There can be no shadow of doubt that the Germans were completely taken by surprise by the unexpected rapidity of the 1st Division's advance. It was a fine piece of generalship, and had Sir Douglas Haig only had fresh troops to bring up from reserve, it is probable that the Germans would have been swept back another mile or two.
Fresh reserve troops, however, were too great a luxury for our small force. The Loyal N. Lancashires had in the morning been the reserve battalion to the 2nd Brigade, and of these fifty per cent. had fallen. Some of the R. Sussex and 1st Coldstream, as a matter of fact, did penetrate as far as Cerny, following the road from Troyon which cuts through the high ground beyond in a narrow defile. This road was literally choked with the enemy's dead. At Cerny they found every symptom of confusion and surprise, abandoned kits, baggage and munitions, and no sign of organized resistance. The detachment, however, was small, and as it was unsupported on either flank it was deemed wise to retire.
Verneuil
We can now move across on to the next range of heights to the left, and see how it there fared with the 3rd and 5th Brigades. Here matters were neither so eventful nor so decisive as on the Troyon ridge. It was ten o'clock before the 3rd Brigade came up into line, and was ordered to extend to the left and join up with the right of the 2nd Division, which was in the neighbourhood of Braye. While carrying out this order and when within a mile or so of Verneuil, they suddenly came up against two strong German columns which were advancing with some unknown object. The rest of the day's proceedings in this quarter may be briefly described as a series of attacks and counter-attacks, which lasted all through the day, between these two German columns and our 3rd, 5th and 6th Brigades. In the fiercely contested combat between these two forces honours were during the earlier part of the day fairly easy, but towards dusk the Germans sensibly weakened, both in attack and defence, and the British troops undoubtedly had the last word.
The most conspicuous episode in this section of the fighting was a really great performance on the part of an Edinburgh man named Wilson, in the Highland Light Infantry. That battalion had just made a most successful and dramatic charge, led by Sir Archibald Gibson-Craig and Lieut. Powell (both killed), and had established itself in a forward position with its left on a small wood. From this wood a German machine-gun began playing on the ranks of the battalion with such disastrous accuracy that it soon became clear that either the machine-gun must be silenced or the position evacuated. Pte. Wilson thought the former alternative preferable, and, getting a K.R.R. man to go with him, crept out towards the wood. The K.R.R. man was shot almost at once, but, quite undeterred, Wilson went on alone, killed the German officer and six men, and single-handed captured the machine-gun and two and a half cases of ammunition. It need scarcely be said that he got the Victoria Cross.
Another Victoria Cross earned this day by another Scotsman was little less remarkable, though of an entirely different order.
Pte. Tollerton, a fine, powerful man in the Scottish Rifles, noticed an officer fall badly wounded in the firing line. Though himself wounded both in the head and hand, Tollerton carried the officer to a place of safety, after which he himself returned to the firing line and there remained fighting, in spite of his wounds, throughout the day. At dusk he returned to the wounded officer. In the meanwhile the firing line had fallen back, with the result that Tollerton and the officer were left behind. The latter was quite incapable of moving, and Tollerton remained with him for three days and nights, till eventually both were rescued.
Soupir
Once more it is necessary to shift our scene still more to the left and nearer again to the Aisne, where the Cour de Soupir farm stands on the crest of the river bluff.
The capture of this position was the work of the Guards' Brigade. At 8 a.m., at the time when the 1st and 2nd Brigades were in the very thick of their fight at Troyon, the 2nd Division, which was still on the south side of the river, began to cross by the new pontoon bridge at Pont d'Arcy, the 6th Brigade moving up the valley to Braye, while the 5th Brigade fought its way up the wooded slopes above Soupir. These last two brigades, as we have seen, linked up with the 3rd Brigade in the neighbourhood of Verneuil.