Our officers knew full well that the roar of the guns was the signal for the German infantry to advance. For a time nothing could be seen of them, for they took cover well, and their bluish gray uniforms seemed to melt into the leafy background. Our officers, who were eagerly scanning the landscape with field-glasses, only saw them when they began to open fire with rifles and machine guns. The Germans believed that if they kept up a fierce artillery fire on our trenches our men would become so terrified that they would scuttle from their burrows like rabbits at the approach of a ferret. They did not then know of what stuff British soldiers are made. No fighters in the world are so cool and dogged; none can take such severe punishment without flinching, or wait so patiently for the right moment to advance. And now the blue-gray masses of the Germans came into full view. They made desperate attacks near Binche, where, owing to the retirement of the French, the flank was exposed to a turning movement. Some of the troops who were to help in holding this part of the line had only just arrived, after a long and trying march under a hot sun, and were busy "digging themselves in" while the shrapnel was bursting over them. When the infantry of the enemy began to appear our soldiers had three surprises. In the sham battles which they had fought at Aldershot or on Salisbury Plain they had learned to fire at men moving forward in a thin, extended line, with eight or ten paces between them. To their amazement they saw the Germans coming on in dense masses, as though they were parading in the streets of Potsdam. Our men grasped their rifles and waited until the enemy came within six or seven hundred yards of them. On rolled the Germans, singing their national songs, and believing that they could sweep the British out of their trenches by sheer weight of numbers. At last the word was given, and a tornado of rifle and machine-gun fire crashed down upon the dense masses. Our men fired as steadily as though they were shooting at targets in time of peace. Not a shot was wasted; every bullet found its billet. "The Germans were in solid square blocks, standing out sharply against the skyline," wrote Sergeant Loftus, "and you couldn't help hitting them. It was like butting your head against a stone wall." Before the rapid fire and sure aim of the British the hosts of the enemy went down in heaps. "It was like cutting hay," said a private. In one place there was a breastwork of German dead and wounded five feet high, and our soldiers had to leave their trenches in order to see the foe. The second surprise was the poor shooting of the German infantry. They fired as they marched, with their rifles at their hips. Though thousands of their bullets whizzed by, very few of them found a mark. "They can't shoot for nuts," said one Tommy; "they couldn't hit a haystack." "They couldn't hit the gas works at Mons," said another. "If they had, I wouldn't be here."