Perhaps they expected that no one lived in the British trenches, and it was a reasonable idea, but wrong. There were brave men remaining there, alive and determined to fight. Although the order for retirement had been given, single figures here and there were seen to get over the broken parapets and go forward to meet the enemy halfway. They died to a man, fighting. It seemed to me one of the most pitiful and heroic things of this war, that little crowd of men, many of them wounded, some of them dazed and deaf, stumbling forward to their certain death to oppose the enemy’s advance.

From the network of trenches behind, not altogether smashed, there was time for men to retire to a second line of defense, if they were still unwounded and had strength to go. An officer⁠—Captain Crossman⁠—in command of one of these support companies, brought several men out of a trench, but did not follow on. He turned again, facing the enemy, and was last seen⁠—“a big, husky man,” says one of his comrades⁠—as he fired his revolver and then flung it into a German’s face.