Lieut. Dick Starkley and his friends gave ear all morning to the din of battle, wished themselves farther forward in the middle of it and wondered whether the brigades in front would leave anything for them to do on the morrow. Messages of success came back to them from time to time. By eight o'clock, after two hours of fighting, the Canadians had taken the formidable trenches, the sugar refinery, a fortified sunken road and hundreds of prisoners. The way was open to Courcelette. "If they don't slow up--if they don't quit altogether this very minute--they'll be crowding right in to Courcelette and doing us out of a job!" complained Sergt. Hiram Sill. "That's our job, Courcelette is--our job for to-morrow. They've done what they set out to do, and if they go ahead now and try something they haven't planned for, well, they'll maybe bite off more than they can chew. The psychology of it will be all wrong; their minds aren't made up to that idea." "I guess the idee ain't the hull thing," remarked a middle-aged corporal. "Many a good job has been done kind of unexpectedly in this war. I reckon this here psychology didn't have much to do with your D. C. M." "That's where you're dead wrong, Henry," said Hiram. "I knew I'd get a D. C. M. all along, from the first minute I ever set foot in a trench. My mind and my spirit were all made up for it. I knew I'd get a D. C. M. just as sure as I know now that I'll get a bar to it--if I don't go west first." Dick, who had joined the group, laughed and smote Hiram on the shoulder. "You're dead right!" he exclaimed. "Old Psychology, you're a wonder of the age! Be careful what you make up your heart and soul and mind to next or you'll find yourself in command of the division." "What do you mean, lieutenant?" asked Sill. "You've been awarded the D. C. M. again, that's all!" cried Dick, shaking him violently by the hand. "You've got your bar, Old Psychology! Word of it just came through from the Brigade." Sergt. Sill blushed and grew pale and blushed again. "Say, boys, I'm a proud man," he said. "There are some things you can't get used to--and being decorated for distinguished conduct on the field of glory is one of them, I guess. If you'll excuse me, boys,--and you, lieutenant,--I'll just wander along that old trench a piece and think it over by myself." The way was open to Courcelette. The battalions that had done the work in a few hours and that, despite a terrific fire from the enemy, had established themselves beyond their final objective, were anxious to continue about this business without pause and clean up the strongly garrisoned town. They had fought desperately in those few hours, however, and the enemy's fire had taken toll of them, and so they were told to sit tight in their new trenches; but the common sense of their assertion that Courcelette itself should be assaulted without loss of time, before the beaten and astounded enemy could recover, was admitted.