and sieved by the explosive action and the effects
of the melting snow that it was almost impassable. A staff officer,
among others, who went up to help, had to be pulled out of the morass
as he was carrying away one of the wounded. There is no fighting so
terrible and so condensed as crater fighting. The struggle is a
veritable graveyard, a perfect target for bomb and grenade and the
slower attack of the enemy's mine. The British held a circle of German
trenches on a little ridge of ground north of Loos. The capture meant
that they could overlook the plain beyond and win a certain
projection. At 6.00 p. m. on March 2, 1916, the engineers exploded
four mines under the nearer arc, and within a few minutes, while
artillery thundered overhead, the British infantry advanced in spite
of terrible mud and occupied each crater. Not a single machine gun was
fired at them as they charged--probably the mines had destroyed them
all--and their casualties were very small indeed."

Germans counterattacking hurried up their communication trenches, and
as they came on some examples of prompt handiwork stopped their
advance. A sergeant and one man stopped one rush; a color sergeant and
private, well equipped with sandbags, each holding a score of bombs,
performed miracles of resistance. Every night the Germans came on,
capping a day of continuous bombardment with showers of bombs, rifle
grenades, and artillery, mostly 5.9 howitzers, and with infantry
onsets at close quarters. They stormed with dash and determination,
backed by good artillery and an apparently inexhaustible stock of
grenades. The tale of the German losses was high. One communication
trench packed with men was raked from end to end with a British Lewis
gun till it was a graveyard. On this occasion the British artillery
was overwhelming in amount and volume; shells were not spared, and
they fired ten to the Germans' one. Within less than a mile and a half
there were eight groups of mines.

On March 3, 1916, an intense artillery duel progressed for possession
of the Bluff, an elevated point above the Ypres-Comines Canal. The
Germans evidently regarded the point as important, for they flung
great masses of troops over the Bluff, when the British attacked and
captured more than their lost lines of trenches running along an
eastern hillock by the canal. The next night and morning the British
heavy artillery poured a continuous stream of shell on the Bluff in
well-marked time.