It was expected that the Germans would stubbornly defend St. Quentin and Lens, which were now the British objectives, and on which the heaviest British gunfire was now concentrated. In the course of the day advances were made south and east of Fayet to within a few hundred yards of St. Quentin. On the way the village of Gricourt was carried at the point of the bayonet and over 400 Germans were captured. Lens, an important mining center, had been in possession of the Germans since the autumn of 1914. It stretches for several miles and the surrounding district is rich in mineral wealth. Throughout the day of April 14, 1917, the British poured heavy high-explosive shells into the city, using for the first time guns that had been recently captured from the Germans. The continued bombardment caused fires and explosions in the city. It was believed that some of these conflagrations were the work of the enemy, who were preparing to abandon the place. In the course of the day, April 14, 1917, the British pushed their way through Lieven, a straggling suburb of Lens, meeting with stubborn defense in every street, where the Germans had posted machine guns at points of vantage and rear-guard posts that gave the British considerable trouble. Soon a body of British troops had penetrated Lens itself and were working their way slowly forward. From the western side other troops were advancing through Lievin, slowly and cautiously. The main German forces were in retreat, but the machine-gun redoubts, skillfully manned, were a constant source of danger and wrought considerable destruction. From prisoners captured the British learned of wild scenes that had taken place in Lens while the Germans were attempting to get away their stores and guns and begin the retreat. Frantic efforts were made to blow up roads and to carry out orders to destroy the mine shafts and flood the galleries, so that property of enormous value should not be left to France. The occasion for this mad hurry was because the Germans believed that the British might be upon them at any moment. During the evening they had sufficiently recovered from their first panic to send supporting troops back into Lens to hold the line of trenches and machine-gun forts on the western side and check the British advance while they prepared for themselves positions on the Drocourt-Queant line, the Wotan end of the Hindenburg line, from which the British were forcing them to withdraw. It was learned from German prisoners that there were still about 2,000 persons, principally old men, women, and children, still in the Lens district waiting for a chance to break through to the British lines. The condition of these poor creatures can be imagined, surrounded by destruction from all sides and hiding in holes in the ground with death always hovering near.