One of them who became a prisoner in our hands said that two battalions were annihilated--he used the phrase "wiped out." Perhaps that was an exaggeration. There are always some men who slip through, but in this case whole ranks of men were blown to bits. I talked to-day with some of our own wounded who came limping through the casualty clearing-stations. They were men of the Worcesters and Bedfords and Queen's, whose battalions I have met before after battles. One of them told me how he lay out all night waiting for the attack in the dawn on Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse. There are only tree-stumps there in the great white stretch of shell-craters, and the enemy was holding the place lightly with machine-guns in those pits that had been made by our fire. Our men were upon them quick after the barrage, and they were routed out of their holes before they had time to put up a strong defence. By bad luck, as sometimes happens, owing to the eagerness of our men to cover as much ground as possible, the Irish Rifles and the North Lancashires of the 25th Division went at least 200 yards beyond their goal, and were caught in our barrage, which was preventing supports coming up to the enemy. As soon as they realized their deadly error they fell back again, carrying their wounded. * * * * * LATER There was sharp hand-to-hand fighting on the Westhoek Ridge by the Lancashire Fusiliers, North Lancashires, and Cheshires. Both sides at last came into the open, the enemy standing about his concrete houses as our men advanced upon them, and using machine-guns and rifles. Most of these Germans were men of the 54th Reserve Division, and bold fellows who did not surrender so easily as I first imagined, in spite of the intense and prolonged barrage that had swept over them and wrecked their ground. In a strong point at the south end of the ridge, one of those concrete blockhouses which shelter machine-guns, they held out for three hours, and it was only taken when it had been battered by trench-mortars brought up into action at close range by some gallant men of ours, and when it was rushed from the flanks while the ground was still being swept by bullets. After that the ridge was ours on its forward slopes, at the northern end dropping below the western slopes southwards. In Glencorse Wood the Lancashire men were enfiladed by machine-guns when a large part of the wood was no longer in our hands. It is on high ground, and with other slopes beyond, like those of Nuns' Wood and Polygon Wood, forms the barrier guarding the vital centres of the German position in the north, so that he fights to hold it with the full weight of his power in men and guns. Both are powerful, and his fire on Friday and Saturday was the fiercest ever faced by men who have fought through the Somme and later battles.