rench
counter-attacks pushed in a northeasterly direction from the canal bank.

[Sidenote: The defenders give ground.]

But the artillery fire of the enemy continually grew in intensity, and
it became more and more evident that the Canadian salient could no
longer be maintained against the overwhelming superiority of numbers by
which it was assailed. Slowly, stubbornly, and contesting every yard,
the defenders gave ground until the salient gradually receded from the
apex, near the point where it had originally aligned with the French,
and fell back upon St. Julien.

[Sidenote: The enemy in St. Julien.]

Soon it became evident that even St. Julien, exposed to fire from right
and left, was no longer tenable in the fact of overwhelming numerical
superiority. The Third Brigade was therefore ordered to retreat further
south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since 5
o'clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far
larger forces, to disentangle the detachment of the Royal Highlanders of
Montreal, Thirteenth Battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment,
Fourteenth Battalion. The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too
soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as those
with which his comrades had said farewell to Captain McCuaig. The German
tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several hours
after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and
persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet
master of the Canadian rearguard. If they died, they died worthily of
Canada.

The enforced retirement of the Third Brigade (and to have stayed longer
would have been madness) reproduced for the Second Brigade, commanded by
Brigadier General Curry, in a singularly exact fashion, the position of
the Third Brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the French.
The Second Brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line
of trenches, roughly 2,500 yards, which it was holding at 5 o'clock on
Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the Third
Brigade, and by the highly hazardous employment in which necessity had
involved that brigade. The Second Brigade had maintained its lines.

[Sidenote: General Curry's maneuvres.]

[Sidenote: Lieutenant Colonel Lipsett holds the left.]

It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to
reproduce the tactical maneuvres with which, earlier