Although the first three trenches were carried without a hitch, the garrison of the fourth had time to stand to arms, and were greatly assisted in their defence by a flank fire from the still untaken village of Mametz, and from machine-guns in the southern corner of Mametz Wood which lies to the north of Montauban. The resistance caused considerable losses, including that of Colonel Johnson of the 17th Manchesters, but the advance was irresistible, and {97} swept over every obstacle until they had reached their objective. On the right, the Liverpool brigade, the 17th and 18th King's Liverpools in the lead, fought their way up to the brick-fields, which lie nearly level with Montauban, but to the south of it. A company seized these and a good bunch of prisoners. There it consolidated in close touch with the famous "iron corps" of the French army upon their right, while on the left the blue and yellow advance-flags of the Thirtieth formed a continuous line with the red and yellow of the Eighteenth Division. On the left of the Liverpools the Manchesters with the Scots Fusiliers of the 90th Brigade had stormed their way into Montauban, the first of that long list of village fortresses which were destined in the succeeding months to fall into the hands of the British. It was carried with a rush in spite of the determined resistance of small groups of Germans in various houses, which had already been greatly mauled by our artillery. The British fought their way from room to room, drove their enemies down into the cellars, and hurled bombs on to them from above. The German losses were heavy, and several hundreds of prisoners were sent to the rear. By the early afternoon the whole village was in the hands of the 90th Brigade, who had also occupied Montauban Alley, the trench 200 yards upon the farther side of it, whence by their rifle-fire they crushed several attempts at counter-attack. These were feeble during the day, but a very heavy one came during the night, aided by a powerful shrapnel fire. The Germans, advancing in the closest order, for a time won a lodgment in the new British front trench, killing a party of the 17th Manchesters, but {98} they were unable to hold it, and with daylight they were ejected once more. The reader who is weary of hearing of British losses will be interested to know, on the authority of Colonel Bedell of the 16th Bavarians, that out of a garrison of 3500 men from the 6th Bavarian Reserve Regiments only 500 escaped from the Montauban front. All these operations were carried out in close touch with the French upon the right, so close indeed that the colonel of the 17th King's Liverpools, seeing that the French colonel of the flank battalion was advancing beside his men, sprang out and joined him, so that the two colonels shook hands in the captured position.