The enemy had now been cleared from the southern bank of the Marne, but the battle was far from over. The British had yet to cross the fire-swept stream. Our Engineers began to build bridges, but the German guns smashed them again and again. All through the afternoon the Engineers laboured on, only to see their work blown away. Nevertheless they persevered, and by evening a bridge spanned the stream. In the darkness the British began to cross. The passage of the Marne had been won. [Footnote 102: _Koo-lom´mee-ay._ This was the most southerly point reached by the main body of von Kluck's army. His cavalry patrols reached the banks of the Seine.] [Footnote 103: _Mo._] [Footnote 104: Page 198.] [Footnote 105: _La Fer-tā´._] CHAPTER XXV. THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE. Now that the British were across the Marne and on the flank of the Germans defending the Ourcq, von Kluck's forces were bound to retreat without a moment's loss of time. The Allies followed them up with the utmost speed, and drove them onwards towards the Aisne in confusion, though the retreat cannot be called a rout. Before they reached the river the British had captured thirteen guns, seven machine guns, and two thousand prisoners, besides much transport. The 6th French Army was by this time across the Ourcq, and was striving to get to the north of the Germans and cut them off. By night the Zouaves were hurried to Senlis in taxi-cabs, and almost before the brakes had been applied these swarthy, baggy-trousered warriors were falling furiously on the surprised Germans. They literally flung them out of the town, in which they had behaved in the most disgraceful fashion. When the Zouaves attacked them they were sleeping off the effects of eighteen thousand bottles of champagne which they had looted. Still farther to the north there was fierce fighting in the woods of Compiègne, where it is said, though with what truth I do not know, that the Allies repeated the trick practised on Macbeth[106] in the battle which laid him low. You will remember that Macbeth in Shakespeare's play had been warned by a spirit that he would never be vanquished until Birnam[107] wood should come to Dunsinane Hill.[108] When Macbeth's enemies marched against him they made the saying of the spirit come true. They cut down branches from the trees of Birnam wood, and bore them aloft. Macbeth's soldiers were dismayed at the sight, and in the battle which followed the murderer king was slain. In the open country on the edge of Compiègne woods it is said that the Allies provided themselves with bushes and branches, and used them as screens behind which they advanced on the trenches of the foe. When they were fifty or sixty yards away, down went the branches, and forward dashed the soldiers who had been hidden behind them. The Germans were driven from their trenches and fled. [Illustration: German Infantry advancing to a new position. _Photo, Sport and General._]