The weather became steadily worse and, though water is supposed to run downhill and the division was on the slope of a hill, the troops might just as well have been in the middle of a pond. No one could move, and the operations were postponed for forty-eight hours.
Assembly trenches were dug; and patrols reported the enemy some 200 yards on the farther side of the ridge. The objectives for the attack were well beyond the line of posts it had been hoped to occupy with patrols, and the 2/1st London and 1/1st Edinburgh Field Companies R.E., with two companies of the 5th Cheshire Regt., were given to the two brigades to consolidate what was gained.
The assault took place at 1.45 p.m. on the 7th October, and on the left was fairly successful. The
7th Middlesex, on the extreme left, and the left company of the 1st London Regt. drove the enemy out of the northern half of Spectrum and part of Rainbow, where they joined with the 20th Division. The right company of the 1st Londons, however, was held up by machine-gun fire from Dewdrop and failed to reach that end of Spectrum.
The 168th Brigade fared badly on the right. Three battalions attacked in line—the London Scottish, the 4th London Regt., and the Rangers. Two machine guns were in the front line, for covering fire, and four others west of Les Bœufs, for indirect covering fire; there were also six Stokes mortars in Burnaby to put a barrage on Dewdrop. In some respects the attack was peculiar. As was so often the case, the direction of the attack was at an angle to our front, and the London Scottish, starting the assault from the right at 1.45 p.m., were followed by the 4th London Regt. at 1.47 and the Rangers at 1.49 p.m.; this was calculated to bring the three battalions into line by the time Dewdrop and the gun-pits were reached.
The leading company of the Rangers, on the left, was knocked out, before it had gone fifty yards, by machine guns in the northern end of Dewdrop, and the reserve companies of the battalion came under a very heavy barrage and did not succeed in carrying forward the attack. The remnants of this battalion lay out in shell-holes until dusk, when they returned to the original line.
The 4th London Regt., in the centre, met with much the same fate. The left company was annihilated, and the right company, managing to reach a patch of dead ground, lay down unable to move. The rear waves were met with intense artillery fire, but
advanced most gallantly to the line of the leading troops. From the dead ground attempts were made to outflank the gun-pits, from which the hostile machine-gun fire was directed, and small parties managed to work well round to the south.
The London Scottish advanced well for about 400 yards, and occupied the south gun-pits and the southern end of Hazy. The enemy at once attempted a counter-attack from the northern end, but this was driven off. But it was found that a wide gap existed between the right of the battalion and the French, who had attacked east instead of north-east, and small parties of the London Scottish were successively pushed out to fill the gap and get touch. At six o’clock they had succeeded in establishing a thin but continuous line in touch with our Allies. But the situation was a very difficult one. The enemy had received reinforcements in Hazy and the north gun-pits—from all appearances fresh troops—and both flanks of the London Scottish were in the air and exposed to the immediate presence of the enemy.
At 8.30 p.m. the German counter-attack developed, and, though heavy casualties were inflicted on the enemy, he succeeded in forcing the London Scottish and the right of the 4th London Regt., which was creeping round the gun-pits, to retire to our original line.