“The fighting continued without intermission all through the night and to those who observed the indications that the attack was being pushed with ever-growing strength, it hardly seemed possible that the Canadians, fighting in positions so difficult to defend, and so little the subject of deliberate choice, could maintain their resistance for any long period. At 6 A. M. on Friday it became apparent that the left was becoming more and more involved and a powerful German attempt to outflank it developed rapidly. The consequences if it had been broken or outflanked need not be insisted upon. They were not merely local. “It was therefore decided, formidable as the attempt undoubtedly was, to try and give relief by a counter-attack upon the first line of German trenches, now far, far advanced from those originally occupied by the French. This was carried out by the Ontario first and fourth battalions of the first brigade, under Brigadier-General Mercer, acting in combination with a British brigade. It is safe to say that the youngest private in the rank, as he set his teeth for the advance, knew the task in front of him, and the youngest subaltern knew all that rested upon its success. [Illustration: GERMAN ABUSE OF THE WHITE FLAG. An incident showing how a company of British soldiers were cut down by an ambushed enemy. The front rank of Germans had been firing from behind a small ridge. In apparent surrender they stood up in a long row and held up the white flag. The British advanced to receive their guns and take them prisoners, when suddenly the entire line fell down and a second line arose from behind the ridge and immediately killed all the British company. (_Sphere copr._)] [Illustration: TERRIBLE EFFECT OF A GERMAN SHELL ON WOUNDED BRITISH SOLDIERS. A party of wounded Highlanders were resting in a house on the bank of the Aisne River, where a doctor was attending them. A German shell came through the window and the soldiers resting on the sofas and on the floor were nearly all killed by flying fragments of shell. (_Sphere copr._)] OFFICER FELL AT HEAD OF TROOPS “It did not seem that any human being could live in the shower of shot and shell which began to play upon the advancing troops. They suffered terrible casualties. For a short time every man seemed to fall, but the attack was pressed even closer and closer. The fourth Canadian battalion at one moment came under a particularly withering fire. For a moment, not more, it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men, and at the very moment when his example had infected them fell dead at the head of his battalion.