of a mere nine hundred years semi-civilisation?
Two thousand years before the Conquest the fierce warrior Northmen lived
by the might of the halbert, fighters one and all from the days when the
war-inspired mother croned of the battle-axe to her babe. And in the
Normans was that Norse spirit dormant; but one night of such hardship as
yet undreamt of had sufficed for an awakening.

In the dawn they looked out with nearly bloodshot eyes towards the
German front. He would counter-attack, would he? Let him come!

He came! They poured one long volley into the long-coated line. It
wavered, broke, thinned. At the junction with the Middlesex an
Englishman gazed in unfeigned astonishment at the ugly, set features of
his Norman companion.

"But," he said, "they might have wanted to be prisoners."

"Oh." Ozanne grunted, "don't want none," and squinting down the sights
let loose another trio. "This," he added, "is the Great Undertaking."

"Yes, well?"

"I am the undertaker. For my job ... must 'ave bodies ... and I,"
grimly, "I'm getting 'em."

The other shuddered slightly. War is war, but these wild unkempt men of
a strange tongue were something he could not quite grasp. Anyhow, they
knew how to fight. That is all that matters.

Duggie Le Page went into No-Man's Land and pluckily brought in a wounded
N.C.O. from one of the mounted regiments, but too late to save a life
fast nearing its ebb.

A weakly sun crept up from amid thick grey clouds and shone wanly on the
mud-spattered creatures lying each in his own water-logged trough. Hour
followed hour without further sign of hostile movement from the
enemy--nothing could be seen of him, and had the cavalry got through the
attack could have been continued and Cambrai taken.

Casualties (the supreme sacrifice in two instances) began to trickle
away from the Norman ranks, the majority from the attention of a sniper
in the long grass who held on alone with plucky audacity. Unfortunately
for his own welfare he was over-confident, exposed himself too long; and
ten rifles cracked spitefully--all who fired hotly claiming the right to
a notch.

Before mid-day it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor
the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to
make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was
fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still
had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a num