At about three in the afternoon we saw a figure approaching our trenches and by his style we knew it to be our dear old major. On he came in spite of the fire.
By this time Fritz was spraying our parapet top with machine guns and we knew he was at last going to try us. Still, on came the old soldier. He was well over sixty, but a hero's heart belonged to him. Orders had come through from headquarters for the Fifth to retire and all the staff at headquarters had been either killed or wounded with the exception of the major and Captain Hillion, our adjutant, a soldier from his feet up. These two decided, after vainly trying the field telephone, to give us our orders by word of mouth and they set out on foot.
Captain Hillion was hit before he had gone fifty yards and the old major was left to make it alone. He managed to get within fifty yards of us and then received two bullets in his body. And then the wonder of it—the sheer, dogged spirit of that old warrior! Above everything we heard his yell of pain, yet instead of giving up, he gathered himself together and with a staggering run reached the trench and collapsed. Not till he had delivered his message did he give way and swoon.
Things now were stirring with a vengeance. We knew by the cessation of the shell fire over our trenches that they were coming. I looked through a loophole and my heart seemed to choke in my throat. If it had not been more dangerous to run than to stay where I was, I would have been running yet. To my magnified imagination I never believed the earth held so many people. They came swarming over their parapet in huge waves, the flash of their bayonets making my spine crawl. Singing, cheering, cursing and shouting, they came on, but we never fired a shot.
"Not till they are near our barbed wire," was the order.
"Oh, if I could only fire!" I groaned mentally.
On they came with trumpets continually playing their charge. At last the order came. "Fire!" and when I saw them falling in heaps, every drop of blood in my body surged with a desire to kill and I blazed away into the mass of shrieking humanity as fast as my fingers could click the shells in and out of my rifle. I could not miss them if I tried, so thick were they.
We checked them momentarily, but suddenly bullets began to come at us from our rear and we knew they had broken through somewhere and were behind us. The mob in front having quit for awhile, we waited for the next move. The bullets from behind kept us wondering where they had made a gap in our lines.
"Get ready to retire," came the order, so we slipped off all but our ammunition and water; few of us had any of the precious liquid left.
Little Hilliard, who was next to me, said, "Well, Bub, we'll have a cigarette anyway before we cash in." "All right," I replied and we rolled a cigarette apiece, thinking we were having our last smoke. We did not know for sure, but guessed that we were surrounded. Our lack of knowledge of our own situation may seem curious, but a modern battle field is on such a vast scale that only in your immediate neighborhood do you know what is happening. In these (for me) dull piping times of peace, when I look back and scan my memory over the individual behavior of my chums, the nerve they displayed surpasses my power of description. As we were lying there smoking what I thought was to be our last fag, I was utterly amazed at the next words of Hilliard: