ill. The Northumbrians were held up by wire, and were shot down in

droves. The Brigadier was killed; 42 officers and some 1,900 men fell. Neither the Northumbrians nor the Indians could pierce the curtain of fire. The 40th Pathans, known in India as the "Forty Thieves," lost their colonel and nearly all their British officers. The famous 57th Wilde's Rifles made a most heroic advance, and though shells of all kinds fell thick and fast amongst them and their numbers were greatly reduced, the survivors managed to get within eighty yards of the German trenches, where they dug themselves in. When Captain Banks fell, his Sikh orderly, though weak from loss of blood, picked up his body and staggered with it to the rear until he fell exhausted.