Another says: "The trenches were in a sad state, and conditions generally bad. The men had to sleep anyhow in the open. We lost pretty severely, in coming up, through shells. When at length we advanced, we went forward so rapidly that we were through the first trench and up the hill before the Germans realised what was happening. Our losses here were comparatively slight. At length we reached our old front line, where we attacked with bombs and bayonets. The Germans made an effort at a counter-attack, but it was easily handled by our bombers. We were relieved that night. The ground, I should add, was in an awful state. One of our men who had sunk deeply in the mud during the advance was discovered still tightly held in the mire afterwards, when two men pulled him out." Another officer of the same battalion said that the bombing battalion on their right did its work very effectively, and kept the Germans on Hill 60 well occupied. After reaching the objective, this battalion had some stiff fighting on the extreme right, the Germans counter-attacking with bombs. But soon the old British line was made tenable with sandbags. The Germans came back twice, and had to be bombed out of the German front line, and even then some came back again. After the last trench had been taken, the Germans shelled it heavily, and there were many casualties. The men behaved with great gallantry, and were crazy to reach the German trenches. At one time four different men of the battalion went out of the trench after a wounded comrade, and all were killed in the attempt to save him. The wounded man was subsequently brought in at night. "Lord, it was fine," relates still another officer who was in the thick of the fighting. "I could feel that terrible fretting of the past week just oozing out as the boys jumped the parapets and smashed across to where our old first line had been. I don’t think anything could have stopped them. I didn’t get in with the first bunch, because my company was held on the edge, watching for the counter-attack, if it came too soon for our fellows to make a stand. "When we got going we went through the Germans like a knife through cheese. They didn’t know what to do with us but throw down their rifles and bolt, or hold up their hands. They said we ran. You should have seen them skedoodle for home and ma, what didn’t throw themselves on the ground and beg to be taken. We went clean to the old line, and captured some hundreds of prisoners. Our artillery had kept them from doing much in the digging-in line, and so we had a chance to slam them good and plenty. And you bet we did.