The enemy, still working down from the north, had threatened the new defensive flank at a point between Caix and Cayeux, but were held by a very spirited attack made by the men of the 22nd Entrenching Battalion. With considerable loss both to themselves and to the Germans, they held the line of the river until reinforcements arrived. The Thirty-ninth from the north and the Eighth and Twenty-fourth from the south were all converging upon the one point to take up their new positions. A Brigadier in command of the infantry, with 800 men and 3 batteries, held the bridge; but the Germans might have rushed it had it not been for a charge by the 151st Brigade, when the 5th and 7th Durhams drove back their advancing line. This spirited attack was led by General Jackson in person, who encouraged his men by blasts upon his hunting-horn. Speaking of one of their military heroes, a French historian has said: "Il avait la graine de folie dans sa bravoure que les Français aiment." All soldiers love it, and it is a wise leader who knows how to employ it. It was a time when every possible device was needed to hold the men, for the enemy was close upon the bridge, {141} and the safety of the remains of several divisions depended upon the bridge being held. [Sidenote: Nineteenth Corps. March 27.] Returning to the general survey of the line of the Nineteenth Corps the Sixteenth Division was now rather a crowd of warlike particles than an organised unit. It was ordered, however, that every individual particle should be reassembled at Hamel so that the nucleus of a division should exist once more. Hard marching and hard fighting had reduced the Twenty-fourth Division to almost the same condition, though, thanks to a miraculous survival of most of the senior officers, the unit was still efficient. On the other hand, the Sixty-first Division from the Eighteenth Corps, numbering at this period 2400 men, was given to General Watts to help to form his new line. It was at first intended with the aid of these new troops to endeavour to clear the left flank, and for this purpose a counter-attack upon Lamotte was ordered. The newly-arrived men from the south, the 183rd and 184th Brigades, who could hardly stagger a mile, did actually carry the twin village of Warfusee and hold the edge of it for a time under very heavy fire--an operation in which Major Bennett of the Oxfords did conspicuously fine work. Several grand soldiers fell in this attack, including Captain Willick who had commanded the 2/4 Berkshires after the fall of the heroic Dimmer. His last speech to his men is worth recording. It was, "I know how you feel, boys, tired and worn out, but we have to stop them from breaking through." The support to this brave attack is said to have been "one gun, firing wildly."