they might be rushed now, for the Germans were swarming
up Big Willie with strong bombing-parties, and would soon blast a way
through unless they were thrust beyond the range of hand-grenades. It
was a young lieutenant named Hawker, with some South Staffordshire men,
who went forward to meet this attack and kept the enemy back until four
o'clock in the afternoon, when only a few living men stood among the
dead and they had to fall back to the second barrier.

Darkness now crept over the battlefield and filled the trenches, and in
the darkness the wounded men were carried back to the rear, while those
who had escaped worked hard to strengthen their defenses by sand-bags
and earthworks, knowing that their only chance of life lay in fierce
industry.

Early next morning an attempt was made by other battalions to come to
the relief of those who held on behind those barriers in Big Willie
trench. They were Nottingham men--Robin Hoods and other Sherwood
lads--and they came across the open ground in two directions, attacking
the west as well as the east ends of the German communication trenches
which formed the face of the Hohenzollern redoubt.

They were supported by rifle grenade-fire, but their advance was met by
intense fire from artillery and machine-guns, so that many were blown
to bits or mangled or maimed, and none could reach their comrades in Big
Willie trench.

While one brigade of the Midland men had been fighting like this on
the right, another brigade had been engaged on the left. It contained
Sherwood, Leicester, and Lincoln men, who, on the afternoon of October
13th, went forward to the assault with very desperate endeavor.
Advancing in four lines, the leading companies were successful in
reaching the Hohenzollern redoubt, smashed through the barbed wire, part
of which was uncut, and reached the Fosse trench which forms the north
base of the salient.

Machine-gun fire cut down the first two lines severely and the two
remaining lines were heavily shelled by German artillery. It was an hour
in which the courage of those men was agonized. They were exposed on
naked ground swept by bullets, the atmosphere was heavy with gas and
smoke; all the abomination of battle--he moaning of the wounded, the
last cries of the dying, the death-crawl of stricken beings holding
their broken limbs and their entrails--was around them, and in front
a hidden enemy with unlimited supplies of ammunition and a better
position.

Th