It was a most brilliant feat of arms. The night was wet, cold, and thoroughly disagreeable, but the men were in the highest possible spirits at the prospect of an advance to recover their old position. This time our artillery was fully prepared, and at 1.30 o'clock in the morning, under cover of a heavy fire, the advance began. A fresh Canadian division had been sent into the Salient, and there remained a mixed brigade of those Canadian mounted troops who have figured in the recent fighting. General Lipsett, the new divisional commander appointed to succeed General Mercer, deferred taking up his command in order to lead his old brigade into action.
To three battalions the attack was mainly entrusted. A fourth battalion to the right, opposite Hill 60, provided a diversion for the enemy, so as to protect the attacking battalions from being enfiladed, while on the extreme left, where there was less ground to be retaken, a fifth battalion advanced. The orders were to take three lines of trenches, and to establish bomb posts in the fourth.
These four trenches were (1) the new German front line which they had recently made, (2) our old reserve trench, (3) our old support trench, and (4) our old front line.
The troops pressed forward, the Germans felling back sullenly under the impetuosity of the attack. Some fierce fighting took place here and there in the territory south of Warrington Avenue, especially for the possession of Observatory Ridge, but the enemy seemed helpless before the fury of our impetus. Early in the engagement, two of his guns mounted on high ground south of the famous "Appendix" fell into our hands, and we then learned from men captured there that the Germans actually had planned a further attack upon our lines at that point, to take place at 6.30 that very morning. Owing to circumstances over which they had no control, it has been postponed.
"My battalion," narrates one officer who greatly distinguished himself this day, "went forward in four waves, two under Major Kemp and two under Major McCuaig. The first of the trenches was taken without opposition. It had been practically obliterated by our artillery. While we were taking this trench, the artillery lifted until 1.50, to give us time to reach the second trench, which we also took with little opposition. Major Kemp was hit before we reached the first trench. The third trench was taken by the first three waves, supported by the fourth." But it was here that opposition was encountered. A Boche machine-gun on the left had been dragged up from below, and ably handled by a Boche sergeant, whose face was streaming with blood, enfiladed our line in a most disastrous manner. Four of our advancing officers were struck down, and for a few moments it looked as though that single weapon was going to check this part of the line.
"Silence that Hun machine! Put it out of action!" roared one of our officers. And a machine-gun officer, Lieutenant Hamilton, ran backwards with a single private, armed with bombs, and charged the Boche offender in the dark, guided only by his own fire. Their first bomb killed the sergeant, but another sprang in his place, and the crew had to be beaten off with fists and the butt of a revolver. The gun was captured, mounted, and trained on the enemy.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Giveen, the bombing officer, having been killed, his place was filled by Lieutenant Saunders, who led a bombing party up the communication trench to the fourth and foremost trench, which was the front Canadian line of ten days ago. Having rapidly issued instructions to his men to establish blocks, the gallant Saunders could not refrain from raising a cheer of triumph. At that very moment he was struck down, probably by a bomb. He had led the way, and others followed, and a red rocket, sent up by Major McCuaig's orders, announced to those behind that the final objective of the counter-attack had been reached. In less than ten minutes a party of engineers and a company of pioneers, armed with picks and shovels, were on the spot, and the work of digging in--of "consolidating"--began. All this while another force had been toiling madly at digging out the third line of trenches. Communication was established at dawn with the battalions to right and left, who had also advanced under the same difficulties, and suffering heavy losses, which were to be heavier during that terrible day when the Germans began their bombardment. The rain continued to descend pitilessly, there was nothing visible anywhere but a sea and watersheds of mud, ploughed and churned by shells and bombs, and strewn with corpses and the litter of a battlefield. When the men sat down to rest, their hips were sunk in heavy brown slime. Yet even under such conditions the spirit of the men was amazing. As one of their officers has declared--
"Even men who had joined as reinforcements a month ago behaved like old and seasoned soldiers."
A Vancouver officer bears similar testimony.
"When we reached the German front line," he states, "there was no trench left. We met with no opposition, the Germans at first seeming to be too dazed by the heavy fire to which they had been subjected to do anything. The ground, as we advanced, was in a frightful state, all in holes, which were made the more trying by the pouring rain. We should never have got through had it not been for the splendid work of the artillery, for progress through this ploughed up mud was slow. We took some fifty to sixty prisoners. All the men were keen as mustard. Some of the newly-joined had never been in a serious engagement before, but they were just as steady as the old hands."