left
in two by a swirling breeze, and it rolled dankly on, to right and
left, leaving the central trenches clear.

Now, an artillery barrage, accompanied or followed by a
gas-demonstration, can mean but one thing: a general attack. Therefore
telephonic word came to the detachments to left and right of the
Here-We-Comes, to fall back, under cover of the gas-cloud, to safer
positions. Two dogs were sent, with the same order, to the
Here-We-Comes. (One of the dogs was gassed. A bit of shrapnel found the
other.)

Thus it was that the Here-We-Comes were left alone (though they did not
know it), to hold the position,--with no support on either side, and
with a mere handful of men wherewith to stem the impending rush.

On the heels of the dispersing gas-cloud, and straight across the
half-mile or less of broken ground, came a line of gray. In five
successive waves, according to custom, the boches charged. Each wave
hurled itself forward as fast as efficiency would let it, in face of
the opposing fire, and as far as human endurance would be goaded. Then
it went down, and its survivors attached themselves to the succeeding
wave.

Hence, by the time the fifth and mightiest wave got into motion, it was
swelled by the survivors of all four of its predecessors and was an
all-but-resistless mass of shouting and running men.

The rifles and machine-guns of the Here-We-Comes played merrily into
the advancing gray swarms, stopping wave after wave, and at last
checking the fifth and "master" wave almost at the very brink of the
Franco-American parapet.

"That's how they do!" Mahan pantingly explained to a rather shaky
newcomer, as the last wave fell back. "They count on numbers and
bullrushes to get them there. If they'd had ten thousand men, in that
rush, instead of five thousand, they'd have got us. And if they had
twice as many men in their whole army as they have, they'd win this
war. But praise be, they haven't twice as many! That is one of the
fifty-seven reasons why the Allies are going to lick Germany."

Mahan talked jubilantly. The same jubilation ran all along the line of
victors. But the colonel and his staff were not rejoicing. They had
just learned of the withdrawal of the forces to either side of them,
and they knew they themselves could not hope to stand against a second
and larger charge.

Such a charge the enemy were certain to make. The Germans, too, must
soon learn of the defection of the supports. It was no