Pug cursed wrathfully. “I do b’lieve the blighters is goin’ to get in on us,” he said; and by his tone one might suppose he had only just realized the possibility; was divided between astonishment and anger at it. Kentucky, who had looked on the possibility as a certainty for some little time back, continued to pick a man of the advancing line, snap-shoot hurriedly at him, load and pick another target. And away somewhere in the back of his mind his thoughts worked and worried at the old, irritating puzzle--“Lilies, no; but something like them ... heavy, sweetish ... not lilies ... what other flower, now ...”; Jim, the third Stonewall, glanced back over his shoulder. “Why can’t them fellows back there shoot a bit quicker?” he said irritably. “They’ll have this lot a-top o’ us if they don’t look out.” Kentucky, his fingers slipping in a fresh cartridge-clip, his eye singling out a fresh mark, was slightly amused to notice that this man, too, seemed surprised by the possibility of the Germans breaking through their fire; and all the while “... lilac, stocks, honeysuckle, hyacinth ... hyacinth, hyacinth, no ...”; the Scot lifted the dead man’s rifle and put it on the ledge at his right elbow. “Strewth,” said Pug, with confident cheerfulness. “Won’t our chaps make them ’Uns squeal when they gets close enough for the baynit?” The shells continued to rush and scream overhead, and burst in and over the mass of the attackers. But the front line was well in under this defense now, scrambling and struggling over the broken ground. The nearest groups were within thirty to forty yards. They were near enough now for the bombers to come into play, and from the scattered shell-holes along the British line little black objects began to whirl and soar out into the air, and the sharp crashes of the exploding Mills’ grenades rose rapidly into a constant shattering series that over-ran and drowned out the rolling rifle fire. The ground out in front belched quick spurts of flame and smoke, boiled up anew in another devil’s cauldron of destruction. The advancing Germans were for the moment hidden again behind the swirling smoke bank, but now they too were using their bombs, and the stick-grenades came sailing out of the smoke; curving over, bombing down and rolling or bucketing end over end to burst about the British line. One fell fairly in the shell-crater beside Kentucky, and he had only bare time to grab at it, snatch it up and fling it clear before it burst. And yet, even as he snatched half expecting the thing to go off in his hand, his mind was still running on the memory quest after the elusive name of that scent he had forgotten. The German line emerged from the smoke, raggedly but yet solidly enough to overwhelm the weakened defense. Plainly this was the end. “Roses,” said Kentucky, suddenly and triumphantly. “Roses--tuberoses. That’s it exactly.” CHAPTER XI FORWARD OBSERVING