The attack came soon after the early darkness had fallen. At first there was a quick rumour running round that a mistake had been made, that it was a French column that was approaching. It may have been this that deceived the defenders into allowing the enemy to come almost to hand-grips before the fighting began, and anyhow it is certain that the first sounds of conflict that Papa heard were not, as he had expected, a long-drawn rapid rifle fire, but one single and then a few scattered shots, shoutings, and the clash of steel on steel. For the moment it looked as if the first rush was to swamp the defence and break through it, since a seething mass of men fighting fiercely with butt and bayonet eddied slowly back and actually into the street of the town. Rifles began to blaze and bang from some of the upper windows, and then with a wild cheer a rush of khaki swept out from a side street and plunged into the fight. The fresh weight told, and although the defence was still outnumbered by two to one it was the stronger at close-quarter work, and the attack was driven slowly back and back until at last it broke and ran, leaving the street and the road about the outside of the town heaped with dead and wounded. Papa Laval ran out into the street and began to give what help he could to carry in the wounded British, when he heard a whistling screech and the crash of a shell on one of the outer houses of the town. He ran crouching in to the shadow of one of the houses, and presently his straining eyes caught the quick leaping flash of the German piece and another shell hurtled over and burst in a hail of shrapnel about the entrance to the town. Papa ran back, and in a side street found a young officer and a dozen men breaking in the door of a deserted house. Papa guessed their intention, and since the officer fortunately was able to speak French, Papa could tell him a better house to choose, one taller and with a better and more commanding outlook on the point of attack. He led the way to the house and to the upper rooms, and pointed out the best windows, and watched them pile bedding at the windows and break out loopholes in the wall. All the time shell after shell was smashing and crashing down somewhere outside, and now the Germans began to fire star-shells that floated down in a blaze of dazzling light, blinding the defenders and exposing them as visible targets to the hail of bullets that came drumming and rattling in from their unseen foes.