with combatants who fought on furiously, heedless of whether friend or foe held trench to front or rear, intent only on the business at their own bayonet points, to kill the enemy facing them and push in and kill the ones behind. Fresh supports pressed into the captured positions, and, backed by their weight, the attack surged on again in a fresh spasm of fury. It secured foothold in great sections of the third line, and even, without waiting to see the whole of it made good, attempted to rush the fourth line. At one or two points the gallant attempt succeeded, and a handful of men hung on desperately for some hours, their further advance impossible, their retreat, had they attempted it, almost equally so, cut off from reinforcements, short of ammunition, and entirely without bombs or grenades. When their ammunition was expended they used rifles and cartridges taken from the enemy dead in the trench; having no grenades they snatched and hurled back on the instant any that fell with fuses still burning. They waged their unequal fight to the last minute and were killed out to the last man. The third line was not completely held or even taken. One or two loopholed and machine-gunned dug-out redoubts, or 'keeps,' held out strenuously, and before they could be reduced--entrance being gained at last literally by tearing the place down sandbag by sandbag till a hole was made and grenade after grenade flung in--other parts of the trench had been recaptured. The weak point that so often hampers attack was making itself felt. The bombers and 'grenadiers' had exhausted the stock they carried; fresh supplies were scanty, were brought up with difficulty, and distributed to the most urgently required places with still greater difficulty. The ammunition carriers had to cross the open of the old neutral ground, the battered first trench, pass along communication trenches choked with dead and wounded, or again cross the open to the second and third line. All the time they were under the fire of high-explosive shells and had to pass through a zone or 'barrage' of shrapnel built across their path for just this special purpose of destroying supports and supplies. Our own artillery were playing exactly the same game behind the enemy lines, but in these lines were ample stores of cartridges and grenades, bombs, and trench-mortars. The third and fourth lines were within easy bomb- and grenade-throwing distance, and were connected by numerous passage-ways. On this front the contest became a bombing duel, and because the British were woefully short of bombs and the enemy could throw five to their one, they were once again 'bombed out' and forced to retire. But by now the second trench had been put in some state of defence towards its new front, and here the British line stayed fast and set its teeth and doggedly endured the torment of the bombs and the destruction of the pounding shells. Without rest or respite they endured till night,