Then, panting, they cast themselves back into wrecked trench and blood-spattered shell hole while the enemy's guns roared and thundered anew, and waited patiently but yearningly for another chance to "really fight." So they held this deadly salient.
Days came and went, whole regiments were wiped out, but they held on. The noble town behind them crumbled into ruin beneath the shrieking avalanche of shells, but they held on. German and British dead lay thick from British parapet to Boche wire, and over this awful litter fresh attacks were launched daily, but still they held on, and would have held and will hold, until the crack of doom if need be — because Britain and the Empire expect it of them.
But to-day the dark and evil time is passed. To-day for every German shell that crashes into the salient, four British shells burst along the enemy's position, and it was with their thunder in my ears that I traversed that historic, battle-torn road which leads into Ypres, that road