The road was cut into deep ruts and great care was needed in driving, for the ditches were filled with wounded. To lighten the loads, the gunners ran alongside the guns and ammunition wagons. Darkness fell over the scene. The battle came to a lull. Night covered the slaughter. Never in his life before had Horace been so glad to see the dark. The boy's first battle was over. None of the gun crew, now, rode on the limbers. Every available point on which a man could lie or sit was crowded with wounded. Many of the wounds were terrible, but few of the sufferers complained. One man was lifted off, dying, as the battery stopped for a moment. "Is it the end?" he asked. "I'm afraid so, my boy," said the major. "My mother wished to give a son to France. Tell her she is victorious!" and he died. Said another, when the surgeon told him that one leg would have to be amputated, "Only one, my doctor? Then France has made me a gift of a leg. I was willing to give her both." The battery passed on through the village. There were no cries of welcome. The women gave food to the soldiers, all silently. With a noble restraint, moreover, none of the women raised a word of blame. The men drove through with hanging heads, downcast, humiliated by the mute reproach in the eyes of the villagers, who knew they were being abandoned to their fate by their own army, which was powerless to aid them. The morrow would bring ruin, brutality, and massacre. It was late in the evening before the battery halted and Horace took his turn in watering the horses and doing the chores of a driver attached to a gun. Croquier, in a manner attached to the battery, felt he could be of principal service in trying to secure information. When he returned, his expression was full of concern. "What's happened?" Horace asked sleepily. The reply came like a shot from a gun, "The Germans have reached Charleroi!" Horace pondered for a minute to think what this might mean, then raised himself on his elbow, suddenly wide-awake. "That smashes the corner!" he cried. "They've pierced our line! The whole strategy is gone!" "Not quite," said the hunchback grimly, "but unless something happens to-morrow, it will be smashed." Therein, Croquier was right. The next day, Saturday, August 22, Von Buelow attacked Charleroi in full strength. The two main bridges east and west of the city, at Chatelet and Thuin, fell under the impact of the combined light and heavy field howitzers, and, before noon, Charleroi was in German hands. Von Buelow thrust swiftly round the eastern end of the Fifth French Army, in order to roll up its flank and force it into the arms of Von Kluck for annihilation. "Unless something happens to-morrow!" Croquier had said. That something did happen.