``Very lucky they was, the Daleswood men. They'd lost no more than
five killed and a good sprinkling of wounded. But all the wounded was
back again with the platoon. This was up to March when the big
offensive started.

``It came very sudden. No bombardment to speak of. Just a burst of Tok
Emmas going off all together and lifting the front trench clean out of
it; then a barrage behind, and the Boche pouring over in thousands.
`Our luck is holding good,' the Daleswood men said, for their trench
wasn't getting it at all. But the platoon on their right got it. And
it sounded bad too a long way beyond that. No one could be quite sure.
But the platoon on their right was getting it: that was sure enough.

``And then the Boche got through them altogether. A message came to
say so. `How are things on the right?' they said to the runner. `Bad,'
said the runner, and he went back, though Lord knows what he went back
to. The Boche was through right enough. `We'll have to make a
defensive flank,' said the platoon commander. He was a Daleswood man
too. Came from the big farm. He slipped down a communication trench
with a few men, mostly bombers. And they reckoned they wouldn't see
any of them any more, for the Boche was on the right, thick as
starlings.

``The bullets were snapping over thick to keep them down while the
Boche went on, on the right: machine guns, of course. The barrage was
screaming well over and dropping far back, and their wire was still
all right just in front of them, when they put up a head to look.
There was the left platoon of the battalion. One doesn't bother,
somehow, so much about another battalion as one's own. One's own gets
sort of homely. And there they were wondering how their own officer