ceased, the garrison was withdrawn a little farther; and then five of them went back to the barricade which the enemy's artillery had discovered. They sat down in the trench behind it. A German battery was trying for it--putting its four big high-explosive shells regularly round it--salvo after salvo as punctual as clockwork. It was only a matter of time before the thing must go. So the five sat there--Tasmanians and Canadians--and discussed the rival methods of wheat growing in their respective dominions in order to keep their thoughts away from that inevitable shell. It came at last, through their shelter--slashed one man across the face, killed two and left two--smashed the barricade into a scrap-heap. Then others were brought to stand by. Shells were falling anything from thirty to forty in the minute. One of the remaining Tasmanian sergeants--a Lewis gunner--came back from an errand, crawling, wounded dangerously through the neck. "I don't want to go away," he said. "If I can't work a Lewis gun, I can sit by another chap and tell him how to." In the end, when he was sent away, he was seen crawling on two knees and one hand, guiding with the other hand a fellow gunner who had been hit. That night a big gun, much bigger than the rest, sent its shells roaring down through the sky somewhere near. The men would be waked by the shriek of each shell and then fall asleep and be waked again by the crash of the explosion. And still they held the trench. And still every other message ended--"But we will hold on." They had withdrawn a little to where they could hold during the night; but before the grey morning, the moment the bombardment had eased, they crept back again lest the Germans should get there first. With the light came a reinforcement of new Canadians--grand fellows in great spirit. And the last Australian was during that morning withdrawn. It was the most welcome sight in all the world to see those troops come in. Not that the tired men would ever admit that it was necessary. As one report from an Australian boy said, "The reinforcement has arrived. Captain X---- may tell you that the Australians are done. Rot!" Whether they were done or whether they were not, they spoke of those Canadian bombers in a way it would have done Canadian hearts good to hear. Australians and Canadians fought for thirty-six hours in those trenches inextricably mixed, working under each others' officers. Their wounded helped each other from the front. Their dead lie and will lie through all the centuries hastily buried beside the tumbled trenches and shell-holes where, fighting as mates, they died. * * * * * And the men who had hung on to that flank almost within shouting distance of Mouquet for two wild days and nights--they came out of the fight asking, "Can you tell me if we have got Mouquet Farm?"