Another party which had broken through in the Polygon wood was similarly dealt with by the Highland Light Infantry under Col. Wolfe-Murray, an operation during which Lieut. Brodie won the Victoria Cross for exceptional gallantry. This was the second Victoria Cross to fall to this battalion,[13] which had indeed never failed in any situation which it had been called upon to face. Gen. Willcocks, in subsequently addressing the battalion, alluded with pride to "the magnificent glory" with which it had fought, and concluded with the remarkable words: "There is no position which the Highland Light Infantry cannot capture." [13] Pte. Wilson had gained the honour on September 14th. The nett result of the day's fighting was that the enemy gained some 500 yards of ground, which, from the military point of view, advantaged them nothing, and the gaining of which had cost them some thousands of their best men. The barrenness of the advance made cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that it was the last step forward of the invading army, till the asphyxiating gas was brought into play in the spring of 1915. On the 12th the 1st Brigade, which had borne the brunt of the Prussian Guard attack, was taken back into reserve. It will be conceded that it was about time. This gallant Brigade, 4,500 strong in August, was now represented as follows: 1st Scots Guards: Captain Stracey and 69 men. Black Watch: Captain Fortune and 109 men. Camerons: Col. McEwen, Major Craig-Browne, Lieut. Dunsterville and 140 men. 1st Coldstream: No officers and 150 men. The 6th C.B. was now reinforced by the arrival of the North Somerset and Leicestershire Yeomanry Regiments. This strengthening was sorely needed, the brigade having been practically without rest since its arrival in Flanders. By the irony of fate the Hon. W. Cadogan, the Colonel of the 10th Hussars, was killed on the very day when these reinforcements arrived. With this addition to its strength the brigade was now required to find 800 rifles for its line of trenches along the Klein Zillebeke ridge, and in addition to furnish a reserve of 400, who--when not required--lived in burrows in the railway cutting at Hooge. Within a week, however, the reserve became a luxury of the past, and the brigade was called upon to find 1,200 rifles for the trenches. On November 17th we come to the last serious attempt of the enemy, during the 1914 campaign, to break through to Calais by way of Ypres. This final effort can be dismissed in a few words. It was made south of the Menin road by the XV. German Army Corps, and it took the form of two infantry attacks, one at 1 p.m. and another at 4 p.m.; and it failed utterly, the Germans leaving thousands of dead and wounded on the ground just in front of our trenches, to which they had been allowed to approach quite close.