Tripping and stumbling went the men over the broken and ragged ground. "Fellows in front, beside, and behind me would fall; some, with a lurch forward, wounded; others, with a sudden, abrupt halt, a sickly wheel, would drop, give one eerie twist, and lie still--dead!" They find the first line in the possession of comrades; and moving on to the second, came to blows there with the enemy. "An Inniskilling, scarcely more than a boy, standing on the parapet, yells madly 'No surrender,' and fires several shots into the German mob. From every part of the trench we closed forward, bayonet poised, on the crowd of grey figures. A short scuffle; then we swayed back again, leaving a heap of blood-stained greyishness on the ground. 'Come on, boys!' yells the lieutenant, springing up on to the parapet. 'Come on, the Ulsters.' Up we scramble after him and rush ahead towards the far-off third line. Vaguely I recollect that mad charge. A few swirlings here and there of grey-clad figures with upraised hands yelling 'Kamerad.' Heaps of wounded and dead. Showers of dust and earth and lead. Deafening explosions and blinding smoke. But what concerned me most and what I saw clearest were the few jagged stumps of the remnants of the wire entanglements and the ragged parapet of the third line--our goal!" From this enemy trench the Ulsterman looked back over the ground he had covered, and this is what he saw: "Through the dense smoke pour hundreds and hundreds of Tommies, with flashing bayonets and distorted visages, apparently cheering and yelling. You couldn't hear them for the noise of the guns and the exploding shells. Everywhere among those fearless Ulstermen burst high-explosive shells, hurling dozens of them up in the air, while above them and among them shrapnel bursts with sharp, ear-splitting explosions. But worst of all these was the silent swish, swish, swishing of the machine-gun bullets, claiming their victims by the score, cutting down living sheaves, and leaving bunches of writhing, tortured flesh on the ground." He, too, noticed that their co-operating Divisions had failed, for some reason, to advance. "Look there, something _must_ be wrong!" he called out to his comrades. "Why, they're not advancing on _that_ side at all," pointing towards the left flank. "Not a sign of life could be seen," he says. "The Ulster Division were out to the Huns' first, second, third, fourth, and even fifth lines, with all the German guns pelting us from every side and at every angle." Many a brave and self-sacrificing deed was done in these affrighting scenes. Here are a few instances taken haphazard from the records of one battalion alone, the 9th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. They were repeated a hundredfold throughout the Division.