That was the moment which was chosen by one of the party to go along and
see that the men were all right. There was a sentry in the next bay of
the trench. All by himself, but "right as rain," as he puts it. Shrapnel
was breaking in showers on the parapet, swishing overhead like driven
hail. While the enemy is bursting shell on your parapet he cannot come
there himself. Provided that your sentry's nerves are all right, and
that a "crump" does not drop right into his little section of trench,
there is not much that can go wrong. And there is nothing much wanting
in the nerves of this infantry.

However, something had clearly gone wrong with this attack. It was
quite obvious that the enemy somehow or another knew that it was coming
off, and where; for he had begun to shoot back within a very few minutes
of our opening shot, and he was shooting very hard. Clearly he had
noticed some point in our preparations, and he too had prepared. "I will
teach these people a lesson this time," he thought, as he laid his guns
on the likely section.

Right in the midst of all this uproar we heard one of his machine-guns
cracking overhead. Then another joined in--we could hear them traversing
from flank to front and round to flank again. "Of course, the raiders
cannot have got in," one thought. "Perhaps he has seen them crossing No
Man's Land, and those machine-guns are on to them in the open. Poor
beggars! Not much chance for them now"--and one shivered at the thought
of them out there, open and defenceless to that hail. As the minutes
slipped on towards the hour, and our bombardment slackened, but the
enemy's did not, and no one stirred at all in the trenches, one felt
quite sure of it--of course, we had failed this time--well, we ought to
expect such failures; we cannot always hope to jump into German trenches