Precisely at 4.25 o'clock on the morning of the 15th, just as a red streak smeared the horizon, the word for which the Canadians had been waiting was given and the artillery barrage fell like a hammer stroke on the German front line. For six minutes it pounded the trenches into pulp, then lifted to a hundred yards farther on, tore a line of devastation there for another six minutes, lifted again in another hundred yards' stride and so continued its work of destruction at similar intervals. As the curtain of our shells rose from the German front line the men of the 20th Battalion, with other units, leaped from their jumping-off trenches and waded across No Man's Land. They found the Germans--all who remained of the front line garrison--shaken, bruised, more or less subdued. Where they surrendered they were taken prisoners; where they resisted they were killed. In Cowley trench only one enemy machine-gun was working and soon it was out-flanked and captured. In Commotion trench an emplacement was in action. It was smothered. Sergeant Frederick Hobson and some men of "A" company went forward up the enemy trench known as Nabob Alley. They bombed their way along, beating back the Germans, who retreated slowly and grudgingly; and, having conquered about seventy yards of the trench, they established a post at that point. The objectives of the battalion elsewhere were also gained and the position was consolidated. The attack was a success. All this happened on the 15th of August. But to take a position is one thing: to hold it is another. For three days the Germans kept probing various parts of the line, hoping to find a spot which would yield. At 1.40 a.m. on the 18th, their artillery opened a heavy bombardment on the whole Canadian Corps front and for half an hour shells were rained on every part of the line. The general bombardment slackened for a short time, during which the village of St. Pierre received an avalanche of gas-shells; and at twelve minutes past four o'clock every gun the enemy could muster opened again on the front. The concentration of artillery was nerve-racking. It was almost demoralizing. Up in the advance posts the majority of the Lewis gun positions were obliterated, men and guns being buried in the vast upheavals. Twenty minutes after the shelling began the headquarters of the 20th Battalion was hit by a heavy shell and vanished. Every wire leading to the posts was cut, every light extinguished. And in the darkness and confusion came word from the battalion stationed on the right of the 20th to the effect that the Germans were out in No Man's Land, coming to attack.