Once again the left flank of the Australians was in close co-operation with a British Division. The Forty-eighth had been withdrawn and replaced by the Twelfth, a division which was rapidly acquiring a very solid reputation in the army. The men of the 7th Sussex upon the right and those of Surrey and of Kent upon the left were in the front of the battle-line, which rolled slowly up the slope of Pozières, continually driving the German resistance before it. The ground gained early in August was some 2000 yards of frontage with a depth of 400 yards, and though the whole ridge, and the Windmill {195} which marks it, had not yet been cleared, the fact that the British had a good foothold upon it was of the utmost strategical importance, apart from the continual stream of prisoners who fell into their hands. The Sussex battalion linked up with the Australians, and nothing could have been closer than the co-operation between the two, so much so that it is on record that with a glorious recklessness a bunch of Australians pushed forward without orders in order to keep the Sussex men company in one of their attacks. The South Saxons have again and again shown that there is no more solid military material in England. It is said that a rampant pig with "We won't be druv!" as a motto was an old emblem of that ancient county. Her sons assuredly lived up to the legend during the War. On the morning of the 6th and of the 7th two counter-attacks stormed up to the new British line. The first was small and easily repelled, a sporadic effort by some gallant hot-headed officer, who died in the venture, clicking his Mauser to the last. The second was serious, for three battalions came very gallantly forwards, and a sudden rush of 1500 Germans, some of whom carried _flammenwerfer_, burst into the trenches at two separate points, making prisoners of some 50 Australians who were cut off from their comrades. The attack was bravely delivered in broad daylight, the enemy coming on in good line in the face of severe fire; but the Australians, with their usual individuality, rallied, and not only repulsed the enemy, but captured many of them, besides recapturing the prisoners whom they had taken. This was the supreme German attempt to recapture the position, but they were by no means able to {196} reconcile themselves to the loss of it, and came on again and again in smaller assaults spread over several days, which had no result save to increase their already very heavy losses in this region.