‘We’ll do that all right,’ said the lieutenant confidently. ‘We’ll be cornered soon, but there’s enough of us left to make them feel our teeth. And anyhow, we’ve made them pay a pretty full price already for this patch of ground,’ and he motioned with his hand out towards where the open out in front of their trench was carpeted thick with the German dead.
An orderly, stooping low, splashed along the trench to them. ‘The wire’s through again, sir,’ he said, ‘and Brigade wishes to speak to you if you can spare a minute.’ He said nothing of how the wire had been got through, or of how its repairing had cost another good half-dozen casualties—which in itself is another tale well worth the telling. The Captain went to the telephone dug-out and crawled into the shallow, wet-dripping cave and called the Brigade and spoke with them there for five minutes. The Adjutant who was at the other end was an old personal friend of the Captain’s, but chiefly because neither knew the instant the wire might be cut again they first talked strict business and left personal affairs out of it.
‘Brigadier says to ask what chance have you,’ asked the Adjutant abruptly. ‘How much longer can you hold on?’
‘Ten minutes after they attack in force,’ said the Captain with equal brevity; ‘fifteen with luck; twenty at the outside. Trenches across the road are gone, you know, and we’re getting cut up badly with enfilade fire now. There’s nothing to stop them getting round behind us, so I expect to be attacked front, rear, and flank. We can’t stand that off long.’
‘They’ve managed to spare us a few companies of supports,’ said the Adjutant quickly. ‘They’re occupying the line behind you now, and the moment they’re ready they’ll be pushed up to help hold your trenches and retake the ones on your flank.’
‘If they don’t hurry,’ said the Captain, ‘they’ll have the job of retaking both lots. By the sound of the firing I fancy the attack is coming now. I must get along and see.’
‘All right. Good luck, Jacky.’
‘Good-bye,’ said the Captain. ‘You know the messages I’d like sent if.... And tell the General we held on to the end. Good-bye.’
He was gone, and at the other end the Adjutant sat for some minutes listening to the empty singing of the wire. That cut off suddenly to the flat deadness that means a broken connection, and the Adjutant dropped the useless instrument and hurried out to try to catch a glimpse of the last act. It was little enough he could see, for a driving misty rain obscured the view again; but from that little and from the fragments that he gathered after from the handful of wounded brought in, it was easy enough to piece out the finish.
The attack developed, as the Captain had predicted, on front, rear, and flank. Under cover of a storm of frontal and enfilade fire the Germans swarmed up along the rear of the battalion’s trenches. A score or two of men were faced about to try to beat back this rear attack, but their bullets were as powerless to stop it as pebbles flung in the face of a breaking wave. The rear attack secured a footing in the trenches and began to spread slowly along them. Their progress was disputed furiously, but in the end the remnants of the battalion were beaten back to a point where a couple of shallow communication trenches ran back to the supporting trench on the one side, and another branched off forward to the ruins of the front-line trench. Even then a few score men might have saved themselves by taking the road to the rear. None did, but to the last man turned frontward and joined the handful of their fellows. In the end the remains of the battalion clung together to a few yards of battered trench that twisted about the telephone dug-out, and finished out the fight there.