The plan of the advances in which the Second Corps took part was simple. The enemy had none but hastily organized defenses, and if he were pushed hard enough he would go. So the artillery was to be moved as far forward as possible to give the necessary protection to the infantry; the attack would start all along the thirty-mile front for generous objectives, and could be expected to go fairly well for two or three days, when stubborn resistance at various points would make it necessary to halt the advance until supplies were brought up and the resistance overcome in another general effort. The artillery declared that this was getting to be too much of an infantry war, nothing counting except keeping up with their giddy romp across fields. The infantry might have replied that they were pushing on so fast in order to keep the Germans from destroying the roads and light railways which the artillery and transport would be using. Not that I wish to imply that the infantry found it a giddy romp; there were always the machine-guns and the front-line artillery batteries, and, especially on the first day of the attack, a considerable quantity of "h-vic" shells, as they were called on the British front, from the large-calibre guns which were protecting the withdrawal of field-guns and material. There was no question, however, of the withdrawal. When the 30th Division, after two days of waiting on the two miles of Corps front which the Australians had handed over, started forward on October 8th along the south edge of the Roman Road to Le Cateau, it was able to cover three miles by noon, taking the fair-sized towns of Brancourt and Prémont, and a number of solid farmhouses and small copses, on the way. Enough guns were moved up over virtually undamaged roads to permit another start at dawn on the 9th; and the end of that day found the Southerners four miles farther on and in possession of the important railway center and large town of Busigny, which the enemy had relinquished practically without a struggle. Another mile was gained on the 10th, and the division line brought to the Selle river, which was not much of a river in the eyes of the Americans, but on which the enemy had obviously intended to call a halt. The railway yards in front of Le Cateau, in the sector of the Thirteenth British Corps on the left, gave violent resistance to any further progress on that side; the rearward movement of enemy field-guns had apparently stopped, to judge from the quantity of shell-fire and gas which now came over; and worried intelligence officers were doing their best to decipher the mystery of prisoners from eleven German divisions who had been taken on the two-mile front. Incidentally, it should be said that the Southerners had gathered in 1,900 Germans in three days, which was more than their share of the total of 12,000 prisoners captured by the three British armies.