"I never saw a finer death," one man told me. "He looked very brave and handsome up there, outlined against the sky, the only figure on the bank above, his helmet off, and his face very pale and blazing with anger, and his right arm pointing forward. He fell down headlong, but we never turned back until we gave the Germans hell. Two hours later, I was told, the Colonel was still lying there on his face on the edge of the trench. Then they turned him over and brought him in." The second-in-command of the Patricia’s, Major Hamilton Gault, was severely wounded, and many gallant officers fell. The machine-guns of the Royal Canadian Regiment inflicted fearful mortality. Between them and the Princess Patricia’s was a gap, fifty yards wide, into which the Germans poured on finding it undefended, and were smashed on both flanks, and mowed down by scores. On their arrival at the "Appendix," only forty yards from the enemy’s front trenches, they were met by a withering fire which almost obliterated them. A little further south they were more successful, and from the "Loop," where the company of the Princess Patricia’s had perished, they penetrated to Gordon Road and beyond, and then commenced a fierce attack to the north. But here a swift and stern retribution was to be exacted from them. A company commander, Captain Hugh Niven, who, although already twice wounded, was still full of valour and resolution, gathered the remainder of his men together, some seventy rifles in all and two machine-guns, and, hidden behind sandbags, awaited the foe in silence. The order was given: "Not a man must shoot until I give the signal!" Apparently the Boche was taken unawares. The volley which blazed forth was reminiscent of the immortal front rank fire of Lascelles’ Regiment on the Heights at Quebec. One stalwart French-Canadian, Arseneau by name, who had often faced wild animals in the backwoods, burning with ardour, could not be restrained from leaping up on the improvised parapet and repeatedly emptying his rifle, before the enemy could recover from his astonishment. His captain tells me that no fewer than eight Germans fell to this man’s marksmanship alone in that swift encounter. When it was over, at least one hundred of the enemy slain lay on the ground. Afterwards the officer mentioned shepherded his men into a section of trench, he himself spending the whole of the ensuing night perambulating the trenches, directing defences, ministering to and encouraging and directing his men. It was truly an astonishing feat of physical endurance. "We had lost so many," he said, "I felt I ought to be on deck as long as I could crawl." He was still giving orders when the stretcher-bearers lifted him out and bore him away to the field hospital.