"Thank Heaven for our Maxims," he remarked to the adjutant, as he watched Cocky Dan and his gunners sending death and disorder into the German ranks. Then jumping over the dead bodies of some of his gallant men, he entered a little dug-out where the telephone was. Turning the handle, he waited. A faint tinkle quickly echoed through the din.
"We’re in a tight fix here, sir. We’ve lost the first line of trenches. The regiments on my right and left have gone. It looks as if we’re going to be scuppered."
"Hold on, for God’s sake, colonel. Yours is the key of the whole line. They must not get it. We’ll reinforce you soon. Good-bye."
"I hope to God you will," he muttered, dropping the ’phone. He was not afraid of slaughter, but he was certainly afraid of the enemy capturing this, the pivot of the defence. The colonel, of course, was not aware of the higher policy which had placed him there, for even commanding officers are seldom informed of the inner secrets of attack and defence. In this case the G.O.C. knew the strength of the enemy and fully estimated the deadly weight of their numbers. Brave as his men were, it was impossible for them to repel this great attack in its early stages. Nor would it have been wise to do so. He knew the enemy could break the line. It was, therefore, essential to work out his defence in such a way that he might avoid needless casualties, gain time, inflict a frightful slaughter, and then drive home the counter-attack—the soundest maxim of war. The point held by the Glesca Mileesha, however, could not even be temporarily surrendered. It was on a knoll commanding the flat country round. If captured by the enemy it would have been an easy matter for them to gallop forward their light field batteries under cover of this hill, and then render to the attacking German infantry a weighty co-operation which would have been fatal to the British general’s plan. That was why this regiment was there, and the presence of this regiment gave their general the assurance that they would hold out while he attempted a venture thrust upon him by the will and numbers of the enemy. Colonel Corkleg, of course, may have divined this thought of the G.O.C., but he had not been informed of the fact. He had been given a definite order—"To hold out till the last," and in the British Army orders are always obeyed. The orders to the colonels of the regiments on his immediate right and left were to promptly retire when the enemy reached the first line of their trenches. On arriving at two little knolls covering the ground which they had surrendered, they were instructed to immediately reform behind them. There they would find sixteen Maxim guns and fresh troops to aid them. That was all they knew. But behind a great earthwork screen, some five hundred yards to the rear of this second line, the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Gurkhas lay under cover, ready, if need be, to repulse a serious reverse, but really destined to carry out the counter-assault.