limber up and hurry away with the field guns which for a fortnight had
been firing upon our men.

The Germans have twice afterwards attacked that position. In the early
light of the first morning a party of them came tumbling up from some
trench against a sector of the captured line. In front of them was an
officer, well ahead, firing his automatic pistol as he went, levelling
it first at one Australian, then at another, as he saw them in the
trenches before him. He was shot, and the attack quickly melted; it
never seemed very serious. Two days later, after a long, heavy
bombardment, the Germans attacked again--this time about fifteen hundred
of them. They penetrated the two trenches at one point, but our company
officers, again acting on their own initiative, charged them straight,
on the instant, without hesitation. Every German in that section was
captured, and a few Australians, whom they had taken, were released.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE GREEN COUNTRY

_France, August 28th._


For a mile the country had been flayed. The red ribs of it lay open to
the sky. The whole flank of the ridge had been torn open--it lies there
bleeding, gaping open to the callous skies with scarcely so much as a
blade of grass or a thistle to clothe its nakedness--covered with the