"Up and at them!" then, with fresh battalions hurried up so rapidly that they had hardly time to deploy, but answering the order for action with the spirit of men who have been stalled in trenches and liked the new experience of stretching their legs. With a taste of victory, nothing could stop these highstrung reserves, except the things that kill and wound. The first charge had succeeded and the second must succeed. German guns had done the customary thing by laying barrages back of the new line across the field and shelling the crest of the Ridge to prevent supports from coming up. It was quite correct form for the German commander to consider the ceremony of the day over. The enemy had taken his objective. Of course, he would not try for another immediately. Meanwhile, his tenure of new line must be made as costly as possible. But this time the enemy did not act according to rules. He made some new ones. The reserve battalions which were to undertake the storming of the village had gone over the ground under the barrages and were up to the first objective, and when through the new line occupied by the men who made the first charge they could begin their own charge. As barrages are intermittent, one commander had his men lie down behind one until it had ceased. Again, after waiting on another for a while he decided that he might be late in keeping his engagement in Courcelette and gave the order to go through, which, as one soldier said, "we did in a hundred-yard dash sprinting a double quick--good reason why!" When the fresh wave passed the fellows in the new line the winners of the first objective called, "Go to it!" "You'll do it!" "Hurrah for Canada!" and added touches of characteristic dry humor which shell fire makes a little drier, such as a request to engage seats for the theatre at Courcelette that evening. Consider that these battalions which were to take Courcelette had to march about two miles under shell fire, part of the way over ground that was spongy earth cut by shell-craters, before they could begin their charge and that they were undertaking an innovation in tactics, and you have only half an understanding of their task. Their officers were men out of civil life in every kind of occupation, learning their war in the Ypres salient stalemate, and now they were to have the severest possible test in directing their units in an advance.