Another shell lit fairly on a bomb depôt about this time and destroyed one of our reserves of these weapons, and a third shell killed Lieutenant-Colonel Beecher, the second in command of the attacking battalion.
The two guns in the front line had been unmasked and were cutting wire with desperate rapidity, though their crews were practically wiped out a few moments later, and in the midst of this turmoil the mine went up.
It was quite the largest mine that had been exploded along the front, and the tremor of the earth could only be compared to an earthquake.
So eager was the engineer officer to reach the German trench, that, finding he was striking water underground, he loaded in something like a ton and a half of explosive to make certain. Thus he achieved the double result of winning the Military Cross for his skill and blowing up a portion of our front line, from which fortunately our men had been withdrawn.
But a number of our own men were killed and wounded, and, what was far worse, another reserve depôt of bombs was buried under the débris of the explosion.
In the meantime, masked by the fountain of earth thrown up by the mine, the attack had been launched and was already in the first German line, the bombers were beginning to work along the trench to the right and left, and the little flags that marked their progress could be seen moving slowly to the left to link up with the East Yorks.
But the East Yorks had been unable to advance owing to the wire not having all been cut and the machine-gun fire that enfiladed them from their flanks.
Meanwhile the Canadians had gained the third German line, but already the shortage of bombs was beginning to be felt, and they were forced back to the second line, where they established blocks in the trench and were able to hang on until the following day, when the German counter-attack forced them to fall back to our own front line.
