Zero hour for the 50th Division was 5.20 a.m., for it had much ground to cover before it could come into line with the 66th. The 151st Brigade crossed the river with ease, but met with a stubborn resistance at the station. The 149th Brigade followed for the attack on the second objective, and found like difficulties at the railway triangle. So soon as the news came that the 149th was over the Selle, it was time for the South Africans to advance. The Brigade had taken immense risks in its assembly, and escaped serious loss partly by the help of the fog, partly by the very boldness of the hazard, since it lay so close to the enemy that his fire was ineffective. But it was a welcome relief to officers and men when at 8.5 a.m. came the order to launch the attack. The mist was still thick, and no man could see fifty yards before him. The first wave disappeared into the gloom, and those behind waited long before they got news of it. From the outset the attack had to face great belts of single and double apron wire, and heavy machine-gun fire from both flanks. After a hundred yards had been covered, the South Africans came upon a sunken road protected by a palisade, where the 4th Regiment was held up for some time, and suffered many losses. As they approached the railway they encountered another and more formidable obstacle—a belt of wire entanglements sixty yards deep. The railway at this point ran in a deep cutting, the sides of which were studded with machine-gun posts and rifle-pits. The South Africans rose to the emergency. They found a shallow trench used by the Germans as a route from the railway cutting to an outpost; they found a tortuous path through the wire made for the use of German patrols, where Major Clerk of the 4th Regiment shot the two sentries on duty; and by these roads slowly and patiently they filtered through to the railway. It was a magnificent feat of cool resolution, and it was performed under the most galling fire. Soon they were in the cutting, where stern fighting took place. It was Ludendorff’s old device of “infiltration” in miniature, and at 9.15 Captain Jacobs of the 2nd Regiment reported to Major Sprenger that the first objective had been reached.