It was after the advance of our men on Polderhoek and its château by the Gheluvelt spur of the Passchendaele Ridge. Some of the Surreys, Devons, and Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry swung round the stream and marshlands of the Reutel and accounted for many of the enemy in close and fierce fighting. The Devons were astride the stream and, working north of it, attacked a slope called Juniper Spur.
In Polderhoek was a nest of machine-guns, which fired out of the ruins of the château, and for some time our men had difficult and deadly work. This was worst against the Scottish Borderers, who were facing the château grounds, but they dug in and made some cover, while behind the prisoners, about 500 of them, were getting back to the safety of our lines.
It was at three o'clock in the afternoon that the enemy sent a very strong counter-attack down the slopes of the Gheluvelt Spur against the 5th and 7th Divisions. Six times through the afternoon masses of men appeared and tried to force their way forward, but each time they were caught under rifle-fire and machine-guns and artillery.
It was at seven o'clock that the heaviest attack came, under cover of savage shelling, and our men had to fall back on the ground beyond Cameron House, which is the scene of the enemy's fierce attacks on September 25, when they were for some little time a serious menace to us. This morning the enemy had driven a wedge into our line in this neighbourhood, and it is quite possible that he will deliver other blows in the same direction. Last night he made no great endeavour to get back ground. It was a dirty night for our men, who had been fighting all day. The rain fell heavily, filling the shell-holes and turning all the broken ground of battle to the same old bog which made so much misery in Inverness Copse and Glencorse Wood and other positions attacked on July 31 and afterwards.
"I lay up to my waist in water," said one of the Devons who came down wounded this morning; "it was bitter cold, and Fritz was putting over his 5·9's; he was also putting over a lot of machine-gun fire, and the bullets came over the heads of our men like the cracking of whips." It was bad for the wounded and the stretcher-bearers—the splendid stretcher-bearers, who worked all through the night up and down through fierce barrage-fire. Most of them got through with their burdens by that queer miracle of luck which is often theirs. But one little party came down when the fire was fiercest, and took cover in a shell-hole close beside some Warwickshire boys who were crouching in another hole until the storm of shells had passed. Suddenly they heard the howl of a monstrous shell—an eight-inch or even a twelve-inch by the noise if it. It fell and burst right inside the shell-crater where the stretcher-bearers were huddled with their wounded men, and they were blown out of it yards high, so that their bodies were tossed like straws in a fierce wind.... I met many men who worked their way down under fire like that, and some who had been wounded already were wounded again, and some of the comrades who trudged with them were killed.
The Warwickshire battalions of the 48th Division on the left of the New-Zealanders had some very hard fighting, lasting all through the day, which concluded with an attack on a position called Terrier Farm, above the pill-boxes of Wellington House and Winchester House, which they had captured after some bad quarters of an hour.
The Warwicks had started with great luck. In spite of the German shelling they had got away to their first objective with only three casualties. They went through the first line of blockhouses without much trouble, picking up prisoners on the way in most of them. Their first trouble came from one of these concrete places called Wellington House. Machine-gun fire came crackling from it, and bullets were also sweeping the ground from hidden emplacements. After twenty minutes' struggle Wellington House fell, and the flanks on either side closed up and went forward, the Warwicks helped on the right by a body of New Zealand men. In the centre the machine-gun fire from those concrete walls ahead caused a check and a gap, and although they tried many times with great gallantry under brave officers, to silence that fire and work round the blockhouses, they could not do this without greater loss, and decided to link up with their flanks by digging a loop-line in front of those positions, which make a small wedge, or pocket, in our line there.
The attack against Terrier Farm was done by other Warwickshire lads, who were very game after a long day under fire, but for all their spirit tired and cold. They stood almost knee-deep in mud, and they were wet to the skin, as it was now raining steadily, so a Tank came up to help them, and drew close enough to Terrier Farm to fire broadsides at its concrete and machine-gun its loophole. A white rag thrust through a hole in the wall was the sign of the enemy's surrender. But the conditions were too bad for any greater progress, and the men dug in for the night, while brother Tank crawled back.
All the Tanks used in the battle did well, in spite of the bad going, and helped to reduce several of the blockhouses. They had only two casualties among their crews, and most of them got back to their hiding-places without damage from German shells.
It is astounding that the German counter-attacks were so quickly signalled to the guns, for the light all day was bad, and the weather was dead against the work of the flying men. They did their best by flying low and risking the enemy's fire. There was one pilot who is the talk of the Australians to-day. They watched that English child doing the most amazing "stunts" over the fighting-lines. He was out all day, swooping low, so that his plane seemed just to skim over the craters. The Germans tried to get him by any manner of means. They turned their "Archies" on to him and their machine-guns, and then tried to bring him down with rifle-fire, and that failing, though they pierced his wings many times, they called up the heavies and tried to snipe him with 5·9's, which are mighty big and beastly things. But he went on flying till many of his wires were cut and his struts splintered, and his aeroplane was a rag round an engine. He was bruised and dazed when he came to earth, making a bad landing in our own lines, but not killing either himself or the observer, who shares the honour and the marvel of this exploit.