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heavy guns with numerous machine guns along the wooded edge. There was
no protection, and no shelter against the terrible German Maxim fire, so
that the moment came when to attempt further advance meant instant
annihilation. Still, under cover of the success of the Eleventh Brigade
the engineers built a pontoon bridge at Venizel and the Twelfth Brigade
crossed to Bucy-de-Long, with a number of the lighter artillery. As
there was absolutely no shelter, to storm the height at that point was
impossible, and to remain where they were was merely to court sudden
death, so the Twelfth Brigade worked over the slopes to the ravine at
Chipres, where they intrenched.

The task in front of the Second Army Corps was no less difficult. The
bridge at Conde was too strongly defended to be taken by assault, as Sir
Horace Smith-Dorrien speedily found out, so he divided his forces into
two parts, one of which was directed at the village of Missy, two and
one half miles west of Conde, while the other concentrated its attack on
a crossing at the town of Vailly, three miles east of Conde. Both
detachments made good their crossing, but the regiments that found
themselves near Missy also realized that hasty, very hasty intrenchment
was imperative, lest every one of them should be blown into kingdom come
before half an hour had passed by. During the night some troops were
rafted over, three men at a time, and these encamped near Missy. It was
a false move. For sixteen days thereafter the British troops had to
remain in their dugouts, a large part of the time without food or water.
To show a head above the trench was sudden death.

The regiments that crossed the river at Vailly found themselves in even
a worse plight. No sooner had they crossed than the bombardment began,
and the Germans knew every range in the place accurately. More than
that, the line of trenches was open to enfilade fire from a hidden
battery, which did not unmask until the trench was filled with soldiers.
This Eighth Brigade had to retire in disorder.

The Fifth Brigade, attached to the First Army Corps under Sir Douglas
Haig, an Irish and Scotch group of regiments, were the most successful
of all. The bridge at Pont Arcy had been destroyed, but still one of its
girders spanned the stream. It would have been tricky walking, even
under ordinary circumstances, but nerve racking to attempt, when from
every hill and wood and point of land, Maxims, machine guns and a steady