the steady crackle of bullets sent and the whistle
of bullets received rose the cry of "Doctor! Doctor!" which meant each
time that another Brown rifle had been silenced. The litter bearers,
hard pressed to remove the wounded, left the dead. Already death was a
familiar sight--an article of exchange in which Dellarme's men dealt
freely. The man at Stransky's side had been killed outright. He lay face
down on his rifle stock. His cap had fallen off. Stransky put it back on
the man's head, and the example was followed in other cases. It was a
good idea to keep up a show of a full line of caps to the enemy.

Suddenly, as by command, the fire from the base of the knoll ceased
altogether. Dellarme understood at once what this meant--the next step
in the course of a systematic, irresistible approach by superior
numbers. It was to allow the ground scouts to advance. Individual gray
spots detaching themselves from the gray streak began to crawl upward in
search of dead spaces where the contour of the ground would furnish some
protection from the blaze of bullets from the crest.

"Over their heads! Don't try to hit them!" Dellarme passed the word.

"That's it! Spare one to get a dozen!" said Stransky, grinning in ready
comprehension. He seemed to be grinning every time that Dellarme looked
in that direction. He was plainly enjoying himself. His restless nature
had found sport to its taste.

The creeping scouts must have signalled back good news, for groups began
crawling slowly after them.

"Over their heads! Encourage them!" Dellarme commanded.

After they had advanced two or three hundred yards they stopped,
shoulders and hands exposed in silhouette, and began to work feverishly
with their spades.

"Now let them have it!"

"Oh, beautiful!" cried Stransky. "That baby captain of ours has some
brains, after all! We'll get them now and we'll get them when they run!"

But they did not run. Unfalteringly they took their punishment while
they turned over the protecting sod in the midst of their own dead and
wounded. In a few minutes they had dropped spades for rifles, and other
sections either crawled or ran forward precipitately and fell to the
task of joining the isolated beginnings into a single trench.

Again Dellarme looked toward regimental headquarters, his fixed, cheery
smile not wholly masking the appeal in his eyes. The Grays had only two
or three hundred yards to go when they should make their next charge in
or