ench. From now the front lost connection or cohesion.
Here and there the attackers broke in on the second line, exterminated
that portion of the defence in its path or was itself exterminated
there. Where it won footing it spread raging to either side along the
trench, shooting, stabbing, flinging hand grenades and bearing down the
defenders by the sheer fury of the attack. The movement spread along
the line, and with a sudden leap and rush the second line was gained
along a front of nearly a mile. In parts this attack overshot its
mark, broke through and over the second line and, tearing and hacking
through a network of wire, into the third trench. In part the second
line still held out; and even after it was all completely taken, the
communication trenches between the first and second line were filled
with combatants who fought on furiously, heedless of whether friend or
foe held trench to front or rear, intent only on the business at their
own bayonet points, to kill the enemy facing them and push in and kill
the ones behind. Fresh supports pressed into the captured positions,
and, backed by their weight, the attack surged on again in a fresh
spasm of fury. It secured foothold in great sections of the third
line, and even, without waiting to see the whole of it made good,
attempted to rush the fourth line. At one or two points the gallant
attempt succeeded, and a handful of men hung on desperately for some
hours, their further advance impossible, their retreat, had they
attempted it, almost equally so, cut off from reinforcements, short of
ammunition, and entirely without bombs or grenades. When their
ammunition was expended they used rifles and cartridges taken from the
enemy dead in the trench; having no grenades they snatched and hurled
back on the instant any that fell with fuses still burning. They waged
their unequal fight to the last minute and were killed out to the last
man.

The third line was not completely held or even taken. One or two
loopholed and machine-gunned dug-out redoubts, or 'keeps,' held out
strenuously, and before they could be reduced--entrance being gained at
last literally by tearing the place down sandbag by sandbag till a hole
was made and grenade after grenade flung in--other parts of the trench
had been recaptured. The weak point that so often hampers attack was
making itself felt. The bombers and 'grenadiers' had exhausted the
stock they carried; fresh supplies were scant