About a hundred and fifty prisoners were taken also, by the troops on the right of this section, belonging mostly to the 23rd Reserve Division, with some of the 3rd Guards. Our men who attacked in the direction of Zonnebeke village were Leicesters, Notts and Derbys, East Yorks, Royal Scots, Gordons, and King's Own, and they had some stiff fighting on the way to the Windmill Cabaret and Hill Forty, which seems to be the key to the position. Here they came against some of the blockhouses at Toronto Farm and Van Isackere Farm, but did not meet great trouble there. Some of them had been so badly knocked by shell-fire that the garrisons inside were killed, by concussion, and from others men came out to surrender as soon as our men were near them. Near the village of Zonnebeke the fight was more serious against the Royal Scots and East Yorks, and the enemy's gun-fire, which had not been very heavy on the other ground of attack, smashed along the line of the railway embankment.
The Australian advance across the racecourse of Polygon Wood and northward across the spur to below Zonnebeke Château was steady and successful. There was a regular chain of blockhouses on the way, but there again the old black magic of the pill-box failed. The men rallied inside them, many of them being Poles of the 49th Regiment, who hate the Prussians in a fierce way and ask us to kill as many as possible for their sake. Most of them were quick and glad to surrender. A platoon of them were taken in some wooden dug-outs below the high mound of Polygon Wood, that old Butte which is supposed to be the burial-place of a prehistoric chief, though by the Australians it is believed to be the observation-post of Sir Douglas Haig in 1914.
The enemy's gun-fire was heavy over part of the ground, and there was a nest of machine-guns along a road which gave some trouble, but in the main attack the losses of the Australians were not heavy up to the time they gained the last objective. It was our aircraft which brought back the first news of the Anzacs on the racecourse in Polygon Wood, and later they had reached the farthest goal, where prisoners were surrendering freely. On the left of their front the Australians were quite satisfied with their position. On the right they had great anxiety because of the check to the troops below them. At one time it was found advisable for the Australians to swing back their flank a little in order to avoid its exposure. But the Australians are full of confidence and are sure that they can handle any counter-attack which may be launched against them. It has been a hard day for all our men, especially for those who bore the brunt of the enemy's fire, and I believe will be counted as one of the biggest days of fighting in this war. Its decision is of vital importance to the enemy and to ourselves, and so far it is in our favour.
XVII
THE BATTLE OF POLYGON WOOD
September 27
The battle which began yesterday morning, after a whole day of counter-attacking by the enemy, in great numbers and by great gun-fire, lasted until nightfall, and, as I told yesterday, did not pass without anxious hours for those in command, and trying hours for some of our fighting men.
From the left above Zonnebeke down to the Australian front on the heights of the Polygon Wood Racecourse the advance was made with fair ease through the blockhouse system and without severe losses, as they are reckoned in modern warfare, in spite of difficult bits of ground and the usual snags, as our men call them, in the way of unexpected machine-gun fire, odd bits of trench to which small groups of Germans clung stubbornly, dirty swamps which some of our men could not cross quickly enough to keep up with the barrage, and danger zones upon which the enemy heaped his explosives.
There were incidents enough for individual men to be remembered for a lifetime, hairbreadth escapes, tight corners in which men died after acts of fine heroism, and strong points like Hill 40, on the left of the ruins of Zonnebeke, around which some of our troops struggled with fortune.