[8] The German attack against the Lincolns in the village of Herlies and the retirement of that corps is described in a letter from Corporal E. Clark to Major Haggard, Chairman of the Veterans' Club. Corporal Clark says: "... We found ourselves surrounded in the shape of a horseshoe, the enemy firing at us from all angles. We just got the order to retire when a shell struck the trench in front, a piece catching me on the nose and burying me, but I managed to crawl out nearly blind, and started to retire under a murderous rifle fire. No one could realise what it was like unless actually there. Men were crawling about like ants trying to reach safety, but it was only luck for those that did. I managed to get to a wood, where I found a number of wounded, and waited until the firing cooled down, when we chanced it over the river, getting there as best we could, the Germans shelling the bridge the whole time, also a railway cutting, in which we got for shelter." How the Devons at a decisive point of the line covered this retirement and beat off a furious German attack is told by one of the officers of the corps. He says: On the night of October 22, we advanced a bit and dug ourselves more or less in by dawn, and soon after light we saw great masses of German infantry emerge from woods and hedges some 1,000 yards to our front, and advance to attack us. We opened fire on them, and killed dozens. This was answered by the Germans with a tremendous shell fire from their heavy guns. The Devons were perfectly wonderful; not a man left his trench. All day long the battle raged, and you never saw such an inferno. By night the place was a mass of fire, smoke, dead, and dying. All night they attacked us. Sometimes they got right up to our trenches, only to be hurled back by the Devons' bayonets. Dawn broke on the 24th with the same struggle still going on, and it continued all day and night, and all through the 25th. We never slept a wink, and by night we were absolutely done. No humans could have done more. The men were perfectly splendid, and repulsed every attack, with great loss to the enemy. We were relieved at 1 a.m. on October 26, and as we marched back a mile into billets all the troops cheered us frantically. General Smith-Dorrien sent a wire congratulating us on our splendid fight. We heard officially from Divisional Head-quarters that there were 1,000 dead Germans in front of our trenches. The whole place was littered with their dead.