‘They’ve managed to spare us a few companies of supports,’ said the Adjutant quickly. ‘They’re occupying the line behind you now, and the moment they’re ready they’ll be pushed up to help hold your trenches and retake the ones on your flank.’ ‘If they don’t hurry,’ said the Captain, ‘they’ll have the job of retaking both lots. By the sound of the firing I fancy the attack is coming now. I must get along and see.’ ‘All right. Good luck, Jacky.’ ‘Good-bye,’ said the Captain. ‘You know the messages I’d like sent if.... And tell the General we held on to the end. Good-bye.’ He was gone, and at the other end the Adjutant sat for some minutes listening to the empty singing of the wire. That cut off suddenly to the flat deadness that means a broken connection, and the Adjutant dropped the useless instrument and hurried out to try to catch a glimpse of the last act. It was little enough he could see, for a driving misty rain obscured the view again; but from that little and from the fragments that he gathered after from the handful of wounded brought in, it was easy enough to piece out the finish. The attack developed, as the Captain had predicted, on front, rear, and flank. Under cover of a storm of frontal and enfilade fire the Germans swarmed up along the rear of the battalion’s trenches. A score or two of men were faced about to try to beat back this rear attack, but their bullets were as powerless to stop it as pebbles flung in the face of a breaking wave. The rear attack secured a footing in the trenches and began to spread slowly along them. Their progress was disputed furiously, but in the end the remnants of the battalion were beaten back to a point where a couple of shallow communication trenches ran back to the supporting trench on the one side, and another branched off forward to the ruins of the front-line trench. Even then a few score men might have saved themselves by taking the road to the rear. None did, but to the last man turned frontward and joined the handful of their fellows. In the end the remains of the battalion clung together to a few yards of battered trench that twisted about the telephone dug-out, and finished out the fight there.