And that same evening of October 26 this trench--or another--was again attacked, and was only saved for us by a prodigy of heroism. The enemy had advanced to within a few yards, and charged, shouting "Hurrah!" Our machine-guns were very dirty and would not work.[54] But Lieutenant Martin des Pallières was in command of the section. It was holding the road to Woumen, between the wall of the cemetery and a trench dug on the other side in a beetroot field. Des Pallières sprang upon the parapet. "Boys," he cried, "we must receive these gentry with cold steel. Fix bayonets!" And when one of the Marines, a Parisian, who had charged too vigorously, lamented the loss of his "hat-pin" (his bayonet), which he had left in a German hide, Des Pallières replied: "Do as I do; charge with your head."[55] The next day he was killed by a shell. Meanwhile the brigade had passed under the command of General Grossetti, who had undertaken the defence of the line of the Yser as far as, and inclusive of, Dixmude (detachment of the army of Belgium under General d'Urbal). The day of the 27th passed without an attack in force; the enemy merely bombarded us. He gave us time to breathe the following night and morning till 9 a.m. Then the hurly-burly began again. An officer of the Naval Reserve who received his baptism of fire that day, Lieutenant Alfred de la Barre de Nanteuil, grandson of General Le Flô, wrote to his family that he had been specially favoured. "It was a fine christening, plenty of sweetmeats, the whole show, bullets, shrapnel, and, above all, the famous 'saucepans' (_marmites_). Chance treated me well." In his section alone there were four killed, twelve wounded, and eleven missing. This was the prelude to a sudden attack, directed against the trenches in the cemetery, to which the enemy paid particular attention. But we knew this, and had put our steadiest troops there. The attack was again repulsed, thanks mainly to the firmness of the first musketry instructor, Le Breton, who had already been wounded on the 24th, and who took command of the company when all the officers had been put out of action.[56]