We need not multiply the records. ‘The attacking troops eventually withdrew to the railway cutting’; ‘finally forced to retire about 11-30 a.m. on the railway embankment’; these entries and entries like these recur with maddening iteration in the narratives of the units on this date, and the loss of life was terribly high. But Bullecourt fell in the end. Ten men had been left in the coveted village by troops which had reached it on May 3rd, but had fallen back from all but its fringes, and these ten men were rescued on May 8th. Day by day, the stubborn fight was waged, with attack and counter-attack of intense ferocity and varying fortune, till at last, on May 17th and following days, Territorial Troops of the County of London and the West Riding drove out the last remnants of the German garrison from their last stronghold in front of Quéant. Let Sir Douglas Haig tell the tale of these successes, which brought to a victorious close the series of fighting known as the Battle of Arras: ‘At 3-45 a.m. on the 3rd May, another attack was undertaken by us.... While the Third and First Armies attacked from Fontaine-les-Croisilles to Fresnoy, the Fifth Army launched a second attack upon the Hindenburg Line in the neighbourhood of Bullecourt. This gave a total front of over sixteen miles. Along practically the whole of this front our troops broke into the enemy’s positions.... To secure the footing gained by the Australians in the Hindenburg Line on the 3rd May, it was advisable that Bullecourt should be captured without loss of time. During the fortnight following our attack, fighting for the possession of this village went on unceasingly.... On the morning of the 7th May, English troops (7th Division, Major-General T. H. Shoubridge) gained a footing in the south-east corner of Bullecourt. Thereafter gradual progress was made, in the face of the most obstinate resistance, and on the 17th May, London and West Riding Territorials[79] completed the capture of the village.... On the 20th May fighting was commenced by the 33rd Division (Major-General R. J. Pinney) for the sector of the Hindenburg Line lying between Bullecourt and our front-line west of Fontaine-les-Croisilles. Steady progress was made until by the 16th June touch had been established by us between these two points.’[80] [Illustration: COLISEUM MADE OUT OF A GERMAN CRATER.]