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One of our officers leading the assault on one of the craters on the
right was killed very quickly, but his men were not checked, and with
individual resolution and initiative, and the grit of the Lancashire
man in a tight place, fought on grimly, and won their purpose.
A young lieutenant fell dead from a bullet wound after he had directed
his men to their posts from the lip of a new mine-crater, as coolly as
though he were a master of ceremonies in a Lancashire ballroom.
Another, a champion bomb-thrower, with a range of forty yards, flung
his hand-grenades at the enemy with untiring skill and with a fierce
contempt of death, until he was killed by an answering shot. The
N.C.O.'s took up the command and the men "carried on" until they held
all the chain of craters, crouching and panting above mangled men.
They were hours of anguish for many Germans, who lay wounded and half
buried, or quite buried, in the chaos, of earth made by those mine-
craters now doubly upheaved.


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