When he raced with his company into the brickfield, floundering all of them in the dark over piles of bricks and into shell-craters full of water, they found the late occupants of the trench holding a brick-kiln as a defensive work against the irrupting Huns who seemed all over the place. A Sergeant was in charge and gave Ray hasty word of what had happened. Their officers were down, and the enemy’s onrush had been so sudden and overwhelming that it had been impossible to bring in either them or the machine-gun which was on a small platform at this end of the trench. Ray saw his obvious work. He mustered his men behind the kiln, ordered bayonets, explained in two words what was required of them, and then with a cheery, “Strike sure, boys!”--they were off, with a Scottish yell that told the Huns their time was up and their presence there no longer desired. A volley as they ran, and then quick work with the bayonet, and they were at the trench and across it, and that section was momentarily cleared. Hasty search with electric torches--the wounded, including two officers, picked up and sent back,--the machine-gun and ammunition-boxes lifted and carried to the kiln, and as supports for the enemy came piling up and massed in front for another assault, they raced back to cover to prepare his welcome. Ray, strung to concert pitch, flung his orders sharply. “Wounded, down under!--Take those other kilns some of you,--lie flat,--make cover with the bricks! Don’t fire till they’re at the trench. Some of you up here! The rest where you can, and lie low! Up with that Maxim, Mac, and build a bit of a screen! Hand up those boxes, there!” They toiled desperately, piling up little heaps of bricks on top of the kiln, and on the ground bricks, clay, mud, anything for cover, and then they lay flat, with their eyes glued to the parapet of the trench beyond. “Here they come! Now, boys, give them blazes!” and rapider fire than the Hodden-Grays had ever produced in their lives before poured point-blank into the solid dark masses in front. They went down in heaps before the pitiless hail. The rest came floundering over them and went down in turn. On top of the kiln, Ray, with Mac’s good help, kept the Maxim going full blast. He pressed hard on the double button so that the trigger was held back out of the tumbler, and while Mac fed in the feed-belts for dear life, he slowly turned the muzzle from side to side so that the ceaseless stream of bullets met the stumbling line in front like a fiery fan. Nothing human could possibly stand so deadly a flailing. The floundering line yelled and cursed and withered away. That little fight was won. Some of the boys, overstrung and mad with the blood-thirst, were for leaping out after them with the bayonet. But Ray sternly called them back. They had won and he would take no risks.