Another says: "The trenches were in a sad state, and conditions generally bad. The men had to sleep anyhow in the open. We lost pretty severely, in coming up, through shells. When at length we advanced, we went forward so rapidly that we were through the first trench and up the hill before the Germans realised what was happening. Our losses here were comparatively slight. At length we reached our old front line, where we attacked with bombs and bayonets. The Germans made an effort at a counter-attack, but it was easily handled by our bombers. We were relieved that night. The ground, I should add, was in an awful state. One of our men who had sunk deeply in the mud during the advance was discovered still tightly held in the mire afterwards, when two men pulled him out."
Another officer of the same battalion said that the bombing battalion on their right did its work very effectively, and kept the Germans on Hill 60 well occupied. After reaching the objective, this battalion had some stiff fighting on the extreme right, the Germans counter-attacking with bombs. But soon the old British line was made tenable with sandbags. The Germans came back twice, and had to be bombed out of the German front line, and even then some came back again. After the last trench had been taken, the Germans shelled it heavily, and there were many casualties. The men behaved with great gallantry, and were crazy to reach the German trenches. At one time four different men of the battalion went out of the trench after a wounded comrade, and all were killed in the attempt to save him. The wounded man was subsequently brought in at night.
"Lord, it was fine," relates still another officer who was in the thick of the fighting. "I could feel that terrible fretting of the past week just oozing out as the boys jumped the parapets and smashed across to where our old first line had been. I don't think anything could have stopped them. I didn't get in with the first bunch, because my company was held on the edge, watching for the counter-attack, if it came too soon for our fellows to make a stand.
"When we got going we went through the Germans like a knife through cheese. They didn't know what to do with us but throw down their rifles and bolt, or hold up their hands. They said we ran. You should have seen them skedoodle for home and ma, what didn't throw themselves on the ground and beg to be taken. We went clean to the old line, and captured some hundreds of prisoners. Our artillery had kept them from doing much in the digging-in line, and so we had a chance to slam them good and plenty. And you bet we did.
"Then we had to take ours. They had the range of us to a nicety, and they gave us particular hell with shell-fire for days before and during the assault. When we went up and took over the line from the assaulting troops, we had to take another dose of iron which the Huns put on while they were getting their counter-attack ready. But the counter-attack never came off--at least, not what we'd call an attack. Our artillery got them in the belt and cut them up too bad to want to come to close steel with us. So we settled down in a day or two as if there hadn't been even a brush, and Fritz was glad to let it go at that.
"During nearly all the last turn-in the rain poured down in torrents off and on, and you can imagine the state the lads were in, with freshly dug trenches and everything being blown to smithereens by shell-fire. Towards the last our trenches consisted of shell holes connected by ditches and carpeted with water and some Flanders mud. If a shell burst within a hundred yards, we had to get someone to scrape the plaster from our eyes before we knew if we were hurt. You couldn't tell a captain from a Tommy, and it didn't matter much just then, since all we could do was to lie low and hang tight.
"But we did it, we did it. We got even with them for trying to wipe out our old battalion. Why, the Huns were lying so thick when we drove through that we had to jump over them all the way, but we got 'home' at last, and 'home' we mean to stay."
Thus was trench after trench retaken, the Canadians sending up a mighty cheer when they discovered that a great quantity of stores which they had left there ten days before, half buried by the force of minenwerfer shells, had been undiscovered or at least unremoved by the enemy, and were practically intact. Three German officers and 130 men were made prisoners. Another enemy officer was subsequently discovered wounded in the intervening territory and brought in. The utmost frankness was expressed by these prisoners as to the result of the engagement, one going so far as to say:--
"We knew that it was a point of pride with you, and that you would never stop until you had got back your trenches. I knew it--but I had to obey orders--and--here I am!"
In the progress through the darkness and in the hand-to-hand fighting of the day, the struggling up the slimy slopes of Observatory Ridge under heavy shell-fire, many brave officers and men fell. One who will be sadly missed is Major Gibson, of the Royal Canadian Highlanders. In addition to his other qualities, Gibson enjoyed fame as the only man in the Expeditionary Force who wore whiskers. He was a Scottish-American, who had seen service with the American army in the Philippines, where he was wounded in the jaw and throat, necessitating a growth of beard. On his mother's side he was a Macdonald, and very proud of his connection with that clan. A fighter born, Gibson enlisted at the beginning of the War, earning his commission and subsequent promotion by sheer merit. On the eve of battle he begged that his company should be placed on the right, for, said he:--