Months of diligent and stupendous labour had not been spent in vain. At one stroke the culminating moment had done more than hours of intensive bombardment. With little risk the British troops were able to sweep the position that for two years had defied their efforts.
Yet the New Zealanders were not to have a "walk over". From the heavy guns, well behind the pulverized ridge, shells were bursting in front and behind the trenches. Hostile machine-guns that had almost inexplicably escaped the general carnage were spitting venomously, while in the front German trenches, which were on comparatively level ground to the east of the Messines Ridge, a hot but erratic rifle-fire was directed upon the khaki-clad stormers.
On and on Malcolm ran, his face turned towards the two lines of sand-bags beyond which the Huns were still putting up a fight. Whether Fortescue and Selwyn were with him he knew not. The resolution he had made to keep with his chums was gone. His sole desire was to reach the hostile trenches and battle with the field-grey enemy.
Men were running in front of him. Swift of foot though he was, there were others who surpassed in the maddening rush. More than once he had to leap over the writhing bodies of gallant Anzacs who had gone down in the charge. He was dimly conscious of khaki-clad forms crashing heavily to the ground on either side, of a whizz of flying metal that sent his steel helmet spinning, of a sharp, burning pain in his left wrist, and of a dozen other mental and physical sensations.
In the midst of a regular mob of panting, yelling, and shouting men, and preceded by a terrific fusillade of Mills's bombs, Malcolm found himself struggling through masses of partly-severed barbed wire and up on the hostile parapet.
The ruddy glare from the exploding missiles revealed a line of cowed, terrified men, some with "pill-box" caps, others with the typical "Dolly Varden" steel helmets. With uplifted hands and tremulous cries of "Kamerad!" they bowed to the inevitable, and almost contemptuously were sent through the crowd of New Zealanders to the British lines.
Other Huns were made of sterner stuff, and offered a stubborn resistance. With rifle-shots, bayonets, clubbed weapons, and bombs they contested their ground. Machine-gunners used their deadly weapons with desperate energy, until they were stretched out by the sides of their now silent charges. The air was heavy with suffocating smoke; fragments of shell were flying with complete impartiality; shouts, oaths, and curses punctuated the crash of steel and the rattle of musketry, as men in their blind ferocity clutched at each other's throats and rolled in mortal combat upon the ground.
Presently Rifleman Malcolm Carr found himself confronted by a tall, bearded Prussian, whose head-dress consisted of a steel helmet, with a visor completely covering the upper part of his face as far as his mouth. Even in the heat of combat Malcolm could not help noticing the incongruity of the bristling whiskers flowing beyond the fellow's face-armour. It was one of those transitory yet indelibly-stamped impressions that are frequently formed in times of imminent danger.
The Prussian lunged with his bayonet. Malcolm promptly turned it aside and countered. His bayonet, darting above the other's belated guard, caught the Hun fairly in the lower part of his chest.
With a disconcerting jar that wellnigh dislocated his wrist, and sent a numbing pain through his right arm, the lad realized that he was up against great odds. The Prussian was wearing a steel breastplate underneath his tunic. Malcolm could imagine the grin of supercilious triumph under the Hun's mask. He shortened his grasp and thrust again, this time at the Fritz's shoulder. The man, despite the handicap of wearing heavy steel plates, ducked agilely, and, reversing his rifle, prodded the New Zealander with the butt of his weapon. Stepping backwards to avoid the blow, Malcolm tripped over some obstacle and fell heavily into a still-intact emplacement.