Five little minutes (it seems an eternity) and the enemy flank is crushed in, smashed to pulp as a block of stone smashes in the head of a man. "Who goes home?" Who can? Ten men, a dozen, perhaps twenty have struggled through. A few will cover again the ground over which they charged. A few, such a tiny few, will get back under cover again. "The rest is silence." But they have done it. The enemy have learned what a British charge is like. They know now what bayonet work is, and the lesson sinks deep. They will not face the steel again. Ask the men who fought at the Aisne, at Ypres. [1] I have simply turned paragraphs of Sir John French's dispatch into imaginary spoken words. [2] A German Cavalry Division numbered, approximately, 5,200, all ranks, including 2 batteries Horse Artillery and 1 machine-gun battery. CHAPTER VII MONS (_continued_) _But pardon, gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd, On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France?_ It may be of interest at this point if the narrative be broken off for a few minutes to give some details of the methods the Germans employ in their infantry attack, especially as they differ so greatly from our own. The two main features are (_a_) they consider rifle work as of comparatively little value and rely mainly on machine-gun fire, and (_b_) they attack in dense masses, shoulder to shoulder. British methods are, or were, precisely the opposite. Our men have brought musketry to such perfection that an infantryman will get off in one minute almost double the number of rounds that a German will; and, what is more to the point, they will all hit the mark. Let it be noted that the British Army owes this perfection to the wise foresight of Lord Roberts. (Ah, if only the nation, too, had listened to him!) British troops, adopting the lessons of the Boer War, attack with an interval between the files, i.e. in extended order. Now at Mons, and after, a German battalion generally attacked in three double ranks. The rear double rank had with it four or six machine-guns. They count upon the first three or four ranks stopping the enemy's bullets, but, by the time these are swept away, the last ranks (with the machine-guns) should be sufficiently near to carry the position attacked: say about 300 yards. This reckless sacrifice of life is typical of the German "machine," as opposed to the British "individual." As a matter of fact their method never succeeded over open ground before the British fire, for the front ranks were always swept away at the very beginning of the attack, and so they did not get near enough with the rear ranks. The German officer who gave me these details remarked that the rapidity and accuracy of the British fire were simply incredible, that they never had a chance.