ng to wire being undestroyed and too
thick to cut. A gap was thus made between 1st and 4th Gordons. The enemy
pushed bombers through, thus getting behind 4th Gordons. Desperate
hand-to-hand fighting ensued. O.C. "A" Company was forced to defend his
left flank. A German counter-attack moving N. to S. by C.T. across the
Menin Road, The Royals' machine-gun did great execution. Terrific
bombardment by German heavies (H.E.). "A" Company was ordered to retire
on our old front line to get in touch with 4th G.H. on left. "B" Company
to keep in touch ordered to do the same. "C" Company rinding enemy on
left rear, position became critical. No battalion at all now on left,
1st Gordons having failed in their objective, and 4th having been
withdrawn owing to flank attack in front of 1st. No battalion now on
right either. "C" Company in danger of being surrounded. Captain N.S.
Stewart personally reported the danger of his position. A company of 4th
Middlesex were rushed up--all our men by this time having been used
up--to the nose of the salient, but could not man it owing to terrific
barrage of fire. "C" Company, completely cut off, fought its way with
the bayonet back to its former front line. Colonel Duncan reorganised
the firing line. Both sides spent the night in gathering in the
wounded.'

So ended the containing attack from the Ypres salient. But is not every
sentence a spur to the imagination?

Two days later, the Corps commander, in personally thanking the
battalion, complimented it on 'the smart appearance of the men who
_showed no signs of what they had gone through_.'

It was to this famous battalion of a great Regiment that I was now
attached as one of the four Presbyterian chaplains to the 'fighting
Third' Division.

WINTER WARFARE

CHAPTER VI

WINTER WARFARE

I

_The Shell Area_

The shell area is all the land behind the trenches which is under fire
from the enemy's guns as a matter of course. It is not a pleasant place,
for that reason, to walk about in, and our own artillery, cleverly
concealed, is apt to open fire unexpectedly within a few yards of the
passer-by in a way that is very disturbing. It is a dreary land; a dank
air broods over it, an atmosphere of destruction and death, of humanity
gone awry and desolate. I remember the almost ecstasy with which one
April afternoon some of us found ourselves among the purple hyacinths
on Kemmel hill. Poor Kemmel, once a pleasure resort whither