nded shrank on their stretchers. But next instant the work was
resumed, and was in full swing when a minute later there came again the
four wind-rushes, followed this time by four shattering crashes, an
appalling clatter of whirling tiles and brick-work. The cottage
disappeared in swirling clouds of smoke and brick-dust, and out of the
turmoil came shrieks and cries and groans. When the dust had cleared it
showed one end of the cottage completely wrecked, the roof gone, the
walls gaping in ragged rents, the end wall collapsed in jumbled ruins.
Inside the room was no more than a shambles. There were twenty odd men
in it when the shells struck. Seven were carried out alive, and four of
these died in the moving. In the other room, where the two doctors
worked, no damage was done beyond the breakdown of a portion of the
partition wall, and there was only one further casualty--a man who was
actually having a slight hand-wound examined at the moment. He was
killed instantly by a shell fragment which whizzed through the door-way.
The two doctors, after a first hasty examination of the new casualties,
held a hurried consultation. The obvious thing to do was to move, but
the question was, Where to? One place after another was suggested, only
for the suggestion to be dismissed for some good and adequate reason. In
the middle of the discussion a fresh torrent of casualties began to pour
in. Some plainly required immediate attention, and the doctors fell to
work again. By the time the rush was cleared the question of changing
position had been forgotten, or, at any rate, was dropped. The wounded
continued to arrive, and the doctors continued to work.

By now, late afternoon, the fortunes of the fight were plainly turning in
favour of the British. It was extraordinary the difference it made in
the whole atmosphere--to the doctors, the orderlies, the
stretcher-bearers, and even--or, rather, most of all--to the wounded who
were coming in. In the morning the British attack had been stubbornly
withstood, and thousands of men had fallen in the first rushes to gain a
footing in the trenches opposite. The wounded who were first brought in
were the men who had fallen in these rushes, in the forward trench, in
the communication trenches on their way up from the support trench, and
from the shell fire on the support trenches. Because they themselves had
made no advance, or had seen no advance made, they believed the attack
was