After a few days of rest and training, the concentration took place on the nights of the 26th and 27th. By the morning of the 28th, the date of the attack, the three Brigades were in camps between Poperinghe and Vlamertinghe. Headquarters were at Vogeltje Château, near the better-known Lovie Château, in the woodlands west of Poperinghe. The Division was again in General Jacob's II. Corps, under which it had served in April, May, and June. It was in Corps Reserve, its mission being to hold itself in readiness for a move forward to assist in the exploitation of any success gained by the first-line Divisions. The late operations had been heartening. Despite, however, their difficulty and costliness, they represented, at least till the final stages, no more than hard and steady pressure upon a rearguard. No great number of prisoners could be taken in such fighting, while the casualties to be inflicted upon the enemy were comparatively small. The Division had not yet had a hand in one of the great offensives. All ranks knew that the attack about to open ranked in that category, and that resistance of far more serious quality was to be expected. For that they were prepared. It is no exaggeration to say that they looked forward to the coming struggle, just because they believed it would be the last. Officers who came back from England the day after the opening of the attack, when the news that from Ypres to the sea the whole line was advancing had been flashed abroad, describe the returning leave-boat as being so full of cheerful faces that it might have been taken for one homeward bound. Some were less ambitious than others. In one officer's diary is expressed the opinion that the Passchendaele Ridge, if captured, would serve as a good "jumping-off" ground for an offensive the following spring! But for the most part, men, beholding victory upon victory, had come to believe that the war could be ended this year. For that speed was essential, else winter would come to the aid of the enemy and give him time to collect himself. That reasoning could be grasped by all, and acted upon all as an added spur to endeavour in the days that followed. FOOTNOTES: [58] General Coffin was at this time on leave, the Division being commanded by Brigadier-General Brock, the C.R.A. [59] _i.e._, the Belgian Custom House, Neuve Eglise being in Belgium, Steenwerck and Bailleul in France. [60] The farm had earned its horrible name in 1915 from the odour of a huge store of rotten potatoes in its cellars. These had been removed the following year by sappers of the 36th Division, wearing gas-masks. Thereafter it stank no worse than any other ruin in the Flanders front line. CHAPTER XIV THE ADVANCE TO FINAL VICTORY (I): SEPTEMBER 28TH TO OCTOBER 17TH, 1918