It was no less a policy of the Arrows of the 32nd than of the 1st Division never to yield gains. They were at close quarters with the Kriemhilde, and they proposed to remain there. The enemy's fully aroused artillery and machine-gun resistance to protect the points where the Kriemhilde had been entered prevented any headway on the 10th and 11th, while hand-to-hand fighting continued on the Dame Marie ridge. Before the 32nd was to conquer the ridge and take Romagne, it must make preparation equal to the task. This belongs to another stage of the battle. We are presently concerned with the fact that the Arrows had done their part in the costly operation that had conquered the heights into which the 1st had driven its wedge. The enemy now withdrawing from the front of the 1st across the valley and low ground to the Kriemhilde, which was here farther north than in front of the 32nd, the 1st, in a movement of exploitation, with gratefully few casualties made a mile on the 10th, passing through the Romagne Wood and beyond the village of Sommerance. On the next day, feeling out the enemy positions with a knowing hand, the veterans learned that they could be taken only by fresh troops in a thoroughly organized attack. The 1st had accomplished its daring mission; it had won a telling victory. Three-fifths of its infantry was out of action from death and wounds; the remainder had been fully "expended" in exhaustion or sickness. Surely no division in all our history had ever been in finer condition for battle, or fought with more discipline and skillful valor, or suffered more losses in a single action. "To be as good" as the pioneer 1st had been the ambition of all the divisions in the early days of our fighting in France. If some became as good, this is the more honor to them. The affection of long association creeps in as I think of the 1st's first detachments arriving at Saint-Nazaire, or of its pioneer training on the drill-grounds at Gondrecourt in the days when there was a fear in our hearts that we might yet lose the war. The 1st had confidence without boasting, and dignity without punctiliousness; its pride kept it from dwelling on the excuses of unprotected flanks; it was on good terms with neighboring divisions and with the French: self-reliant, systematic, trying to live up to the fortune that had made it the first to arrive in France and was to make it the last to go home. It had expected to pay a heavy price for its crowning success; and paid it with an absence of grumbling which makes the sacrifice of life of a transcendent nobility, however worn and filthy the khaki it wears. When relieved by the 42nd the 1st withdrew, after casualties of 8,554, in faultlessly good order from the line of the gains which it securely held. XVIII THE GRANDPRÉ GAP IS OURS