If you would know what a man the British soldier is, read to-day the writing embossed over the gentle undulations of ground that lead along the river to Beaucourt. A soldier lies at one spot tightly gripping a German with both hands. The two are joined just as they fell, both, it is probable, shot by a German machine-gun. For hereabouts the machine-gun was very busy. You could trace the full course of its discharge by many signs.
Everyone who has walked across the field of battle comes away with an admiration that is indeed reverence for the men who slowly, steadfastly walked that autumn morning one hundred yards after another over fields deadly with the enemy╒s devices. Wire caught and tripped them and tangled them, but they stumbled on. It was cut and tumbled everywhere by artillery work of the highest accuracy, but wire, especially German wire, is indestructible as material, and no acres along the front have been so roofed with it. Men were shot as they disentangled themselves coolly as you would dislodge a bramble, and if a wounded man who had already fallen attempted to shift his position he was a dead man, for in all the fighting in this area since July the Germans, by deliberate policy, have watered the ground with bullets after an attack, and have appointed special snipers to fire at any moving object.
In the gloom and fog of this autumn morning the attack somewhat lost evenness and cohesion ╤ or so the writing suggests ╤ and the groups missed the encouragement of an even charge, when every man has companions to follow and feels himself part of a machine. In this advance one group after another relied wholly on itself, and its reliance was not misplaced. Every man, every little assembly of men, went forward in spite of a hundred barriers that would have plausibly held up platoons or battalions less game than these. They were out to win their spurs. He who runs might read the story ╤yesterday. After a famous victory such as this the dead lie on the field of their fame as they fell for a day ╤ it may be for several days. Then, with quick care and stern reverence, the last rites are paid.
We have had many great fights ╤ none finer than this. It was heroic in every turn and phase. And the heroism was nowhere vain. Everywhere it won its end ╤ yea, and more than its end. Nor was its cost beyond measure as figures go. It is only that every fibre of feeling is touched to see one good man fallen before he reached the end. To see him there, said one who returned, was to swear an immortal oath that his sacrifice should not fail of its end ╤ the freedom of his children from the threat of war and the unstained liberty of his nation.
To-morrow I may be able to name the unit to whom the glory of this part of the field peculiarly belongs.
