ft
crossing of two hundred yards of open space.

He had watched their advance from the first-line British trench. Later,
when the situation demanded it, I learned that he went up to the
captured German line and on to the final objective, but this fact was
drawn out of him. It might lead to a misunderstanding; you might think
that he had been taking as much risk as his officers and men, and risk
of any kind for him was an incident of the business of managing a
brigade.

"How about the dugouts?" I asked.

This was an obvious question. The trouble on July 1st had been, as we
know, that the Germans hiding in their dugouts had rushed forth as soon
as the British curtain of fire lifted and sometimes fought the British
in the trench traverses with numbers superior. Again, they had
surrendered, only to overpower their guards, pick up rifles and man
their machine guns after the first wave had passed on, instead of filing
back across No Man's Land in the regular fashion of prisoners.

"I was looking out for that," said the brigadier, like a lawyer who has
stated his opponent's case; but other commanders had taken the same
precautions with less fortunate results. When he said that he was
"looking out for that" it meant, in his case, that he had so thoroughly
organized his men--and he was not the only brigadier who had, he was a
type--in view of every emergency in "cleaning up" that the Germans did
not outwit them. The half which reached the German trench had the
situation fully in hand and details for the dugouts assigned before they
went on. And they did go on. This was the wonderful thing.

"With your numbers so depleted, wasn't it a question whether or not it
was wise for you to attempt to carry out the full plan?"

He gave me a short look of surprise. I realized that if I had been one
of the colonels and made such a suggestion I should have drawn a curtain
of fire upon myself.

"It was orders," he said, and added: "We did it."

Yes, they did it--when commanding officers, majors and senior captains
were down, when companies without any officers were led by sergeants and
even by corporals who knew what to do, thanks to their training.

In order to reach the final objective the survivors of the first charge
which had gone two hundred yards to the first line must cover another
thousand, which must have seemed a thousand miles; but that was not for
them to consider. The spirit of the resolute man who had drilled them,
if