lians came on too fast.
Meanwhile, they were on one side of the street and the Germans on the
other, hugging debris and sniping at one another. Now the man-to-man
business began to count. The Australian got across the street; he went
after the other fellow; he made a still hunt of it. This battle had
become a personal matter which pleased their sense of individualism; for
it is not bred into Australians to be afraid if they are out alone after
dark.

Having worked beyond their first objective, when they were given as
their second the rest of the village they took it; and they were not
"biffed" out of it, either. What was the use of yielding ground when you
would have to make another charge in order to regain what had been lost?
They were not that kind of arithmeticians, they said. They believed in
addition not subtraction in an offensive campaign.

So they stuck, though the Germans made repeated daring counter-attacks
and poured in shell fire from the guns up Thiepval way and off Bapaume
way with hellish prodigality. For the German staff was evidently much
out of temper about the "blunder" and for many weeks to come were to
continue pounding Pozieres. If they could not shake the Australian out
of the village they meant to make him pay heavy taxes and to try to kill
his reliefs and stop his supplies. How the Australians managed to get
food and men up through the communication trenches under the unceasing
inferno over that bare slope is tribute to their skill in slipping out
and in between its blasts.

Not only were they able to hold, but they kept on attacking. Every day
we heard that they had taken more ground and whenever we went out to
have a look the German lines were always a little farther back. One day
we were asking if the Australians were in the cemetery yet; the next
day they were and the next they had more of it as they worked their way
uphill, fighting from grave to grave; and the next day they had mastered
all of it, thanks to a grim persistence which some had said would not
comport with their highstrung temperament.

The windmill was a landmark crowning the Ridge; as fair a target as ever
artillery ranged on--a gunner's delight. After having been knocked into
splinters the splinters were spread about by high explosives which
reduced the stone base to fragments.

Sunburned, gaunt battalions came out of the vortex for a turn of rest.
With helmets battered by shrapnel bullets, after nights in the rain and