Into that same village of Tilloy cleared by Shropshires an officer of the King's Own Liverpools, with a lance-corporal, dashed into a ruined house from which the enemy was sniping in a most deadly way, and brought out two officers and twenty-eight men as prisoners. It was a subaltern of the Suffolks who went out in daylight under frightful fire to reconnoitre the enemy's lines and brought back knowledge which saved many lives. On the night of May 3, when all the sky was blazing with fire, it was the Royal Scots of the 3rd Division who held part of the line against heavy counter-attacks. The men had been fighting against great odds. Many of them had fallen, and the wounded were suffering horribly. Thirst tortured them, not only the wounded but also the unwounded, and there was no chance of water coming up through the hellish barrage. No chance except for the gallantry of the adjutant of the Royal Scots away back at battle headquarters near Monchy, where heavy crumps were bursting. He guessed his men craved for water, and he risked almost certain death to take it to them, going through all the fire with a few carriers and by a miracle untouched. This same adjutant went out again across the battle-ground under heavy fire to reorganize an advanced signal-station where there were many dead and wounded, and all the lines were cut. It was a young second lieutenant of the Royal Fusiliers of the 3rd Division who took command of two companies when all the other officers had been killed or wounded, and so comforted the men that under his leadership they dug a line close to the German position east of Monchy, and all through the day and night of tragic fighting held it against strong attacks and under infernal shell-fire. Day after day, night after night, our men are fighting like that. And when for a little while they are relieved and given a rest they come back across those fields of the cloth of gold, beyond those barren fields where so many of their comrades lie, and look around and take deep breaths and say, "By Jove, what perfect weather!" and become a little drunk with the beauty of this world of life, and hate the thought of death. PART IV THE BATTLE OF MESSINES I WYTSCHAETE AND MESSINES JUNE 7 After the battle of Arras and all that fierce fighting which for two months has followed the capture of Vimy and the breaking of the Hindenburg line, and the taking of many villages, many prisoners, and many guns, by the valour and self-sacrifice of British troops, there began to-day at dawn another battle more audacious than that other one, because of the vast strength of the enemy's positions, and more stunning to the imagination because of the colossal material of destructive force gathered behind our assaulting troops. It is the battle of Messines.