It was not until the 8th of August, 1918, after Foch had carried on his successful attacks on the Marne Salient for three weeks, that the great counter-attack on the Somme was fully started, although before that day there had been some important gains. Especially had a notable combination of Australians, Americans, and Tanks had a great success on the 4th of July, after a heavy barrage, in capturing Hamel, a village on the Somme just north of Warfusée. Both the Australians and the Tank Corps have given picturesque accounts of this fighting, with a somewhat amusing preference, in each case, for the service with which the writer is connected. It was here that the Australians are credited with having pronounced their new colleagues from across the Atlantic to be "good lads, but too rough"! Most elaborate (and successful) precautions[27] had been taken to make sure that the attack of the 8th of August (Ludendorff's "black day") should be a surprise. In spite of all these precautions, some anxiety may have been felt by those who knew that a sergeant, who was well acquainted with everything that was on foot, had been taken prisoner by the Germans a few days before. Oddly enough, the minutes of the cross-examination of this N.C.O. were afterwards captured, and it was found that, like a plucky Englishman, he had given nothing whatever away.[28] [27] See Haig's Despatches, p. 259. [28] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, vol. vi., p. 30. Villers Bretonneux had been throughout in our possession, but only its ruins were standing, the one "hotel" which I found there in 1919 being a tarpaulin-covered shed (Plate 61) calling itself the "Hôtel des Trois Moineaux," and bearing a cryptic message from "Toto" which I am unable to explain. The first day's advance swept far beyond Warfusée, just south of which the village of Marcelcave was captured by a tank whose Lieutenant demanded--and obtained--a receipt from the Australians before he would hand over his spoils to them. Abreast of Foucaucourt (Plate 52) and between it and the Somme lies Chuignes, where the Australian advance captured a 380-mm. gun on an elaborate emplacement, which had been put in position, but I believe too late to be used, for the purpose of a long-range bombardment of Amiens. The gun was dismantled before we reached it, and lies on the ground shorn of some 10 feet of its muzzle end, which had been cut off by its captors to send home as a "souvenir."