Southwards for a couple of miles from Bellicourt towards Bellenglise the canal runs in the deep cutting seen in Plate 83, which was taken from above the tunnel mouth. The banks of the cutting are 60 or 70 feet high, very steep, and covered with thick vegetation--covered also, in 1918, with barbed wire. On the east side the bank carried, in addition, many concrete machine-gun emplacements. The water in the canal was very deep near the tunnel, and did not shallow until it nearly reached Bellenglise. The attack was carried out by Midland Territorials (Stafford and Lancashire), and had immediate success. It is specially mentioned by General Haig, and well described by General Maurice, and with natural enthusiasm and much detail by Major Priestley.[34] It was preceded by a barrage, lasting forty-eight hours, from about 1,600 guns of various calibres, and then--for once--the weather favoured us, for at zero hour, 5.50, on the morning of the attack (the 29th of September)[35] the whole country was covered with a thick fog, under which our men advanced, invisible to their enemies, although with some difficulty to themselves. The 46th Division scrambled down the cutting (where it will be seen that there was no jumping-off place on that side), and got across by swimming (with life-belts), by improvised rafts and collapsible boats, and all the devices which had been tested on the Somme at Brie (see Plate 66) a few days earlier. It seems uncertain whether any of the German foot-bridges had been left undestroyed, but the Riqueval Bridge (Plate 84) had not been knocked down by our shelling, and still stood as it was when I last saw it, carrying a notice that it was safe "for infantry in file only." Major Priestley tells the story of how Captain Charlton, with a small party of nine men, found his way by compass to the bridge, charged down on the sentries (one N.C.O. getting four of them just in time), cut the wires, and threw the blasting charges into the canal. The bridge was saved and held by 8.30, and naturally proved most useful. [34] Haig's Despatches, p. 282, "The Last Four Months," p. 161, and "Crossing the Hindenburg Line," p. 48. [35] We now know that it was on the 28th of September that Ludendorff met the Kaiser and insisted on the necessity for an armistice. Among Major Priestley's stories of this adventure he tells how two R.A.M.C. privates (Moseley and George) collected prisoners, dressed the wounded and made the prisoners carry them, and finally arrived at quarters as the sole escort of twenty stretcher cases and seventy-five unwounded prisoners.[36] [36] Priestley, _op. cit._, p. 63.