It was a brave attack. On the extreme left it succeeded. But the trenches won by the Victorians there were on the flank, not on the hill-top. The country behind that crest, sloping gradually down to the valley of Courcelette and beyond, where the German field batteries were firing and where the Germans could come and go unseen--all this was so far an unknown land into which no one on the British side had peered since the battle began. Six days later the Australians went for that position again. They attacked just after dusk. There was enough light to make out the face of the country as if by a dim moonlight. They were the same troops who had made the attack a week before, because there was a determination that they, and they alone, should reach that line. The artillery had been pounding it gradually during the week. The German troops who were holding that part were about to be relieved. They had suffered from the slow, continual bombardment. There were deep dug-outs in their trenches, where they saved the men as far as possible, but one after another these would be crushed or blocked by a heavy shell. The tired companies had lost in some cases actually half their men by this shell fire, losing them slowly, day by day, as a man might bleed to death. The remainder had their packs made up ready to march out to rest. The young officer of one of the relieving battalions was actually coming into the trenches at the head of his platoon--when there crashed on them a sudden hail of shell fire. The officer extended his men hurriedly and pushed on. It was about half-past ten by German time, which is half-past nine by ours. The first sight that met him, as he reached the support line of German trenches, was two wounded Australians lying in the bottom of it. So the British must be attacking, he thought. He ordered his platoon to advance over the trench and counter-attack. But in the dark and the dust they lost touch and straggled to the north--he saw no more of them. He tumbled on with two men into a shell crater and began to improve it for defence--then they found Australians towering around them in the dark. They surrendered.