Infantry, Royal Fusiliers, East Yorks, Scottish Fusiliers, and Royal Scots, as I have already told, on the first day of battle, and another Tank came up, in its queer, slow way, and the gallant men inside served their guns like a Dreadnought, and so ended the business on that oval-shaped stronghold. So English and Scottish troops pressed on and gathered up thousands of prisoners. "So tame," said one of our men, "that they ate out of our hands." So ready to surrender that a brigadier and his staff who were captured with them were angry and ashamed of men taken in great numbers without a single wounded man among them. Fifty-four guns were captured on this eastern side of Arras, and six were howitzers, and two of these big beasts were taken by cavalry working with the troops. Some of the gunners had never left their pits after our bombardment became intense four days before, and were suffering from hunger and thirst. Trench-mortars and machine-guns lay everywhere about, in scores, smashed, buried, flung about by the ferocity of our shell-fire. German officers wearing Iron Crosses wept when they surrendered. It was their day of unbelievable tragedy. A queer thing happened to some German transport men. They were sent out from Douai to Fampoux. They did not know they were going into the battle zone. They drove along until suddenly they saw British soldiers swarming about them. Six hours after their start from Douai they were eating bully-beef on our side of the lines, and while they munched could not believe their own senses. Our troops treated them with the greatest good humour, throwing chocolates and cigarettes into their enclosures and crowding round to speak to men who knew the English tongue. There seemed no kind of hatred between these men. There was none after the battle had been fought, for in our British way we cannot harbour hate for beaten enemies when the individuals are there, broken and in our hands. Yet a little farther away the fighting was fierce, and there was no mercy on either side. * * * * * APRIL 12 In spite of the enemy's hard resistance and the abominable weather conditions which cause our troops great hardships, we are making steady progress towards the German defensive positions along the Hindenburg line. North of Vimy Ridge this morning his lines were pierced by a new attack, delivered with great force above Givenchy; and south of the village of Wancourt, below Monchy-le-Preux, we have seized an important little hill-top.