The Fifth Battalion swept across the stream. As the men stumbled up the slopes beyond they came within sight at last of the dark, German helmets moving in the folds in the ground, the thin black barrels of the machine guns quivering against the grass. All the pent-up fury and bitterness they had felt towards their own commander was transferred to the enemy. In twos and threes they rushed forward, up and down, moving and firing, a dozen yards at a time, up the bare hillside. Now they were closing in; their anger swept them up and they went forward, all together, at a run.

Radiotelephone message, Fifth Battalion to Brigade Headquarters, sixteen-forty-five hours:

Have crossed river and reached crossroads two hundred yards beyond. Consolidating.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ahoy there, Wessex!

GUNS THUDDED AND SMALL ARMS fire crackled in the distance but at the crossroads it was quiet. From a distance there was even a faint, fantastic flavour of Box Hill on a Bank Holiday about the scene, with groups of men sprawling on the hot grass and others toiling up the brown, rutted tracks. The position was newly taken; the enemy artillery was not yet ready to fire on it; for a little while there was respite for the Fifth Battalion.

The men scattered along the tracks and across the slopes and began to dig. This was the worst of battle – not the fire, nor the marching, but having to dig, dig, dig, to refuse yourself rest and to stand – in the uneasy quiet of a brief lull or under a rain of steel – hacking a hole in the ground, tired and heartbroken, with your hands like raw beef, your muscles aching, the straps of your equipment burning into your shoulder-blades; and knowing all the time that when you have sunk into the hole you will be hustled up again to stumble forward for another few miles, with another hole to dig at the end of it.

Major Norman sat at the roadside watching the men digging. In thirty minutes, he reckoned, the shells would begin to fall. After that there would probably be counter-attacks. The sun was already going down; soon the light would fade and the dusk and the evening mists would crawl across the hillsides; then he would have to watch his right flank where the enemy waited, over the shoulder of the hill, ready to filter into his battalion’s rear.

Somebody spoke to him and pointed down the hillside. The Brigadier was coming up towards him, a great bear of a man, conspicuous in a swashbuckling, light raincoat, with a pipe in his mouth and a thick, black moustache. Unhurrying and preoccupied, he came across the open ground; as he saw Norman he took the pipe from his mouth and waved it in greeting.

Norman waited, drained of energy. He remained sitting until the last moment, then climbed indecisively to his feet and nodded to the Brigadier.