"Yes, the 'good old German God' is busy again," said my fellow-tenant of the shell-crater and of the pond that welled up in it. "Just our beastly luck!" It was ten minutes past seven, and we had heard that the battle was to begin at seven. Perhaps it had been postponed.
As the thought was uttered the battle began. It began with one great roar of guns. Not only behind us but far to our right and left. Flights of shells passed over our heads as though long-tailed comets of the spheres had broken loose from the divine order of things. In a wide sweep round Lens they burst with sharp flashes and lighted fires there. Outside the Cité du Moulin, at the western edge of Lens, a long chain of golden fountains rose as though little mines had been blown, and they were followed by a high bank of white impenetrable smoke. On the right of Avion another smoke-barrage was discharged, and above it there rose one of the strangest things I have seen in war. It was the figure of a woman, colossal, so that her head seemed to reach the heavens. It was not a fanciful idea, as when men watch the shapes of clouds and say, "How like Gladstone!" or "There is a camel!" or "A ship!" This woman figure of white solid smoke was as though carved out of rock, and she seemed to stare across the battlefield, and stayed there unchanged for several minutes. The guns continued their fury. Rockets went up out of Avion, and the German guns answered these signals. There was one wild tumult of artillery beating down the lines southward to Oppy, and beyond and above and through and into all this violence of sound there was the roll and rattle of thunder—heavy claps—and the rattle of the storm-drums. Lightning flashed above the flashes of our batteries, gave a livid outline to black trees and chimneys, and pierced the heart of all this darkness with long light swords. It was bad luck for our men, as I have heard since from messages which came back out of those smoke-banks through which no mortal eye could see. The men were drenched to the skin as soon as they started to attack. The rain beat into their faces and upon their steel hats. In a few minutes all the shelled ground across which they had to fight became as slippery as ice, so that many of them stumbled and fell. In Avion the enemy had already let loose floods to stop the way to Lens, and by the rain-storm they spread into big swamps. But the Canadians went ahead straight into the streets of Avion, leaving little searching-parties on their trail to make sure of the ruined houses, where machine-guns might be hidden.
This street fighting is always a nasty business, but in the south and western streets there was not much trouble from German infantry. Round Leauvette many of them lay dead. The living rear-guards surrendered in small parties from cellars and tunnels. The chief trouble of the Canadians was on the right, by Fosse 4 and a huddle of pit-heads where the enemy was in strength with many machine-guns, where he fired with a steady sweep of bullets, which I heard last night above all the other noise. The Canadians swing to the left a little to avoid that stronghold, and established themselves on a diagonal line, striking north-west and south-east through the slums, where they took what cover they could from the German shell-fire. To the left of Lens our Midland troops had some hard fighting in front of the Cité du Moulin, and gave a terrible handling to the Eleventh Reserve Division, who have previously suffered on the Canadian front, so that they were disgusted to find themselves near their old enemies again. They relieved the Fifty-sixth Division, which is down to one-seventh of its strength since fighting against the Leinsters in the Bois-en-Hache, near Vimy. The raid farther north inflicted frightful losses on the enemy in his dug-outs. In one big tunnelled dug-out not a man escaped.
The attack at Oppy, in the south, was a successful advance by Warwickshire lads and other English troops, who followed a great barrage into the enemy's front-trench system and captured all those of the garrison who were not quick enough to escape. They were men of the Fifth Bavarian Division, which is one of the best in the German army, and made up of very tough fellows.
So the evening ended in our favour, and our losses were not heavy, I am told. Not heavy, though always the price of victory has to be paid by that harvest of wounded who came back under the Red Cross down the country lanes of France.
VIII
THE TRAGEDY AT LOMBARTZYDE
July 13
The Germans have claimed a victory near Lombartzyde, and it is true that by heavy gun-fire they have driven us from our defences in a wedge-shaped tract of sand-dunes between the sea and the Yser Canal. This reverse of ours is not a great defeat. It is only a tragic episode of human suffering such as one must expect in war. But what is great—great in spiritual value and heroic memory—is the way in which our men fought against overwhelming odds and under annihilating fire, and did not try to escape nor talk of surrender, but held this ground until there was no ground but only a zone of bloody wreckage, and still fought until most of them were dead or disabled.