The grim old spirit came to the fore. They rained in on the approaching
waves a mad fire from smoking rifles and Lewis guns. His pace slackened
not one jot ... again the Normans pumped in the lead until the hands
blistered from hot rifles. Futile! They had not the men to stop
one-tenth of the foe moving in thousands over fields and hedges upon
them. Teeth clenched in agony. "Curse you," they sobbed, "curse your
numbers...."

His machine-guns whined over into their ranks ten or twelve thousand
rounds a minute along the frontage. Men fell in huddled heaps across one
another. The machine-gun barrage swept backwards and forwards over the
first and second lines, sweeping and intercrossing in one mighty net ...
the Normans were ordered to fall back, make liaison with battalion
relieving on either flank and dig in on a new line.

Again through the night they watched the pall before them, and again
Jerry made no sign. Orders were given just after daybreak for a further
retirement ... they marched back four or five kilos with heavy hearts.
Why not have fought to a standstill where they had first sighted him?
They shrugged shoulders wearily, and turned to the task of digging in.
He opened his machine-guns upon the thin row of khaki figures, a figure
here and there fell forward upon the little spade into a grave he had
prepared for himself. Two young Staffords collapsed side by side upon
the turf and smiled fixedly up into the sky, six or eight holes
perforating each chest.

The bullets whined and whistled everywhere, conveying to the mind a huge
swarm of bees. He tried a long sweep of low shots, just skirting the
tops of the semi-completed excavations ... got home every twenty yards
or so, clean through the neck or forehead.

The Normans settled down, opened fire steadily and played havoc amongst
the advanced enemy machine-guns. His progress stopped, the opposing
lines sniped at each other. The Normans were in their element--they knew
how to shoot.

"'Olding 'im up now."

"Yes. 'E can't shoot with 'is rifles."

"No--seems to 'ave all bloomin' machine-guns."

For two hours, they kept him pinned down to one position, wiped out his
one brief rush and inspired within him an unholy fear or their rifles.
They watched with fierce cunning the movements of fifty or so snipers
and "light" machine-gunners creeping upon them under cover of long
grasses ... a bloody fire was opened for ten minutes on the figures--the
grass stained r