st bluff Canada ever
played.

About noon the Germans began blowing the troops out of the trenches on
the right of our supports. I went down again with Lieut. Colonel
Burland to the enfiladed crossroads to see what troops were there, and
to learn if any word had come through from headquarters. I stopped at
the field dressing station and ordered them to get the wounded away as
quickly as possible as the enemy were shelling their quarters,
evidently with the intention of destroying them. I met Major D.M.
Ormond of the 10th who had retired some of the men on his left. He was
asked to put his men back into the trenches below the crest of the
ridge and hang on. He wanted us to go back with him but that was
impossible. He was under the orders of the 2nd Brigade. I told him to
direct any of his men who were slightly wounded, but still able to
fight, to a line of trenches east of Hennebeke Creek, my idea being
that the Germans were having such a tough time with the forward lines
that as long as they suspected the crest was held they would not come
on. Any troops seen going back to the crest would be taken for
reinforcements. I knew that there must be an observation station not
far from the German "machine gunner" that was following me and that
this station would warn the enemy in our front that we still held the
ridge in considerable strength.

This theory proved to be correct, for the supporting trenches then
held by us on the ridge were taken over and held by the British troops
for days afterwards.

It was late in the afternoon when the din and rifle fire in our front
trenches ceased. Not a man came back, so I knew that every one had
stood to his post until overwhelmed. About the same time, five
o'clock, a blood-stained order reached me to retire the remnant to the
Divisional Reserve trenches. By this time the relieving troops could
be seen advancing in open order a short distance away. The Germans
were still attacking the line held by the Seventh on our left along
the Poelcapelle road. I watched them attack in open order at about
three paces interval through a turnip field, the officer following
behind with a drawn sword. Every time they reached the margin of the
turnip patch, which had not been dug up and which was producing a
perfect miniature forest of seed shoots, our guns and the 7th rifles
would open on them and they would run back for cover. Again and again
they persisted until finally the artillery ceased to fire.