At 6 P.M. the enemy delivered a second counter-attack, this time with its weight against the 6th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The Argylls, who had knocked out the first attack against their lines with rifle-fire, on this occasion adopted another method. As the enemy approached, they sprang from their shell-holes and charged down the hill against the approaching enemy with such vigour that those attackers who survived the onslaught fled from the field. The net result was that the Argylls carried their line forward for 500 yards, and established themselves in a line of trenches which, running east of the railway on the left, crossed it 100-200 yards south-west of La Fontenelle Wood. In this brilliant action they captured seventy-four unwounded prisoners, a trench-mortar, and several machine-guns. After this treatment the enemy had no further stomach for counter-attacks, but he vented his spleen by maintaining a heavy bombardment of our whole line with his artillery and machine-guns, which he maintained throughout the night.
October 26th was another day of savage fighting, the enemy resisting stubbornly, and being aggressive with his artillery and in counter-attacks.
Orders were issued for the advance to be resumed in conjunction with the 4th Division, the objectives of the 51st being Famars and Mont Houy.
For this attack the 152nd Brigade employed the 6/7 Gordon Highlanders on the right and the 4th Gordon Highlanders (attached) on the left, while the 153rd Brigade employed the 6th Black Watch. The artillery fired a creeping barrage, and a company of machine-guns was again placed across the canal at Trith-St Leger in positions in enfilade, in which it had many opportunities of engaging good targets with machine-gun fire.
The attack was launched at 10 A.M., and on the right both battalions made good progress. Caumont and Betterave Farm were soon in the hands of the leading companies of the 6/7 Gordon Highlanders, and these joined with the 4th Gordon Highlanders on the left in surrounding Rouge Mont Copse and accounting for its entire garrison. The rear two companies then passed through them, and also reached the objective allotted to them, a line south of Famars facing the Rhonelle river.
The two leading companies of the 4th Gordon Highlanders were no less successful. They forced their way by short rushes to the high ground south of Famars, having rounded up a number of machine-guns en route. The two following companies then passed through them and entered Famars village. Here, after a series of struggles with machine-gun posts and some street fighting, the village was cleared and posts established east of it by 11.30 A.M.
On the left the 6th Black Watch carried out their advance successfully, though subjected to considerable artillery and machine-gun fire. By 11.30 A.M. the two leading companies had made their way close up to Mont Houy. The two rear companies then passed through them, the one to attack the hill, and the other to continue the advance beyond La Poirier Station. These troops were assisted by one of the machine-guns on the north side of the river, which, seeing some infantry held up by an enemy machine-gun, fired a burst into the gun, scattered the survivors of the detachment, and enabled the infantry to capture it.
On Mont Houy there was prolonged rather close fighting, but the company, now much depleted by losses from machine-gun and shell-fire, gradually overcame the Germans, and eventually forced its way to the summit of the hill and held on there. The left company got to within about 200 yards of La Poirier Station, when machine-gun fire from houses on the canal bank which caught them in the left flank brought their advance to a standstill.
Throughout the afternoon fighting continued in the neighbourhood of Mont Houy, where the situation was very obscure. Finally, after the protective barrage had stopped, the enemy dribbled round the flanks of the position, and by 5 P.M. the remnants of the 6th Black Watch were almost surrounded, and compelled to extricate themselves, falling back to a line between Famars and La Fontenelle.
When the situation had become clear, orders were issued that at dusk the 6/7 Gordon Highlanders, with artillery support, should advance to secure a bridgehead over the Rhonelle river at Aulnoy, while the 6th Black Watch, with one company of the 6th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, were ordered to push forward beyond Mont Houy.