It came at last, through their shelter--slashed one man across the face,
killed two and left two--smashed the barricade into a scrap-heap. Then
others were brought to stand by. Shells were falling anything from
thirty to forty in the minute. One of the remaining Tasmanian
sergeants--a Lewis gunner--came back from an errand, crawling, wounded
dangerously through the neck. "I don't want to go away," he said. "If I
can't work a Lewis gun, I can sit by another chap and tell him how to."
In the end, when he was sent away, he was seen crawling on two knees and
one hand, guiding with the other hand a fellow gunner who had been hit.

That night a big gun, much bigger than the rest, sent its shells roaring
down through the sky somewhere near. The men would be waked by the
shriek of each shell and then fall asleep and be waked again by the
crash of the explosion. And still they held the trench. And still every
other message ended--"But we will hold on."

They had withdrawn a little to where they could hold during the night;
but before the grey morning, the moment the bombardment had eased, they
crept back again lest the Germans should get there first.

With the light came a reinforcement of new Canadians--grand fellows in
great spirit. And the last Australian was during that morning withdrawn.
It was the most welcome sight in all the world to see those troops come
in. Not that the tired men would ever admit that it was necessary. As
one report from an Australian boy said, "The reinforcement has arrived.
Captain X---- may tell you that the Australians are done. Rot!"

Whether they were done or whether they were not, they spoke of those
Canadian bombers in a way it would have done Canadian hearts good to