The Camerons, carrying out their part with great dash, kept close to the barrage and entered the German trench as soon as it lifted. Except for some machine-gun fire from the left, resistance was slight and the garrison of the trench fled precipitately to the Gird Line. Blocks were immediately constructed on the right and left and held by bombers. About fifteen minutes after the capture, the enemy counter-attacked with bombs and forced his way in on the right, but the Camerons, immediately retaliating, killed a large number of the assailants and drove the remainder off in confusion. During this action a Stokes Gun team rendered great assistance by putting down a barrage on the Germans.[59] On the left the Camerons got into touch with a Lewis Gun team of the 1st South African Infantry, but could obtain no information concerning the rest of the battalion. In the afternoon about 300 Saxons were seen to be massing as if for a counter-attack. At once the S.O.S. was sent up and the men in field-grey, peppered with bullets and shell-fire, broke up in disorder and scrambled for shelter. Early in the evening, about 5.30 P.M., the enemy made still another attempt. A party of them left the Gird Trench and, moving round to the left flank, endeavoured to expel the Camerons by a bombing attack, but the garrison had received due warning and easily checked the onset with a Lewis Gun. During the night a company of the 9th Seaforths arrived and dug a communication trench from the old front line to Snag Trench.
The Lewis Gun detachment of the South Africans on the left of the Camerons proved to be the only section of the brigade that secured the objective. The company on the left was held up by wire and came under a withering machine-gun fire. All the officers having been killed or wounded, the survivors were drawn back to their original line. The fate of the other two companies was wrapped in obscurity, and the bare fact is that, with the exception of the Lewis Gun post and a few wounded, none of them ever returned. A wounded South African reported that his comrades got into the German front trench, which was full of dead and wounded, and it is probable that they reached their objective, but, failing to recognise it as the trench had been completely wrecked, had pushed on, only to perish through machine-gun fire from the Butte.[60] A few stragglers made their way back later in the day, bringing with them 19 prisoners.
On learning what had occurred, General Furse sent instructions for another attack to be delivered at 5.45 P.M. The key of the German position was the Nose, which was to be bombarded. The South Africans were ordered to secure it and to establish a block about 500 yards up the Tail, and as the Camerons had already extended their line westwards they were in a position to assist the attack. Owing to continuous heavy rain conditions were appalling. All firmness had been soaked out of the ground, which became a sea of pewter-grey ooze, and even the lightly-equipped runners sank with each step beyond the knees in mud and took fully four hours to struggle over 1000 yards. The attack was entrusted to Lieut.-Colonel Dawson. He arranged for the fourth company of his own battalion to attack from the Pimple, while a company of the 3rd South African Infantry was to enter Snag Trench east of the Nose and attack westwards. The assault from the Pimple was made with bombs, but the trench leading to the Nose dipped into a hollow which was commanded by machine-guns from it. Beyond this point all advance was barred to the assailants. The second party entered Snag Trench without difficulty and reached a point within 25 yards of the Nose, but here the Germans were strongly posted with three machine-guns in action and the advance came to a halt. The South Africans then withdrew to their original trenches, but later were ordered to reoccupy the Snag. This was done early on the morning of the 19th and a block was established on the side of the Nose.
Thus in spite of considerable progress the Division had been unable to complete the whole of its job. The 26th Brigade had done magnificently, but the Nose had defied all the strenuous efforts of the South Africans, whose failure had been due to no lack of dash or determination but solely to the dreadful conditions. Never did the Division fight on a more grisly battlefield. The long muddy slope up to the Butte was thickly strewn with British and German dead, and in the more forward trenches corpses of all units lay sprawling, wedged in by the slime that coated them. In the open near the Snag, a long line of men of the London Division, each on his face, was grim evidence of a gallant charge and the accuracy of the enemy’s machine-gun fire. Here and there a body arrested attention by the peculiar contortion of its attitude and served as a landmark to guide runners on their way. The air was rank with the odour of death. To eye, ear, and nose the whole place was repellant and it required extraordinary strength of will even to appear cheerful amid such ghastly surroundings.
For ten days the Highland and South African Brigades had held the line and on the 18th October the G.O.C. instructed the 27th to take over the whole position on the night of the 19th. Before the relief commenced the mud-covered slope was again the scene of furious and bitter encounters. Dawn ushered in a miserable day with torrents of rain lashing down, and at 5.30 A.M. the Germans made a terrific assault, using flammenwerfer. The Black Watch,[61] who had relieved the Camerons during the night, met them in a desperate conflict. The only weapons fit for use were bombs; rifles and machine-guns were clogged with mud and could not be fired. The right company easily held its own and repulsed the invaders. The greatest danger came from the left, for on that flank the flammenwerfer caused much havoc amongst the South Africans, most of whom were driven out of Snag Trench, though a few moved eastwards and joined in with the Highlanders. At their backs followed German bombers who inflicted heavy casualties on the crowded troops, but a vigorous counter-attack by men of the “red hackle” stopped the assailants and forced them back for 40 yards. Captain Taylor of “B” Company hurried up from the support trench to the front line, and grasping the situation made arrangements for an attack. Bombing parties were organised and bombs brought up. Fortunately 2nd Lieut. Gibson of the L.T.M.B. had one Stokes Gun in good working order, and under its barrage the Black Watch regained all their trenches and had even penetrated into the South African sector by noon. The whole of the defences were then reorganised, but the enemy did not venture again to tackle the Black Watch.
The South Africans had been expelled from the Snag Trench by flammenwerfer, which had inflicted most dreadful wounds. But the Germans had not escaped without scathe; for in the operation they exposed themselves to the machine-guns at the Pimple, which quickly thinned out their ranks. After they were compelled by the Black Watch to retire many took refuge near the Nose, but this point was heavily bombarded by our gunners, and large numbers leaving the trench darted in the direction of the Butte. Few of them reached it; they were mowed down by the Vickers and Lewis Gun fire of the Pimple garrison, commanded by Major Ormiston. Early in the afternoon the South Africans sent forward a party to reoccupy the Snag and if possible to secure the Nose. The first part of the scheme was easily accomplished, but the tenacious machine-gunners ensconced in the latter stopped all further progress. For some inscrutable reason the wildest reports were sent back to D.H.Q. that the Nose had been taken and that if only more bombs could be sent up the Butte could be captured without difficulty. Such fallacious reports are extremely dangerous; they may lead to the useless sacrifice of many lives. When the relief of the South Africans began, General Furse was under the impression that the Nose had been taken and he instructed the 27th Brigade to exploit the success.
The relief on the night of the 19th October will never be forgotten by any officer or man of the Ninth who took part in it. In the forenoon under a soaking rain the units of the 27th Brigade marched first to High Wood, and even there a man sank up to his ankles in mud. The 6th K.O.S.B. and the 12th Royal Scots who were to take over the left and the right fronts had a terrible time. The trial came as soon as the communication trenches were entered. There seemed to be absolutely no bottom in them and the men struggled along waist-deep in mud. Darkness had fallen when they reached the trenches near Eaucourt L’Abbaye and an intense hostile barrage added to the horror. With devilish accuracy the shells pitched near the communication trenches and many plunged right into them. Unspeakable was the fate of any man who was badly wounded that night; he sank below the mire and the men in the rear pressed on all unconscious that the welcome firmness, which momentarily sustained them, was the body of a comrade. Progress could be made only with the greatest exhaustion; a yard seemed a mile. Every now and then the men had to halt for a brief space, resting their elbows on the sides of the trench to prevent their whole bodies being engulfed in the mud; without such support it was fatal to stand still. It was not surprising that the relief was not complete until 6 A.M. on the 20th October.
Many horrible tales were told about that relief, but no invention could beggar the reality. Men with rifles and haversacks could scarcely struggle on, but their lot was easy compared with that of Vickers and Lewis Gun teams, whose guns had to be carried up and also ammunition[62] for them. The magazines for the Lewis Guns were taken in buckets, like nosebags, each holding four. The usual weight for a man was two buckets, but that was a Herculean load on such a night. Tales of distress reached the battalion H.Q. and parties with ropes and spades set out to rescue stranded men. One Lewis gunner of the 6th K.O.S.B. was so firmly embedded beyond the waist in mud that when he was finally extricated with ropes both his ankles were broken. The agonies endured by the Highlanders and South Africans were indescribable. Parties of worn-out men coming down from the front line threw themselves into any shell-hole, too tired to care what happened to them, and it was a kind cruelty that drove them to their feet and forced them on to some safer place. Many Highlanders discarded their kilts as being too heavy, but indeed so glutinous was the abundant mud that it was difficult to tell whether a man wore a kilt or not. Some of the Black Watch dropped down exhausted at the door of a dressing-station near High Wood, and their tunics and equipment could not be removed in the ordinary way, but had to be hacked off them before they could be revived.
After their purgatorial march the men of the 27th Brigade were unfit to exploit any success, but the situation did not allow of any such attempt as the 6th K.O.S.B. found when they reached the front line. The enemy still held the Nose, and this was immediately reported by Lieut.-Colonel Connell to Brig.-General Scrase-Dickins, who immediately made arrangements for an attack to be delivered at 4 P.M. Until that time the Tail and the Nose were to be bombarded and at zero the 6th K.O.S.B. were to advance under cover of a barrage, which was to lift 50 yards every time the infantry fired a green light. The attack was to be from Snag Trench by bombing parties, but in the event of this being checked another was to be delivered across the open from the east by a support company an hour later. Lieut.-Colonel Connell supplemented these instructions by ordering the company at the Pimple to be ready to take advantage of these assaults. Both attacks from the east were repulsed by the machine-guns at the Nose. During these actions the garrison at the Pimple observing groups of the enemy retiring from the Tail towards the Butte, inflicted severe losses with machine-gun fire. At the same time, 2nd Lieut. Johnson and a few men rushed across the open, drove out the enemy and occupied the Nose. But the company commander, thinking that his men were too few to hold the whole trench from the Pimple to the Nose, evacuated the position. On hearing this, Brig.-General Scrase-Dickins ordered the 11th Royal Scots in support to send a company to retake the Nose and establish a post about 500 yards up the Tail, but before it arrived the Nose was reoccupied by the 6th K.O.S.B. Under the direction of Lieut.-Colonel Connell, who had gone to the Pimple on learning of the evacuation, a party of the K.O.S.B. retook the position and joined up with the company in Snag Trench. Later the company of the 11th Royal Scots arrived and passed up the Tail, where it established a post.
Thus on the night of the 20th October all the objectives of the attack of the 18th were secured. Till the evening of the 24th October the Division held the line and was busy strengthening its position and digging new assembly trenches for an attack on the Butte. It was the intention of the Corps to employ the Ninth in a battle that was arranged for the 25th October. On General Furse’s representations this arrangement was cancelled and the Division was relieved late on the 24th.[63] Another engagement was indeed beyond the capacity of the men. Though casualties were not so high, the nerve-strain and fatigue were even greater than in July. More men were lost from illness and exposure than from wounds and death, and the number of cases of trench feet was exceptionally large. Many men on being brought back from the mud of the line took off their boots to rub their feet, which swelled to such an extent that they could not be inserted in the boot again.