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Quentin had extended their hold on Holnon Ridge and occupied Ronssoy Wood farther to the north, while in the region of Arras they captured after stiff fighting the village of Henin. South of the Ailette River the French fought their way forward foot by foot.
To D Company on the left fell the lion's share of the fighting and of the booty. Approaching unobserved almost to the south entrance to the village, they overwhelmed two hostile posts in the first light of dawn, killing every man among them and taking two machine guns. Though their flank was for the moment open, as the Oxfords were held up on the edge of Ronssoy Wood, they burst into the village.
"Ernest," his little body quivering with excitement, was already racing backwards and forwards. I told my groom to take my horse into the sunken road, and started to look for the colonel and the headquarters party. A sticky walk up the track to the left took me within a couple of hundred yards of the village of Ronssoy, where most of the Boche shells were falling.
In this attack our Battalion cooperated after a few days' renewed rest at Hamel, where the immediate awards to officers and men for the fight at Ronssoy were made. The attack, on the night of the 24th-25th resolved itself, as far as the Battalion went, into a demonstration.
Throughout the day 5.9-inch shells were poured into Ronssoy, but did no damage whatever, as the men were either in the unlocated outpost line, or withdrawn well west of the village. A patrol of C Company managed during the day to get up to the ridge and look into Hargicourt, in front of which the enemy were visible, digging actively.
The th south of our Division had done very well, capturing and advancing beyond the village of Templeux le Guerard. Our Divisional infantry had cleared Ronssoy after tough fighting, but their farther progress was checked because of the hold-up on the left. Reserve battalions of the Division chiefly affected by this resistance were to attack as soon as possible.
A frequent visitor to the trenches, he did not reserve his appearance for quiet times; at Pozières and Ronssoy, for example, he was on the captured ground at the heels of his infantry. Therefore, he retained the confidence of the men throughout, in good days and bad.
The village of Ronssoy was 1,600 yards away; between it and the attackers was a girdle of little woods, still untouched of green, and a number of small intersecting lanes and ditches. The enemy's outposts, as far as was known, were about 1,000 yards away, running north-west and south-east to cover the village.
Just outside the half-mile long village of Ronssoy he pointed to a clump of broken bricks and shattered beams. "That's the farm that D Battery insisted was Gillemont Farm, when we were at Cliffe Post on September 19," he explained. "The day I was with him at the 'O.P., Wood couldn't understand why he was unable to see his shells fall.
Part of the Company, therefore, made its way to its alloted position in the outpost line. The remainder cleared up Ronssoy, and found all kinds of booty. Soup, coffee, bread and sausages were all ready in the dugouts and were consumed by the victors. A mail had just come in, and the letters lay about unopened. The equipment and packs were examined with keen interest.
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