‘Funny thing,’ said Sergeant Ruff grimly, ‘I don’t seem to ’ave ’eard no singin’ lately. P’raps them Prussians ’as found out they come to the wrong room for the smokin’ concert.’
The respite was very short. Another mass of Germans swarmed out from their trenches and came on at a hard run, and again the British rifles broke out in a devastating whirlwind of fire. The attack was pushed harder and closer this time, till the defenders of the trench could simply point their rifles and fire without putting eye to sights and yet not miss because of the nearness and size of the target. Again the attack broke, or rather it was withered and burnt away as it came and came into the face of the furnace-blast of fire; but this time the battalion did not cease to work bolt and trigger at top speed, because on their flank across the road the rush had come further and was already in places pouring in and down over the trenches. The regiment there had to give up the bullet for the bayonet and fight now for their bare lives; but the weight of numbers was too much for them, and gradually, still fighting fiercely, they were overborne, pressed back, thrust from the trenches yard by yard, killed where they stood in the parts where they still clung stubbornly and refused to budge. The regiment was practically annihilated, and their trenches were in the hands of the enemy.
‘Now,’ said Sergeant Ruff, ‘this is where we gets ready to hang out the “House Full” sign.’
‘Going to be a regular Guest Night in Mess, eh, sergeant? and every prospect of a full table,’ said a youthful lieutenant, grinning—and fell forward in the sergeant’s arms with the laugh still on his lips and a bullet through his heart.
The Colonel had been killed by a shell the first day, and before he went he passed the word to the next senior, ‘Don’t forget, Major ... simple orders ... hold on at all costs.’
The Major was not long in command before he was out of action with a shattered thigh, and following him acting C.O. after C.O. was killed or wounded, until now the command was in the hands of the only captain left in the battalion. And each C.O. in turn received or knew his simple orders—‘Hold on at all costs,’ and no C.O. of them all had any doubt as to how they were to be carried out.
So it was that when the trenches on their flank went, and the immediate prospect before the battalion was of out-and-out annihilation, the Captain made his way round the trenches, splashing through muddy pools streaked and tinted with crimson, stumbling over the dead, stepping as carefully as might be over the men too sorely wounded to move aside, and repeated to his few remaining officers and senior N.C.O.’s the clear instructions, ‘Hold on at all costs.’
‘Not much doubt, sir, of how much the cost will be,’ one very junior lieutenant answered him.
‘No,’ said the Captain gravely; ‘but we’ve done our job so far, and that’s always something. Now we’ve only to make a good finish to it.’