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.
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