And through this stream of sufferers the Australians, with eyes afire and teeth hard set, made their way eastwards. That night, above any other night, they wanted to fight, to get at the foe and send him reeling back towards the line from which he came.
On this night, the 24th, the Australians attacked, driving the enemy back into Villers-Bretonneux. The struggle was a fierce one in the dim moonlight and costly to the enemy, who disputed the ground step by step with bayonet and bomb, through the dark streets lit up by the flash of explosions, and ghastly with the shrieks of the wounded and dying. The area of battle was heavy with the gas which had been thrown into the town in the earlier part of the day and was still filling shell-hole, creek and cranny.
Neither side dared to shell the place, as the artillery of both friend and enemy were unaware what part of the village was occupied by their own troops. And so, unaccompanied by the roar of guns, the grim struggle went on in the darkness, the Germans filled with the lust of dominance, and the Australians nerved by the sad sights which they had seen on the road of sorrow that led from Amiens to the country in the rear.
Dawn saw the village cleared of the enemy and saw, too, the dead lying in heaps on the pavement and gutters. Australians who lived through that night are of opinion that never yet has the bayonet found so many victims in one fight. And never was a battle so fierce. The Peninsula was terrible, Pozieres horrible, Polygon ghastly, but Villers-Bretonneux was sheer, undiluted hell.
The Charge
The night is still and the air is keen,
Tense with menace the time crawls by—
The ruined houses in front are seen
Blurred in outline against the sky.