Coincidently the work went on of throwing pontoon bridges across the river. Under persistent bombardment the Royal Engineers stuck to this business with grim resolve. The battle had gone on without a pause from daybreak. At half-past five in the evening, opposite Bucy-le-Long, three miles above Soissons, the first pontoon bridge had been completed, and the 10th brigade crossing by it drove the enemy out of Bucy. Working right through the night the Engineers completed eight pontoon bridges and one footbridge. On the following day they temporarily repaired the road bridges at Venizel, Missy, and Vailly, and the bridge at Villers. The army had thus twelve bridges connecting with the south bank, and was able to move across in force with a large part of his artillery. Crossing the Aisne at Soissons, the main road running for about a mile and a half north-east to the little village of Crouy, there divides. On the right is a lower road eastward up the valley of the Aisne, past and under the bluffs on the north side to Berry-au-Bac. On the left is a road which climbs up hill, carried in some places through cuttings and tunnels, at others over short viaducts, until it reaches the summit of the ridge. There, parallel in direction with the lower road three miles away, it continues for some twelve miles to Craonne. From this summit road there is, between the patches of woods, a wide view of the country--to the north the valley of the Lette, and beyond it the height round which lies the town and fortress of Laon, to the south the rich woodland glimpses of the Aisne valley. This panoramic highway is the famous Chemins des Dames. It is evident that command of the higher and of the lower roads meant command of all the part of the ridge between Soissons and Berry, and the operations were an effort on the one side to obtain, and on the other to retain, that command. Already, with the exception of the break at Condé, the lower road, and the villages and the town of Vailly lying along its length, were, as the result of the fighting on September 13, in the hands of the British. The higher road remained in the possession of the Germans. Up the clefts and side valleys are a number of small villages and hamlets, inhabited for the most part by quarrymen and lime-burners, but with, here and there, a small factory. A sprinkling of these civilians were Germans. Most were known to the enemy, and were active spies, and one of the first measures taken by the Germans was to establish at various points secret telephones, forming an exchange of intercommunication with and along their positions. Where telephones could not be employed they arranged a system of ruses and signals. Among these devices was that of smoke from cottage chimneys. On the morning of September 14, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Brigades, defeating a heavy counter-attack, seized the roads between Condé and Soissons. The object was to cut into the centre of the German defence.