There was no attack during the night, but the Germans thickened their advanced line and were all ready for another strenuous day, while the British, though hustled and overborne by the tremendous onslaught which had pushed them back, were still within their battle positions and as doggedly surly as British infantry usually are in hours of stress and trial. Three strong attacks were made in the morning and early afternoon between Hermies and Beaumetz, all of which were driven back. There is no method of gauging the losses of the enemy upon such occasions, but when one knows that the machine-guns fired as many as 9000 rounds each, and that a single Lewis gun discharged 30,000 bullets, one can say with certainty that they were very heavy. These attacks fell upon the Highlanders on the right, the 7th Brigade in the centre, and the remains of the Sixth Division upon the left. Unhappily, a chain of defence is no stronger than its weakest link, which finds itself so often at points of juncture. Upon this occasion the Germans, continually filtering forward and testing every possible orifice, found a weakness between the 120th Brigade of the Fortieth Division in the north and the Sixth in the south. This weak point was to be mended by the Forty-first Division, which had been hurried up from Favreuil, but the time was too short, or the rent was too wide, so that the Germans pushed rapidly through and {52} seized the village of Vaulx-Vraumont, separating the Fourth Corps from the Sixth. It was an anxious moment, and coupled with the German success at Henin Hill in the north it might have meant the isolation of the Sixth Corps; but the necessary changes were rapidly and steadily effected, so that before evening the Highlanders of the 120th Brigade feeling out upon their right and fearing all would be void, joined hands suddenly with the 15th Hampshires of the Forty-first Division in the neighbourhood of Beugnâtre. Before night had fallen upon March 22 the line had been restored and built up once more, though some five thousand yards westward of where it had been in the morning. That evening the Sixth Division was drawn out, weak and dishevelled, but still full of fight. With all the hammering and hustling that it had endured, it had saved its heavy guns and nearly all its field batteries. The Forty-first Division took its place, and incorporated for the time the 7th Brigade, a unit which had endured hard fortune, for it had held its ground splendidly with little loss until, after the fashion of modern war, events upon the other side of the horizon caused it to get the order to retire, an order which could not be obeyed without complete exposure and very heavy casualties, including Colonel Blackall of the 4th South Staffords. Each day of arduous battle was followed by a no less arduous night, during which, under heavy fire and every conceivable difficulty the various divisions were readjusted so that the morning