But the Hun is being
steadily beaten to earth. (Only yesterday, in one brief furious
counter-attack, he lost eight thousand killed.) When the final advance
comes, as come it must, and our victorious line sweeps forward, it
will pass over two narrow, ill-constructed, shell-torn trenches.
In and around those trenches will be found the earthly remains of
men--Jocks and Jimmies, and Sandies and Andies--clad in the uniform
of almost every Scottish regiment. That assemblage of mute, glorious
witnesses marks the point reached, during the first few hours of the
first day's fighting, by the Scottish Division of "K(1)." _Molliter
ossa cubent_.
There is little more to add to the record of those three days. For yet
another night we carried on--repelling counter-attacks, securing
the Hohenzollern, making sorties out of Big Willie, or manning the
original front line parapet against eventualities. As is inevitable in
a fight of these proportions, whole brigades were mingled together,
and unexpected leaders arose to take the place of those who had
fallen. Many a stout piece of work was done that night by mixed bands
of kilties, flat-heads, and even cyclists, marshalled in a captured
German trench and shepherded by a junior subaltern.
Finally, about midnight, came the blessed order that fresh troops were
coming up to continue the attack, and that we were to be extricated
from the _melee_ and sent back to rest.
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