e less
heavily pressed left turned and mowed the Germans down in swathes.
Still the line came on stubbornly. It was broken and ragged now, and
advanced slowly, because the front ranks were constantly melting away
under the British fire. The Forward Officer watched with straining
eyes glued to his glasses. A shell 'whooped' past close over his head,
and burst just beyond him. He neither turned his head nor moved his
glasses. One, two, three, four burst short, and splinters and bullets
sang past him; two more burst overhead, and the shrapnel clashed and
rattled amongst the stone and brick of the ruins. Without moving, the
Forward Officer began to call a fresh string of orders. The rush of
his shells ceased for a moment while the gunners adjusted the new
angles and ranges. 'Number One fired. Two fired. Three, Four, Five,
Six fired, sir,' called the telephonist, and as he spoke there came the
shrieks of the shells, and the white puffs of the bursts low down and
between the prone British line and the advancing Germans.

'Number Three, one-oh minutes more left!' shouted the Forward Officer.
'Number Five, add twenty-five--repeat.'

Again came the running bursts and puffing white smoke, and satisfied
this time with their line, position, and distance, the Forward Officer
shouted for 'Gun-fire,' jumped down and across to the telephonist's
shelter-pit.

'I'm putting a belt of fire just ahead of our line,' he shouted,
curving his fingers about his lips and the mouthpiece in an attempt to
shut out the uproar about them. 'If they can come through it we're
done--infantry can't hold 'em. Give me every round you can, and as
fast as you can, please.' He ran back to his place. A cataract of
shells poured their shrapnel down along a line of which the nearest
edge was a bare twenty yards from the British front. The Forward
Officer fixed his eyes on the string of white smoke-puffs with their
centre of winking flame that burst and burst and burst unceasingly. If
one showed out of its proper place he shouted to the telephonist and
named the delinquent gun, and asked for the lay and fuse-setting to be
checked.

The advancing Germans reached at last the strip of ground where his
shrapnel hailed and lashed, reached the strip and pushed into it--but
not past it. Up to the shrapnel zone the advance could press; through,
it could not. Under the shrapnel nothing could live. It swept the
ground in driving gust on gust, swept an