That day’s battle cracked the kernel of the German defence in the Salient. It showed only a limited advance, and the total of 3,000 prisoners had been often exceeded in a day’s fighting; but every inch of the ground won was vital. Few struggles in the campaign were more desperate or carried out in a more gruesome battlefield. The mass of quagmires, splintered woods, ruined husks of “pill-boxes,” water-filled shell-holes, and foul creeks which made up the land on both sides of the Menin road was a sight which, to the recollection of most men, must seem like a fevered nightmare. It was the classic soil on which, during the First Battle of Ypres, the 1st and 2nd Divisions had stayed the German rush for the Channel. Then it had been a battered but still recognizable and featured countryside; now the elements seemed to have blended with each other to make of it a limbo outside mortal experience and almost beyond human imagining. Only on some of the tortured hills of Verdun could a parallel be found. The battle of 20th September showed to what heights of endurance the British soldier can attain. It was an example, too, of how thought and patience may achieve success in spite of every disadvantage of weather, terrain, and enemy strength. [Illustration: SECOND-LIEUTENANT W. H. HEWITT, V.C., 2nd Regiment, South African Infantry.] Delville Wood was still for the Brigade the most heroic episode in the War. But its advance on 20th September must without doubt be reckoned its most successful achievement up to that date in the campaign. It carried one of the strongest parts of the enemy’s position, and assisted the brigades both on its right and left to take two forts which blocked their way. The day was full of gallant individual exploits. The regimental commanders led their men not only with skill, but with the utmost dash and fearlessness. Heal was struck by shrapnel, and once buried by a shell; Thackeray was twice buried; Cochran was knocked down, but rose unhurt, though all thought him killed. “The regimental officers,” wrote Dawson on the 22nd, “were an awful sight this morning, haggard and drawn, unwashed and unshaven for four days, covered with mud and utterly tired, but very happy, and exceedingly proud of their men.” One N.C.O. and two men of the 2nd Regiment took seventy prisoners. Another man of the 2nd Regiment engaged a German in a bayonet duel and killed him; then a second, whom he also killed; then a third, when each killed the other. In dealing with the “pill-boxes,” individual courage and initiative were put to the highest test. It was for such an episode that Lance-Corporal W. H. Hewitt of the 2nd Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross. He attacked a “pill-box” in his section, and tried to rush the doorway, but found a stubborn garrison within, and received a severe wound. Nevertheless he managed to reach the loophole, where, in his attempts to insert a bomb, he was again wounded. Ultimately he got a bomb inside, dislodged the