kybacks had
lost the Kidney Bean. They were a battalion of recent formation,
stout-hearted fellows all, but new to the refinements of intensive
trench warfare. When they took over the sector, they proceeded to
leave undone various vital things which the Hairy Jocks had always
made a point of doing, and to do various unnecessary things which the
Hairy Jocks had never done. The observant Hun promptly recognised that
he was faced by a fresh batch of opponents, and, having carefully
studied the characteristics of the newcomers, prescribed and
administered an exemplary dose of frightfulness. He began by tickling
up the Stickybacks with an unpleasant engine called the _Minenwerfer_,
which despatches a large sausage-shaped projectile in a series of
ridiculous somersaults, high over No Man's Land into the enemy's
front-line trench, where it explodes and annihilates everything
in that particular bay. Upon these occasions one's only chance of
salvation is to make a rapid calculation as to the bay into which
the sausage is going to fall, and then double speedily round a
traverse--or, if possible, two traverses--into another. It is an
exhilarating pastime, but presents complications when played by a
large number of persons in a restricted space, especially when the
persons aforesaid are not unanimous as to the ultimate landing-place
of the projectile.

After a day and a night of these aerial torpedoes the Hun proceeded
to an intensive artillery bombardment. He had long coveted the
Kidney Bean, and instinct told him that he would never have a better
opportunity of capturing it than now. Accordingly, two hours before
dawn, the Redoubt was subjected to a sudden, simultaneous, and
converging fire from all the German artillery for many miles round,
the whole being topped up with a rain of those crowning instruments of
demoralisation, gas-shells. At the same time an elaborate curtain of
shrapnel and high explosive was let down behind the Redoubt, to
serve the double purpose of preventing either the sending up of
reinforcements or the temporary withdrawal of the garrison.

At the first streak of dawn the bombardment was switched off, as if by
a tap; the curtain fire was redoubled in volume; and a massed attack
swept across the disintegrated wire into the shattered and pulverised
Redoubt. Other attacks were launched on either flank; but these were
obvious blinds, intended to prevent a too concentrated defence of the
Kidney Bean. The Roy