He knows that for miles back men
are massed as thick as they can stand in the reserve trenches. His object
is to destroy our reserves and not the immediate trench in front of him.
We follow the same plan. For, as we advance in short sharp rushes, the
observation officer, who never for a moment relaxes his hold on the
situation, flashes back by telegraph or field telephone the command to the
artillery lying miles away to raise their curtain of fire. They do so, and
shells fall on the German reserves, while we press forward, teeth bared and
cold steel gleaming grayly, to take the front lines. We leap the parapet of
the German trench. We spot our man and bear down on him. We clean out the
dugouts and haul away the cowering officers, and already we are
straightening and strengthening the German trench.
Behind us come wave on wave of our reserves. The second will take the
second trench of the enemy; the third, the third, and so on. Then we
consolidate our position, and Fritz is a sad and sorry boy.
That is the way it should work, but in the early days of the war we used to
find this very difficult.
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