time;
pump the lead into him ... he turns.

And the lad regaining control of his distorted imagination discovers
that his rifle barrel is hot and that he has let fly a dozen rounds into
the void ... a shaky hand passes slowly over a sweat-covered brow.

The Higher Command, realising that the holding of Masnieres with the
small remnants of troops in the sector was impossible, ordered the
withdrawal to a support line of the old Hindenburg system, and thus
straightening