On March 31 there were signs that the German flood was reaching full tide. They had acted to a wonderful degree up to their own saying: "Immer fest daran!" but they had now far outstripped their artillery support and the tenacious elastic British defence had worn them down. There was no attack on the morning of this day, but about noon the fighting broke out once more in the Moreuil Woods, the enemy pushing their way through them and slowly driving back the line of the Eighth and the Twentieth, while the French were again driven out of the village of Moreuil. North of Marcelcave there was a day of quiet and re-organisation. The Sixty-first was still holding the Berteaucourt-Gentilles line, while the Eighteenth was holding the line of the Luce. In the evening the Eighth and Twentieth were again reinforced by the cavalry, and by the superior and heroic exertions of every one concerned the position on the right flank was maintained. The 2nd Berkshires distinguished themselves in this fighting. There is something more than a name even in this stage of the war in the old Regular battalions, for the chronicler finds that they stand out amidst the other units out of all proportion to their numbers. The 2nd Bedfords, 1st Royal Fusiliers, 2nd Scots Fusiliers, and many others upheld the honour of the grand old force. The right wing had been considerably hustled in {152} the Moreuil quarter on March 31, but on April 1 the Second Cavalry Division, which included the Canadian Brigade, made a sudden fierce counter-attack which threw the enemy back. Fifty prisoners and thirteen machine-guns were the fruits of this action. The British guns had played upon the wood during the whole night, and the enemy had suffered severely, for the assailants found the brushwood to be full of dead Germans. There was no other movement of importance on this day. The reformed Fourteenth Division was brought back into the battle and took the place of the Twentieth, the Fiftieth, and of the cavalry upon the front to the south of the Luce. Speaking of the latter troops after their nine days of martyrdom, a senior officer who saw them at this stage said: "In the last attack they were driven back about a mile towards Amiens, but after the first Bosch onrush they stood like rocks, repelling attack after attack, counter-attacking and regaining ground in such a manner that every day I marvelled at the doing of it, and at the men who did it." [Sidenote: Nineteenth Corps. April 4.]