The two tanks, so inadequate for their task, did not go far before both were hit. The infantry came near enough to the Ogons to realize that at the ratio of the increasing resistance our survivors who reached it would be hopelessly unequal to taking the machine-guns firing from its edge. Withdrawal was necessary to the south slopes of the crest in the rear, Hill 274, if the troops in their present position were not to be offered as sacrifice to the nests of artillery the enemy now had in position. Undaunted by the shell-fire on the road, the transport was able that night to reach Montfaucon, which was kept under such a heavy bombardment that there was no going farther without blocking the road with wreckage. Though in a trance of weariness, carrying parties brought the food and other supplies three miles through the zone of shell-fire to the front. A willing horse was still to be driven for another day. The 79th was to be sent against the slopes of the whale-back. Morning revealed the enemy's artillery in still greater force; and there was mockery for the men as they breasted it in the sight of a German observation balloon, lazily floating above the whale-back and directing the guns in firing on any parties who might have found ravines or slopes out of sight of observers from the heights. All day the left strove for gains in fitful attacks, and gained some three hundred yards. The right, in a determination that shell-fire could not balk, reached the edge of the Ogons Wood. That was something; courage's final defiance in its exhaustion, before the thin line, which had looked into the recesses where the hidden machine-guns opened upon them, withdrew to their former position. The 79th was "expended," to use the military phrase; and the meaning of that was in the hollow eyes of pasty faces and in dragging footsteps. On the 30th its part was that of the other divisions from the Meuse to the Forest, hugging the pits it had dug under shell-fire. In the afternoon it was relieved by the veteran 3rd Division. Having brought the account of the battle down to the standstill which closed the first stage, we may now turn our attention to the American divisions which were engaged with Allied armies in other decisive attacks of this crucial period. XIII OVER THE HINDENBURG LINE New York and the South on the British front--Up the Somme valley in the wake of the Australians--The Saint-Quentin Canal tunnel--Another ambitious plan--The simplicity of success in the attack of the 30th Division--The Pickett's charge of the 27th--A mêlée on the open slopes--In which the Australians take a hand--The German hinge at Bony holds--Australia carries on--The western front in movement--The British again in Le Cateau--Our part in the advance to Valenciennes.