the Germans charged, their bayonets a sea of flashing steel, their
thunderous shouts drowning the roar of guns, and rank on rank they
reeled back from British steel and swinging rifle-butt, and German
shouts died and were lost in British cheers.

So, day after day, week after week, month after month they endured
still; swept by rifle and machine-gun fire, blown up by mines, buried
alive by mortar bombs, their very trenches smitten flat by high
explosives--yet they endured and held on. They died all day and every
day, but their places were filled by men just as fiercely determined.
And ever as the countless German batteries fell silent, their troops
in dense grey waves hurled themselves upon shattered British trench
and dugout, and found there wild men in tunics torn and bloody and
mud-bespattered, who, shouting in fierce joy, leapt to meet them
bayonet to bayonet. With clubbed rifle and darting steel they fought,
these men of the Empire, heedless of wounds and death, smiting and
cheering, thrusting and shouting, until those long, close-ranked
columns broke, wavered and melted away. Then, panting, they cast
themselves back into wrecked trench and blood-spattered shell hole
while the enemy's guns roared and thundered anew, and waited
patiently but yearningly for another chance to "really fight." So
they held this deadly salient.

Days came and went, whole regiments were wiped out, but they held on.
The noble town behind them crumbled into ruin beneath the shrieking
avalanche of shells, but they held on. German and British dead lay
thick from British parapet to Boche wire, and over this awful litter
fresh attacks were launched daily, but still they held on, and would
have held and will hold, until the crack of doom if need be--because
Britain and the Empire expect it of them.

But to-day the dark and evil time is passed. To-day for every German
shell that crashes into the salient, four British shells burst along
the enemy's position, and it was with their thunder in my ears that I
traversed that historic, battle-torn road which leads into Ypres,
that road over which so many young and stalwart feet have tramped
that never more may come marching back. And looking along this road,
lined with scarred and broken trees, my friend N. took off his hat
and I did the like.

"It's generally pretty lively here," said our Intelligence Officer,
as I leaned forward to pass him the matches. "We're going to speed up
a bit--road's a