But the German troops were fighting what they knew to be a losing
battle. They were fighting rear-guard actions, trying to gain time for
the hasty digging of ditches behind them, trying to sell their lives
at the highest price.
They lived not only under incessant gun-fire, gradually weakening
their nerve-power, working a physical as well as a moral change in
them, but in constant terror of British attacks.
They could never be sure of safety at any hour of the day or night,
even in their deepest dugouts. The British varied their times of
attack. At dawn, at noon, when the sun was reddening in the west, just
before the dusk, in pitch darkness, even, the steady, regular
bombardment that had never ceased all through the days and nights
would concentrate into the great tumult of sudden drum-fire, and
presently waves of men--English or Scottish or Irish, Australians or
Canadians--would be sweeping on to them and over them, rummaging down
into the dugouts with bombs and bayonets, gathering up prisoners,
quick to kill if men were not quick to surrender.
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