s remnants faced an
impassable curtain of fire which fenced them in and they dropped into
shell-craters and held up their hands, which was the only thing to do.

Soon the Germans learned, too, how to make the most of shell-craters.
The harder the Australians fought the greater the spur to German pride
not to be beaten by these supposedly undisciplined, untrained men. The
Germans called for more guns and got them. Mouquet Farm became a
fortress of machine guns. It was not taken by the Australians--their
successors took what was left of it. The nearer they came to the crest
which was their supreme goal the ghastlier and more concentrated grew
the shell fire, as the German guns had only to range on the skyline. But
this equally applied to Australian gunners as the Germans were crowded
toward the summit where the debris of the windmill remained, till
finally they had to fall back to the other side.

Then they tried sweeping over the Ridge from the cover of the reverse
slope in counter-attacks, only to be whipped by machine gun fire, lashed
by shrapnel and crushed by high explosives--themselves mixed with the
ruins of the windmill. At last they gave up the effort. It was not in
German discipline to make any more attempts.

The Australians had the windmill as much as anyone had it as, for a
time, it was in No Man's Land where blasts of shells would permit of no
occupation. But the symbol for which it stood was there in readiness as
a jumping-off place for the sweep-down into the valley later on when the
Canadians should take the place of the Australians; and before they
retired they could look in triumph across at Thiepval and down on
Courcelette and Martinpuich and past the valley to Bapaume.

The development of the campaign had given the Australians work suited to
their bent when this war of machinery, attaining its supreme complexity
on the Somme, left the human machine between walls of shell fire to
fight it out individually against the human machine, in a contest of
will, courage, audacity, alertness and resource, man to man. "Advance,
Australia!" is the Australian motto; and the Australians advanced.

The New Zealanders had their part elsewhere and played it in the New
Zealand way.

"They have never failed to take an objective set them," said a general
after the taking of Flers, "and they have always gained their positions
with slight losses."

Could there be higher praise? Success and thrift, courage and skill i