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The Guards swept back the waves of grey upon the Guernseys, who could not retreat for a few hundred yards behind them the rest of the Brigade were holding up a further enemy element. Our own artillery, harassing the Fritz retreat, sent over a number of shells into Masnières.
General Byng, "Bungo Byng," as he was called by his troops, won the admiration of the Canadian Corps which he commanded, and afterward, in the Cambrai advance of November, '17, he showed daring of conception and gained the first striking surprise in the war by novel methods of attack spoiled by the quick come-back of the enemy under Von Marwitz and our withdrawal from Bourlon Wood, Masnieres, and Marcoing, and other places, after desperate fighting.
The flies in the ointment of success were a check in front of Flesquières and a serious lack of foresight on the Scheldt canal, where the single bridge was broken at Masnières and the cavalry were held up on a front of several miles.
Later in the day the advance was continued and rapid progress was made at all points, English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh battalions secured the crossings on the canal at Masnieres and captured Marcoing and Neuf Wood.
It was the Guernsey Light Infantry which recovered this village twice by counter-attacks, and which maintained the southern defences of Masnières for two days against seven German attacks with superior forces and very superior artillery.
Lining the roads above and below the broken Masnières bridges, with its half sunk tank, the Ten Hundred pumped an annhilating shower or lead into the lines of enemy creeping along the canal bank. In this village the enemy held a pivot from which a turning movement, if supported with sufficient troops and guns, could be enforced.
The Higher Command, realising that the holding of Masnières with the small remnants of troops in the sector was impossible, ordered the withdrawal to a support line of the old Hindenburg system, and thus straightening out or at least modifying the British frontage. What remaining elements of the Ten Hundred still survived were allotted the last task of covering the Brigade's withdrawal.
We went through Beaucamp and then towards Masnières, finally reaching the shattered village of Crèvecoeur. Next morning we moved on again to Esnes, where we had billets in a nice farm-house. At last we had reached the land of vegetables, and for the rest of the campaign we had a plentiful supply. We had been very short of this kind of food since May.
And this first night at Masnières was frequented with that sensation of ill-omen pervading the minds of many who felt as Tich had said somehow that their days were drawing to a close. They would lie unmoving for an hour obsessed by their thoughts; the brain flying with its lightning rapidity from picture to picture resurrected from a happy past. In words would some communicate their apprehensions.
The field of view extended along the left flank of the Corps and Divisional front, and went a long way back to the high ground between Niergnes and Esnes. Flesquières, Ribécourt, Marcoing, Rumilly, and Masnières could all be seen. The next few days were spent in locating our surroundings and in reporting the traffic seen on the back roads.
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