battalion of the Landwehr regiment to
the left of Fritz's company were exterminated to a man, the enemy
marching over their dead bodies with a shout of victory.

Their progress, however, was not to last.

"Close up there, men!" came the order from Fritz's commanding officer;
when the troops hurriedly formed up in a hollow which protected them for
a moment from the galling fire. "Fix bayonets!"--and they awaited the
still steady advance of the French until they appeared above the rising
ground. "Fire, and aim low!" was the next order from the major; and
then, "Charge!"

With a ringing cheer of "Vorwarts!" Fritz dashed onward at the head of
the regiment, a couple of paces in front of his men, who with their
sharp weapons extended in front like a fringe of steel, came on behind
at the double.

Whiz, sang a bullet by his ear, but he did not mind that; crash, plunged
a shell into the ground in front, tearing up a hole that he nearly fell
into; when, jumping over this at the run, in another second he had
crossed swords with one of the officers of the French battalion, who
rushed out as eagerly to meet him.

They had not time, though, to exchange a couple of passes before a
fragment of a bursting bomb carried away the French officer's head,
bespattering Fritz with the brains and almost making him reel with
sickness; while, at the same moment, the men of the German regiment bore
down the French line, scattering it like chaff, for the sturdy
Hanoverians seemed like giants in their wrath, bayoneting every soul
within reach!

This was only the beginning of it.

"On," still "on," was the cry; and, not until the lost villages were
recaptured and the unfortunate German foreposts avenged did the advance
cease.

But the struggle was fierce and terribly contested. Three several times
did the Germans get possession of Petites et Grandes Tapes, and three
several times did the French drive them out again with their fearful
mitrailleuse hail of fire; the bayonet settled it at last, in the hands
of the northern legions, who had not forgotten the use of it since the
days of Waterloo, nor, as it would appear, the French yet learnt to
withstand it!

Beyond a slight touch from a passing bullet which had grazed his lower
jaw, having the effect of rattling his teeth together, as if somebody
had "chucked him under the chin," Fritz had escaped without any serious
wound up to the time that the French were beaten back after the third