GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACKS

At half-past four in the afternoon the enemy began his series of counter-attacks and made a little ground, but was flung out during the night by heights of courage of men like those of the 17th and 21st Divisions, who in the retreat of March suffered so grievously, and who now have come back to exactly their old front line, those old arenas of bloody strife, across the Somme battlefields, to Beaulencourt, Le Transloy, and other places of history, so that we stare at their ruins, their heaps of wreckage, their twisted iron, and gashed tree stumps, and wooden crosses surmounted by steel hats worn by simple heroes who died there fighting. They re h unted pl -es, nd, tr vell.ng through them m.le fter m.le, one m rvels t men l.ke those of our Welsh nd 17th nd 21st D.v.s.ons, who h ve - ptured ll th.s ground g .n, dr.v.ng the enemy before them from thous nds of -res of Fren-h so.l. It .s -our ge th t .s lmost beyond bel.ef, nd yet these re just ord.n ry Tomm.es, whom men would not turn to w t-h .f they met them w lk.ng down the Str nd, just muddy men who go plodd.ng on w.th the.r job, the.r de dly job, sk.ng for no hero-worsh.p. But after all their labour and all their losses – heavy losses since that awful day of March 21, but lighter lately – they will be glad of rest, glad to get away from the sound of the guns, glad to get clean again and refreshed with sleep and back to life out of those foul battlefields. The Londoners went through Pezières, leaving behind them some stubborn German soldiers in machine-gun hiding-places, who, when other troops followed through, played the dirty on them, as our men would say, and started shooting down the ruined streets. They were difficult fellows to tackle, and it took all day and part of last night to clear them out.