"Tomkins!" cried the Captain, "bunk back to the C.O. if you can find him, and tell him there's a strong counter-attack on. Say it's a matter of minutes if we're going to hold the village."

Fifty yards beyond the outer fringe of those crumbled heaps a little stream flowed, a shattered willow here and there marking its course, and from the opposite bank the ground rose to what had once been a thick wood.

In front of the wood a solid mass of German infantry had suddenly sprung into view as if by magic, and, forming up elbow to elbow, moved down the slope, breaking into a brisk run. The great grey wave overlapped A Company for a considerable distance on either flank.

A strip of ragged garden hedge on our side of the stream, a well-head, and the wooden ribs of a stable which had somehow survived the bombardment were the only available cover, if one excepted two large shell craters.

"Hadn't we better fall back, Bob?" said Dennis, as he arrived breathlessly at his brother's side. "The thin red line at Balaclava was a fool to this."

"Fall back be hanged!" cried the Captain. "If we give them an inch we shall let them in. No, there's a better stunt than that. Where on earth are our machine-guns I'd like to know?"

His words were almost lost as the company poured a terrific fusillade into the advancing enemy, and the target being too big and too near to miss, every bullet found its billet. Men in the front rank went down like ninepins, but the rest came on over their bodies, and everyone realised that they meant business.

For once the enemy had resolved to use the bayonet, and less than sixty yards now separated them from the Reedshires.

Bob Dashwood sprang on to a heap of bricks, and his words rang out even among the bang and clatter that filled the morning air:

"Platoons One and Two, line the edge of that crater on your front, and hold your fire until they reach the water. Three and Four, form up at the hedge here, and if a man of you touches a trigger until he gets the word I'll give him four days' field punishment." Then he added, "Go to your own platoon, Dennis, and keep your eye on me. As soon as the beggars have felt our fire we'll try the cold steel on them."

As Dennis reached his men the Bavarians were already entering the water, which took them to the waist, and the two platoons delivered a burst of rapid fire as Bob had ordered.

The result was appalling, and for an instant the Bavarians seemed to waver, but those behind urged the rest on, and they came splashing through the brook, whose course was choked and reddened by at least a couple of hundred dead and wounded.It seemed an age before the other platoons at the hedgerow fired, but the welcome crash of their volley suddenly rang out, followed by a shrill blast on Bob's whistle.

"That's 'Cease fire,'" said Hawke; "and there goes the 'Charge.'"

"A Company, make ready!—go!" yelled their Company Commander, and he might very well have said "Come," for he was the first off the mark, and with a yell of wild delight, out of the crater, through the hedge, and across the half-dozen strides that divided them from the determined enemy, went the eager lads after their leader.

Dennis was conscious of a feeling of uncertainty as he raced forward, for he had not seen two things that had caught his brother's eye.

One was a row of Kilmarnock bonnets bobbing up over a communication trench a hundred yards away on the left flank of the company, and the other, three little brown dots at the corner of a wrecked barn considerably in advance of their right—little brown dots very busy about a Lewis gun.

If A Company could only succeed in holding back the advancing line for eighty seconds, their leader knew what would happen, and it was worth the effort.

Bob Dashwood's speciality was bayonet fighting, and every man of his command was a past-master in the art.

Brother officers had smiled indulgently at the Captain's enthusiasm for inter-company contests in that war of trench and dug-out, but Bob Dashwood had persisted on every possible opportunity, and it would be hard now if he did not reap his reward.With a clash, Lee-Enfield and Mauser met on the bank of the stream, and Bob Dashwood scored first blood with the cold steel.

Three Bavarians went down before him with lightning rapidity, and as a fourth fired at the Captain from the hip and missed him, the Company Sergeant-Major was on him like a knife.

"Let 'em have it, boys!" shouted Bob, and as a voice replied, "Look to yourself, sir, we're all right," the foremost rank of the enemy was hurled into the water, through which the khaki lads splashed to the opposite bank.

There was a scramble and a squeeze. One or two slipped back, and the weight of their accoutrements took them to the bottom, but the bulk of them gained foothold, and nothing "made in Germany" could stay the rush.

Then the Lewis gun barked from the barn end, and a tremendous yell from the opposite flank told that the Highlanders were coming.

For the life of him, when he came to think over it afterwards, Dennis could recall nothing of that mad minute but the crack of his own revolver as he emptied it into the closely packed mass before him, and then a sea of terrified faces, growing grey like the uniforms they wore, as the Bavarians broke and went back helter-skelter up the slope.

Somebody shouted "Keep 'em moving, boys!" and the next thing he knew was that the fugitives were flinging themselves into the trench on the hill-top, and that he and A Company were dropping in after them, regardless of all consequences.

Here and there a too eager man was spitted on a German bayonet; here and there also a pair of arms went up, and the hated word "Kamerad" smote the ear with a false note. But the Reedshires were taking no prisoners that morning, and having reached the trench on the very heels of the foe, the Bavarians made no attempt to hold it, and went streaming away along the communication that led into the heart of the wood.

Dennis looked back for a moment as he came to the shattered trees, which lay about in all directions in the most extraordinary confusion, and saw that the C.O. and the rest of the battalion had already cleared the stream, and were coming up in support.

"Keep on, old chap!" cried a voice, as Bob ran up. "Are you all right so far?"

"Yes, I'm all right; but, by Jove, you look a pretty beauty!"

The once smart captain, who somehow or other even in the wet trenches had generally managed to appear spotless, like the officers of the French army, who always looked as though they had been turned out of a band-box, now presented a most disreputable appearance.

His helmet was gone, his Bedford cords were torn in seven or eight places, and his left sleeve hung in ribbons. Up to his waist-belt he was soaked by his passage through the stream. Above that his tunic was covered with blood; on the whole, not a man you would have cared to sit next to in a railway carriage or anywhere else.

But he only smiled as Dennis pointed to him. "Yes, I know," he said; "but what's the odds? We've done a big thing, and the rest of the battalion's done a big thing, and we've got to keep the beggars on the go before they dig themselves in. Come on, dear old Den.; you'll hardly believe it, but I haven't got a scratch of my own. All this gore belongs to the enemy, and I don't think we've lost more than a couple of dozen of A Company."

They ran side by side, and soon came up with a khaki mob of their own men and the Highlanders streaming along each side of the German communication trench, up which the Bavarians were still flying. Every now and then they fired into it or threw bombs, but the older hands knew that the walk-over would not last for ever, and kept their eyes skinned.

Suddenly, where the shattered trees thinned out and the still rising ground showed an irregular ridge against the skyline, a sound which they all knew only too well fell upon their ears.

There were two machine-gun emplacements on the ridge, and a murderous fire was opened upon the victorious pursuers.

Bob Dashwood blew the order to take cover, and, as there was plenty of it, A Company promptly flopped down behind the fallen trunks which our bombardment had uprooted in every direction.

"Phew! 'Ot stuff!" ejaculated Harry Hawke, as he made room for Dennis beside him, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.

He was blowing like a grampus, for the pace had been fast.

"When we've got our wind, I reckon there's a little job up there for us, sir," said Hawke, pointing over the top of the fallen beech behind which they crouched."You mean the machine-gun, of course," said Dennis, nodding. "But unfortunately, whilst we're getting our wind, so are the enemy, and there's forty yards of open climb before we reach those sandbags up yonder. It isn't like that village behind us, and you may bet your boots the trench on the top of the ridge is packed with Germans like herrings in a barrel, waiting for us. We'll have to lie low until the battalion overtakes us."

Harry Hawke squinted thoughtfully down the short length of his snub nose.

"There's two of those bloomin' tac-tacs of theirs—one covering the communication trench, and t'other one yonder sweeping the front of the wood," he said. "What price that Lewis gun, sir, that chipped in on our right flank? Couldn't I go back and 'urry it up? If we could bring it into action from the other corner of this 'ere wood, it 'ud mean saving a lot of lives, for it's a sure thing the ridge has got to be taken."

While he was speaking they heard men running behind them, and looked round, hoping to see their own people, but it turned out to be a little party of the engineers laying a field telephone; and Dennis crawled on hands and knees towards them.

"What's become of the machine-guns?" he inquired of an intelligent corporal.

"Can't get 'em through the wood, sir. There are half a dozen on the other side hung up. I rather think they're waiting for you to give 'em a lead."

"Oh, are they? Any Lewis guns there?"

"Yes, there's one, sir. They were just starting along a path over yonder when we left.""I say, do you hear that, Bob?" Dennis called out, as his brother came back, dodging from trunk to trunk, as every now and then one of the German guns on the ridge raked the wood with a stream of bullets. "The corporal says our Lewis is over yonder. What about my going over with a couple of chaps to give them a hand? I believe we could do something."

"Right you are," said Bob. "I've just been talking to that Highland officer, and he agrees with me that we must lie doggo until we are reinforced. I have sent two men back to the C.O. Bunk off and see what you can do."

"Thanks, old man," said Dennis, his face beaming with delight. "Hawke and Tiddler, this way!" And at his call the two inseparables crept back to where he stood.

"We're through now, sir, if you'd like to give them a shout at the other end," said the corporal of the engineers.

"Oh, good business!" cried Captain Bob. "If I can get on to the Governor that will buck things up a bit." And, leaving him kneeling behind a tall poplar, the telephone receiver in his hand, Dennis and his companions ran back a few yards into the shelter of the trees, and struck away at right angles.