On the 7th the 1st, which had been under the First Corps, was transferred to the Fifth, and its front extended to include Hill 269. It was now time for the division engineers, who had been working night and day on the roads, to cease their idling and begin fighting. The battalion which was sent to take over 269 from the 32nd was soon to find what store the Germans set by it, once they realized the blunder that had allowed it to slip out of their hands. The enemy's artillery proceeded to make this sharply defined cone a pillar of hell; but the engineers were used to digging, and they dug with a vengeance. They were also used to sticking on the job. In the face of counter-attacks, supported by a rain of shells and bullets of artillery and machine-gun barrages, they held their ground in the midst of fountains of earth and flying débris and frightful casualties, with that resolution in which every man, no matter how many of his comrades are killed, determines that he will not yield alive. After the driving of the wedge to Fléville and the taking of Montrefagne, the 1st had been badly shattered. The heavy rains had made the holding of the eastern wall of the Aire under the murderously accurate flanking fire from the western wall all the more horrible. Transport was being regularly shelled; woods, where reserves might take cover, were being gassed. Not only was the doctrine of the 1st never to yield ground taken upheld at every point, but it was continuing to improve its position on the 7th and 8th while it reorganized its available forces, steadily reduced by casualties, in an undaunted offensive spirit. The 28th having taken the Châtel-Chéhéry heights of the opposite valley wall, and the 82nd attacking the Cornay heights, the 9th was chosen as the day when the hammer should again begin pounding the wedge into the ramparts ahead. By this time the 1st had had over 5,000 casualties, representing more than one-third of its infantry. There was an old rule that when a third of your men were out of action it was time for retreat. This had ceased to apply in the Great War; it was hardly a view that Summerall would hold. The 1st had not yet finished its task, and he meant that it should be finished. There could be no question of fatigue, or excuses. More engineers were summoned into line; everything that veteran experience could arrange was ready. The ammunition supply and the transport were up; the hospital service was prepared for heavy casualties. Every man's jaw was set for a final triumphant drive which should finally clear the wall of the Aire.