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Some tried to get out, only to fall stricken with the deadly vapor before they had gone many yards. Among these was Lieut. Taylor, an Oxford scholar, one of the best athletes in the First Division. He won out of the trench only to die on the Gravenstafel Ridge. Company Sergeant-Major Hermitage and his brother Sergeant Hermitage were stricken down also but managed to crawl out.
Behind headquarters the hill sloped back to Haenebeek brook, northwest and southeast. Five hundred yards behind the Gravenstafel ridge ran the road from Zonnebeke to Langemarck. On this road immediately in our rear there was a ruined blacksmith shop and several old farm engines.
All this time the Germans were industriously shelling the dugouts and supporting trenches where our supports were located and along the Gravenstafel Ridge. Huge shells fell like hail. Those that failed to burst in the air exploded the minute they struck the hard untilled clay of the fallow fields and fragments flew in every direction. One fell on the roadway about twenty feet away from me.
On reaching the ridge, which was found unoccupied, the 7th Battalion moved off to Zonnebeke and the 6th Battalion was ordered to send three Companies to the support of the Hampshire Regiment on Gravenstafel Ridge further to the north. In accordance with the orders issued by Lt.-Col.
Again and again we scanned the fields in the direction of Fortuyn to see if help was coming. If this process of attrition continued much longer there would be no front line. Meanwhile the German guns searched every foot of ground behind the crest of the Gravenstafel ridge.
The command of the 10th, owing to the death of Colonel Boyle, devolved upon Major Ormond, who gallantly held the position gained during the next day and until Saturday morning, when he was relieved and sent as support to the 8th on Gravenstafel Ridge where I met him and his remnant at Enfiladed crossroads, the hottest part of the line.
The British troops were holding their own and dealing lusty blows at the enemy. This was the situation as outlined by Corporal Pyke, one of my signalling staff who had gone away to the right to see what was going on in the old "hot corner." A British Division had taken up the supporting trenches of the 2nd Canadian Brigade along the crest of the Gravenstafel Ridge.
We learned that fragments of the 2nd Canadian Brigade still held their trenches near Gravenstafel Ridge, that the valiant Suffolks were still in part of our supporting trenches, and that the Hun had made no progress along the line of the Poelcapelle Road east of St. Julien. The Red Watch had not held in vain. The Hun was just as far away from Ypres and Calais as ever.
As morning dawned the situation as far as we could learn was as follows: The British section of the salient had not been attacked beyond some desultory shelling. The section held by the Second Canadian Brigade had remained untouched also. This section ran from Gravenstafel northerly. First, the 5th Battalion on the right, the 8th battalion on the left. Their left was very much in the air.
My orders were to advance to the 'Green Line, and when I got there I was to take Lance-Corporal Tipping's rifle section and four Lewis Gunners on to reinforce Allen at Aviatick Farm where he was to dig a strong point in front of the front-line when the Gravenstafel Ridge was reached.
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