Crack went the report. "One out!" said Mundy. "Ten minutes more right; drop twenty-five." Crack again! "Short," murmured Mundy; then, "add twenty-five." "Two out!" he counted. When three German guns had been counted out, Bradbury called over his shoulder to the sergeant-major: "Take my place; I'll load for a bit." He had barely changed places when a bursting shell carried away a leg at the thigh. Yet, by some superhuman will-power, he stuck to his post and went on loading. Now Mundy was mortally wounded. Then Campbell fell. But still the gun was served, laid, and fired. And as surely were the German guns being counted out, one by one. Then there burst true another shell. The gallant Bradbury received his death-wound, and his other leg was carried away. The rest of the detachment were all wounded. Still that tiny remnant stuck to it through the storm. Now only are left the sergeant-major, Sergeant Nelson, the gunner, and the driver. Still they work. Still they watch one enemy gun after another ceasing to fire, until all are counted out but one. All the ammunition is finished. Nothing left now but to crawl back out of that hell. I Battery coming up? Well, they can finish it. Lend us some "wheelers" to get our guns back. So were the six guns of L Battery brought out of action. Torn and battered, but safe. Glorious relics of perhaps the most wonderful action a battery of the Regiment has ever fought--and won. I Battery opened on the massed columns of the German cavalry now appearing, and rent mighty lanes through their ranks, turned and scattered them. The Queen's Bays, who had been working as infantry, for their horses stampeded when the firing began, collected up, and with I Battery and the Lincolns went over the hill after the retiring enemy. There they found the German battery out of action and abandoned. And Bradbury? His last conscious words were an appeal for morphia and to be carried away as quickly as possible that his men might not witness his agony and be unnerved. So passed that heroic soul away. A life nobly spent, a death nobly encountered. Nothing is here for tears, ... nothing but well and fair And what may quiet us in a death so noble. CHAPTER XV THE FINAL STAGES FRENCH KING. _'Tis certain he hath passed the river Somme._ CONSTABLE OF FRANCE. _And if he be not fought withal, my lord, Let us not live in France: let us quit all, And give our vineyards to a barbarous people._ The fighting in the neighbourhood of Compiègne developed into something of a general action, an action in which the British more than held their own. There was some doubt whether the 4th Division would be able to shake off the heavy attack which was being made upon them, so another brigade was ordered to their help. The retirement was then easily effected.