His men had gone over the "lid" in excellent fashion, quite on time. He had seen at once what they were in for, but he had no doubt that they would keep on, for he had warned them to expect machine gun fire and told them what to do in case it came. They applied the system in which he had trained them with a coolness that won his approbation as a directing expert--his matter-of-fact approbation in the searching analysis of every detail, with no ecstasies about their unparalleled gallantry. He expected them to be gallant. However, I could imagine that if you said a word against them his eyes would flash indignation. They were his men and he might criticize them, but no one else might except a superior officer. The first wave reached the first-line German trench on time, that is, half of them did; the rest, including more than half of the officers, were down, dead or wounded, in No Man's Land in the swift crossing of two hundred yards of open space. He had watched their advance from the first-line British trench. Later, when the situation demanded it, I learned that he went up to the captured German line and on to the final objective, but this fact was drawn out of him. It might lead to a misunderstanding; you might think that he had been taking as much risk as his officers and men, and risk of any kind for him was an incident of the business of managing a brigade. "How about the dugouts?" I asked. This was an obvious question. The trouble on July 1st had been, as we know, that the Germans hiding in their dugouts had rushed forth as soon as the British curtain of fire lifted and sometimes fought the British in the trench traverses with numbers superior. Again, they had surrendered, only to overpower their guards, pick up rifles and man their machine guns after the first wave had passed on, instead of filing back across No Man's Land in the regular fashion of prisoners. "I was looking out for that," said the brigadier, like a lawyer who has stated his opponent's case; but other commanders had taken the same precautions with less fortunate results. When he said that he was "looking out for that" it meant, in his case, that he had so thoroughly organized his men--and he was not the only brigadier who had, he was a type--in view of every emergency in "cleaning up" that the Germans did not outwit them. The half which reached the German trench had the situation fully in hand and details for the dugouts assigned before they went on. And they did go on. This was the wonderful thing. "With your numbers so depleted, wasn't it a question whether or not it was wise for you to attempt to carry out the full plan?" He gave me a short look of surprise. I realized that if I had been one of the colonels and made such a suggestion I should have drawn a curtain of fire upon myself. "It was orders," he said, and added: "We did it."