command, and were answered by
renewed "hurrahs!" Then the heavy line of riflemen sprang up and again
rushed towards us:

"Fire! Fire!"

Once more our trenches belched forth their infernal fire. We could now
plainly see numbers of them fall; then they suddenly threw themselves
on the ground just as before. But instead of crouching motionless
among the beetroot they began to answer our fire. Innumerable bullets
whistled about us. I noted with joy that my men remained perfectly
steady; they were aiming and firing deliberately, whereas at other
points the fusillade was so violent that it cannot have been
efficacious. I was very glad not to have to reprove my brave
Chasseurs, for the uproar was so terrific that my voice would not have
carried beyond the two men nearest to me. I calculated the number of
cartridges each of them must have in reserve; twenty-five, perhaps
thirty. How would it all end? I was just thinking of ordering my troop
to cease firing, in order to reserve my ammunition for a supreme
effort, if this should be necessary.

But something happened which checked this decision. F.'s machine-guns
must have worked fearful havoc among our assailants, for suddenly,
without a cry and without an order, we saw them rise and make off
quickly right and left in the fog.

"Silence!"

I was obliged to intervene to subdue the joyous effervescence caused
in my troop. The men began to discuss their impressions in tones of
glee that might have become dangerous. Ladoucette's voice was heard,
as usual, above the din, calling upon his absent wife to admire his
exploits:

"Madame Ladoucette, if you could have seen that!"

But we had to be on the _qui vive_. The German attack had been
checked, but it might be renewed.

We were fully alive to the courage and tenacity of our enemies.

I could distinguish nothing ahead in the increasingly thick white fog.
All I could hear was the sound of pickaxes on the ground and the thud
of falling clods. The enemy had, no doubt, decided not to attack again
and were digging new trenches. They no longer uttered their
contemptuous guttural cries of "Cavalry! Cavalry!" They had learnt to
their cost that these French cavalrymen, at the sight of whom their
own are so ready to turn back, could hold their own equally well
against German infantry. I thought we might count on a little respite.
The battlefield was silent, save for the faint cries occasionally
uttered by the