All through the wet afternoon the battle continued, and only when twilight fell was it possible to reckon up the gains of the day. On a front of fifteen miles, the French had pushed forward, on the average, two and a half miles. Our allies had drawn near to the village of Tahure, but they had not captured it, neither had they seized the Butte[73] of Tahure which overlooks the railway, nor the Butte of Mesnil which you see to the south-east of Tahure. Eastward of the latter hill there is high ground from which spurs stretch out southwards like the open fingers of a hand. On each of the fingers of this Hand of Massiges,[74] as the French called it, the Germans had constructed a great stronghold of criss-crossed trenches with forts at intervals. It was as though five labyrinths lay side by side. So strong was the position that the Germans said it could be held against a whole army by two washerwomen with machine guns. The French, however, had already carried part of it, and also the farmhouse which you see on the westward edge of the high ground. The whole German first line had gone, and large parts of the second line west of Navarin Farm and east of Tahure had been captured. For every yard of front which the French had won they had taken an unwounded prisoner, and for every mile, nine guns. During the fighting some 21,000 prisoners were captured. The Germans surrendered by hundreds at a time. Most of them had been without food for several days and were suffering from thirst, and all of them had been completely cowed by the terrible bombardment. Though the French had made such good progress, the battle was far from over. German counter-attacks were already preparing and might be expected any moment. At all costs the enemy must be prevented from bringing up his reserves and strengthening his remaining line of defence. So while the French infantry worked like inspired giants all through the night, digging themselves in, building parapets, and installing their machine guns, heavy batteries lumbered and swayed forward over the scarred and pitted ground, and began a new bombardment from advanced positions. On the next day, Sunday, all the summits of the downs were cleared from Auberive to the Butte of Souain. A hill facing the Butte of Tahure was captured by the evening, and the northern slopes of the Hand of Massiges were won. By means of artillery and bomb attacks the line slowly advanced and was knitted up all along its length. The fighting during Sunday was far more trying than that of Saturday. "If you only knew what these days and nights are like," wrote an officer; "condemned to remain crouching in the mud under an avalanche of shells, under an almost unceasing rain, with but few supplies brought up, in the midst of bodies more or less mangled by shot and shell, and in our ears always the groans of the dying and the moans of the wounded."