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Part of the ground about the Grassier was inundated, due to the waterway near by having broken its banks, and this, in conjunction with the great number of machine-gun emplacements on the elevation, made it a particularly difficult position for attack.
Versigny and Lebrousse had not been able to rejoin him; the place appointed for their meeting, the corner of the boulevard and the Rue de Richelieu, having been continually scoured by charges of cavalry. The courageous effort of Colonel Grassier to win over the Sixth Legion, the more timid attempt of Lieutenant Colonel Howyne upon the Fifth, had failed.
If an office is to be disposed of, the constant phrase in France is, as in India, il faut grassier la pate. I was acquainted with two judges in France, who made not the least scruple to acknowledge that they owed their appointments to bribes, delicately administered. The bribes consisted in presents of fruit, presented in a gold dish.
The Grassier was an important buffer between the Canadians and the defenses of the city proper, and the Germans reached it through tunnels connected with the network of passages and dugouts beneath Lens.
She went about it with the pathetic confidence of youth and ignorance. She rode up and down the canyons and over the higher, grassier ridges, to watch the cattle on their summer range and keep them from straying. She went with John Pringle after posts and helped him fence certain fertile slopes and hollows for winter grazing.
The Grassier is a great slag heap, and lies only about 300 yards south of the central railway station of Lens, and overlooks it. The Canadians made their assault before dawn this time, and the attack was preceded by a protracted and exceedingly intense bombardment of the German positions.
An advance upon two German colliery positions adjoining the Grassier to the northwest, earlier in the night, also involved stiff hand-to-hand fighting. About the Grassier were numerous shell-shattered buildings, many of which had been strongly fortified by the Germans. The Canadians bombed their way systematically through these defenses, silencing the machine guns and clearing out the defenders.
German intrigues in Russia were known to be exerting powerful influence to bring about anarchy within the new democracy. An advance by the Canadians in the neighborhood of the Green Grassier on the southern edge of Lens added greatly to the strength of the British line, which continued to tighten steadily about the heart of the city.
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