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In the day's fighting the British captured over 900 prisoners. During the night General Haig's troops made considerable progress northwest of St. Quentin and northeast of Hargicourt, where the Malakoff Farm was captured. By May 5, 1917, the French army was in sight of Laon, and had begun to shell the German positions on the steep hill on which the city stands.
We passed along in our relative positions up to the advanced trench, which is 200 yards from the Redan, where we halted until the signal for the attack should be given from the eight-gun battery, where Lord Raglan, Sir G. Brown, and General Jones were. "About 3 A.M. the French advanced on the Malakoff Tower in three columns, and ten minutes after this our signal was given.
Finally, they captured the place, and drove the Russians out, who then tried to retreat into the town, but the English had taken the Redan, and shut them off with a wall of flame; there was nothing for them to do but go back and retake the Malakoff or die under its guns.
We found it wonderful in its strength, and were prepared to accept the statement of those who had seen foreign defensive works, that it was much more powerful than the famous Malakoff, which so long defied the besiegers of Sebastopol. The situation of the fort was on a narrow and low spit of ground between Cape Fear River and the ocean.
It was a slaughter rather than a fight, and in an incredibly short time the Malakoff was completely in the possession of the French. In less than a minute from the time they leaped from the trenches their flag floated on the parapet.
This was not the man who had engaged him in Paris; this person might have been a mild twin-brother of the redoubtable Captain of the Avenue Malakoff, of Matadi and Yandjali. When memory came fully back, would it bring with it the old Berselius, or would the new Berselius, mild, inoffensive, and kindly, suddenly find himself burdened with the tremendous past of the man he once had been?
He had just strength to send word to General Dulac to take his place, when he fainted. The struggle in and around the Malakoff was continued till three o'clock, when Gortschakoff withdrew his troops from the work which they had defended with such marvellous endurance for eleven months. The prize was now won, but at heavy cost.
Many of their works, especially the Mamelon, Malakoff, and Tower batteries, were fortresses in themselves, with refuges dug deeply in the earth, where the garrison slept, secure from the heaviest fire of our guns, and surrounded by works on every side. In the trenches it was the Russians who were always the aggressors.
For seven hours, from twelve to dusk, the Russians strove obstinately to recover the Malakoff, but the masses of men which the French poured in as soon as it was captured, enabled them to resist the assaults. At length, when night came on, the Russian general, seeing that the tremendous slaughter which his troops were suffering availed nothing, withdrew them from the attack.
Mark came down to the little back parlour at Malakoff Terrace one dull January morning to find the family already assembled there, with the exception of Mrs. Ashburn, who was breakfasting in bed an unusual indulgence for her. 'Mark, said Trixie, as she leaned back in her chair, and put up her face for his morning greeting, 'there's a letter for you on your plate.
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