"Neither poison gas, explosive shells, machine-guns, rifles nor bayonet could stop that rush. Backed up by three brigades of Indian troops, the English charged. They reached the front line of the trenches when once more the ominous yellow-green mist rolled on. In a moment the Indians were encircled by the dead fumes. Many of the men died where they stood. The mephitic cloud passed slowly over, but every man who was not dead was stupefied. Into the mass the rifle and shrapnel fire fell. Of one of the Indian regiments, seventy answered the roll-call that night, in another, only eleven.
"The famous Hill 60 was taken by gas. There, with a favorable wind, the Boches poured out gas in such vast quantities as to eddy and swirl around the base of the hill and finally to submerge it. The crest disappeared from sight like a rock by the advancing tide. Out of the green death, finally, came two men. There appeared staggering towards the dug-out of the commanding officer of the Duke's regiment, two figures, an officer and an orderly. The officer was pale as death and when he spoke, his voice came hoarsely from his throat. Beside him, his orderly, with unbuttoned coat, his rifle clasped in his hand, swayed as he stood. The officer said slowly in his gasping voice:
"'They have gassed the Duke's. I believe I was the last man to leave the hill. The men are all up there dead. They were splendid. I thought I ought to come and report.'
"He died that night."
"But it couldn't be like that now," said Horace, "every one's got a gas-mask."
"That doesn't save everything," the veteran replied. "You've heard the story of the Zouave Bugler's last call?"
"No," said the boy, "tell me."
"It was during a strong German offensive on one of our exposed sectors," the sergeant-major began, "when our front trench was exposed to an extraordinarily intense shell-fire, accompanied by a terrific cloud of asphyxiating gas.
"The few survivors were almost in extremis, fighting furiously and doggedly, though without hope other than that of selling their lives as dearly as they could and sending as many Germans as possible to the halls of death which they had prepared for others.
"Help was absolutely necessary if the position was to be held, and, as the men knew well, if their position fell, others would be in danger. Yet, though reënforcements were imperative, any communication with the second line seemed impossible. The telephone wires were like the trenches, broken and pulverized, and no man could move from that inferno alive.