It was no piece of fruitless gallantry. Dawson, as he was tramping eastwards, saw a sight which told him that his decision had been right, and that his work had not been in vain. The whole road for miles east of Bouchavesnes was blocked by a continuous double line of transport and guns, which proved that the South Africans had for over seven hours held up not only a mass of German infantry, but all the artillery and transport advancing on the Bouchavesnes-Combles highway. Indeed, it is not too much to say that on that fevered Sabbath the stand of the Brigade saved the British front. It was the hour of von der Marwitz’s most deadly thrust. While Gough was struggling at the river crossings, the Third Army had been forced west of Morval and Bapaume, far over our old battle-ground of the Somme. The breach between the two armies was hourly widening. But for the self-sacrifice of the Brigade at Marrières Wood and the delay in the German advance at its most critical point, it is doubtful whether Byng could ever have established that line on which, before the end of March, he held the enemy. “The majority will never be known.” That is the comment which has to be made after every great episode in war. The names of commanders stand out, and now and then some single feat of gallantry emerges into light; but a great thing is achieved not only by the spirit of the leaders, but by the faithfulness and devotion of those who disappear without record into the dark, or are remembered only by a wooden cross on an obscure grave. In that last stand every man of the Brigade “took counsel from the valour of his heart,” and the glory became less that of the individual than of the race. Two strong stocks, coming together from the ends of the earth, had each of them in their blood the spirit that defends lost hopes and is undismayed by any odds. The kinsfolk of the men who shattered Dingaan’s hordes and under Andries Potgieter beat off the indunas of Mosilikatse at Vechtkop, and those who had in their tradition the Ridge of Delhi and the laager at Rorke’s Drift, joined hands at the wood of Marrières in an achievement more fateful and not less heroic than any in their splendid past. CHAPTER IX. THE BATTLE OF THE LYS. (March 27-May 5, 1918.)