Yesterday the English and Irish troops who had taken Bois-en-Hache with such fine courage, in spite of the most severe conditions of weather and ground, worked farther forward through Liévin. Explosions from concealed charges burst around them, and machine-gun fire from many redoubts swept down the long, straight streets of miners' cottages; but they worked their way up under cover, rushed several of the concrete emplacements, and took heroic risks with a most grim spirit. During the evening the enemy recovered from his first panic and sent supporting troops back into Lens to hold the line of trenches and machine-gun forts on the western side in order to delay our advance on to Lens until he has had more time to make ready his positions in the Drocourt-Quéant line, the Wotan end of the Hindenburg line, upon which we are forcing him to withdraw. It makes a difference to a number of poor souls expecting deliverance. According to prisoners there are about 2000 people, mostly women, old men, and children, living in the district of Lens, and waiting to break their way through to our side of the lines. I set out to find them this morning, as there were reported rumours that they had escaped through Liévin. But this is untrue. Owing to the German rally they are still hemmed in by the enemy's machine-gun redoubts, and I am told that they are down in the cellars of a neighbouring village, taking cover from the shell-fire which we are pouring on the hostile strong points located in their cités. Meanwhile our guns are finding human targets for slaughter. The sufferings of our men are great, their courage is tested by fire; but the fate of the enemy's soldiers is atrocious beyond all imaginings. I have seen with my own eyes the effect of our gun-fire during the last fortnight, and it is annihilating. Owing to our destruction and capture of many batteries and the necessity of the German retreat to save further disaster, the enemy's infantry have been in desperate plight and have suffered torture. We have smashed their trenches, broken their telephone wires, imprisoned them in barrages through which no food can come. In captured letters and memoranda we find cries for rescue, pitiful in their despair. Here is a message from the 3rd Battalion, 51st Infantry Regiment: "Since the telephone connexion is so inadequate it becomes doubly necessary to call on the artillery by light signals. These are only of use if attended to. Failing to get artillery reply to the enemy's fire I sent up red star-shells. The artillery took no notice. The artillery should be bound to reply to such signals. "For our infantry, which since the Somme battles has been on the defensive, it is, from the point of view of moral, of importance to count on artillery support with certainty. The infantry that comes to regard itself morally as a target for the hostile artillery must in the long run give way."