There were savage fights in some of the dark cellars of Langemarck between men who would not surrender and men who would not turn back, and men who fell heavily against other men and knew that in these underground holes it must be their life or the other's, and the quicker the better. They fought their way beyond Langemarck yesterday, and on the left of our advance we hold to-day all the ground that was taken, which follows the curve of the Langemarck-Gheluvelt line, dug and wired by months of labour according to the orders of the German command, afraid of our coming menace, and now blotted out. The fighting all about this ground was by groups of English soldiers, in some cases without officers, and in some cases led by privates with a sense of leadership and fine, stern courage. They were Royal Fusiliers, Lancashire Fusiliers, Middlesex, Guernseys, and other battalions of the 29th Division, the Light Infantry battalions of the 20th Division, the Yorkshires, Lancashires, South Staffords, Lincolns, and Borderers of the 11th Division, and the Oxfords, Gloucesters, and Berkshires of the 48th Division. So things happened on the left of the battle. All ground was gained as it had been planned, and all held, and many hundreds of prisoners were taken, though that is not the best proof of success.
On the right it was different. It was on the right that the enemy fought hardest, counter-attacked most fiercely and most often, and concentrated the heaviest artillery. There were the Irish Brigades here, and English county troops of the 8th Division, and London battalions of the 56th. All this side of the attack become involved at once in desperate fighting. The ground was damnable—cratered and full of water and knee-deep in foul mud—and beyond them was high ground, struck through with gully-like funnels, through which the enemy could pour up his storm troops for counter-attack; and away in the mud were the same style of concrete forts as up north, still unbroken by our bombardments and fortified again with new garrisons of machine-gunners, taking the place of those who on July 31 were killed or captured when this ground was stormed and, later, lost.
The English and the Irish battalions made progress in spite of heavy fire on them and no light losses; but in the afternoon of yesterday they had to withdraw from their advanced positions under the pressure of fierce counter-attacks by fresh troops. They fought these rear-guard actions stubbornly. Irish as well as English fought sometimes in small groups in isolated posts, until they were killed or captured. They made the enemy pay a big price in blood for his old ground, but their own casualties could not be light in view of the desperate character of this struggle.
As yet I know very few details of the Irish side of things. I know more about the Londoners, for I have been to see them to-day, and they have told me the facts of yesterday. They are tragic facts, because for English troops it is always a tragedy to withdraw from any yard of soil they have taken by hard fighting, and many good London lads will never come back from that morass. But there is nothing the matter with London courage, and to me there is something more thrilling in the way these boys fought to the death, some of them in the bitterness of retreat, than in the rapid and easy progress of men in successful attack. Lying out all night in the wet mud under heavy fire, they attacked at dawn up by Glencorse Wood, in the direction of Polygon Wood. On the right they and their neighbours at once came under blasts of fire from five machine-guns in a strong point, and under a hostile barrage-fire that was frightful in its intensity They could not make much headway. No mortal men could have advanced under such fire, and so their comrades on the left were terribly exposed to the scythe of bullets which swept them also.
Men of London regiments—the Queen's Westminsters and the old "Vics" and the Rangers and the Kensingtons—fought forward with a wonderful spirit which is a white shining light in all this darkness—through Glencorse Wood and round to the north of Nuns' Wood, avoiding the most deeply flooded ground here, where there was one big boggy lake. Parties of the Middlesex went into Polygon Wood, which is a long way forward, and actually brought prisoners out of that place. At a strong point near the Hooge-Gheluvelt road they killed thirty-four Germans and captured the redoubt. But there were Germans still left in other concrete houses near by, and they were very strong at the Zonnebeke position on the north-west.
Very soon counter-attacks developed from the south out of Inverness Copse, and from the north. The Londoners were exhausted after their dreadful night and all this fighting over foul ground; they were in exposed positions, and they were shut in by the most terrible gun-fire. What happened with the Irish and other troops happened here. Our airmen, flying low, saw small isolated groups of London boys fighting separate battles against great odds. The enemy was encircling them, and they were trying to hold rear-guard positions, so that their comrades could withdraw in good order. A signalled message that found its way to headquarters tells one such story. I read to-day the little pink slip bearing the words as they came in. They are from a Middlesex officer. "Am in shell-hole before second objective, and two strong points held by the enemy. Have ten men with me. We are surrounded, and heavy machine-gun fire is being turned on us. Regret no course but to surrender. Can't see any of our forces."
That message was the only one of its kind received, but there were many small groups of London men, led by young officers, or without officers, who held on to the last like that, and did not let down the pride of their great city, so gay, so ignorant yesterday afternoon, with a tide of traffic swirling down its streets, while out here on the wet barren earth, under the same sun, these boys of London fought and died, or in small groups rose from among their dead and wounded and went white-faced into the circle of the enemy who had surrounded them.