The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

The first Army Corps was in deadly peril. It was impossible for French to send any reinforcements, or do anything except encourage them by his personal example. All that day he exposed himself to peril as freely as if he had been the humblest recruit in any ordinary line regiment. He used his motor freely that day, and rushed up to the line of the first division; as a matter of fact, it was no great journey that lay before him, for the line had retired for a distance of more than four miles. He could see quite plainly from where he stood that his men were locked in a deadly grip with the German infantry, who were attacking everywhere in enormous forces, and practically unled. In the literal sense of the word it was a soldier's fight on both sides. The English were struggling valiantly in every direction, hitting a head or bayoneting a body wherever it presented itself. And there was not an atom of method in all this either. Apparently there was no attempt at leadership in this scrimmage where every man was doing his utmost and officers and men, infantry and cavalry, were fighting side by side, and officers' servants were loading spare rifles and handing them on until they were too hot to fire any longer.

The Musketeers were in the thick of it. There were moments when their trenches were rushed and they fought at short arm-grips, hurling the foe back with machine gun and bayonet, for even here, guarded though they were by the flood, they were not safe. Heedless of the danger, a German infantry regiment had plunged into the water up to their armpits, and were making their way across. It was a hideous and unnecessary slaughter but still they came on in dense masses, utterly indifferent to the fire that mowed them down, until the Musketeers were weary of throwing them back from the trenches.