That night the 126th brigade took over the front, a sketchy business in view of the position, and the N.Z's. marched back. One of the officers, during the day, had called out to us in characteristic Colonial fashion, "Well, boys, are you going up to finish it?" whereupon one of the men replied with Lancashire directness, "Ay, we started it, so we may as well finish it." There was a good deal of peace-talk flying about. German prisoners had admitted that they could not go on much longer, while rumours about conferences were very prevalent. Still, until we got orders to stop fighting, this job had to continue, and that was the chief consideration for us, although the order to cease fire would have been keenly appreciated.
Early morning found us on trek in a steady downpour of rain which made our already wet clothes more and more sodden. In this doleful fashion we splashed along over the muddy forest tracks to get close to the East Lancs. who were carrying out an attack. The 8th Manchesters had a particularly stern time, encountering nests of machine guns which had not been cleared from their exposed flanks, so that they lost very heavily. Nevertheless, the attack was eventually pushed home, and the Huns were dislodged. Subsequent events revealed that from this moment the German retirement became a scurry of a disorganised rabble. The roads were blocked by their hurrying transport, and personnel simply made the best use of their legs, scampering across country where it was impossible to march on the roads. The civilians told us that utter confusion reigned everywhere. Our foremost troops undoubtedly met determined resistance from the machine gunners, but they were probably blissfully ignorant of what was taking place behind them.
As far as the 7th was concerned November 6th was one of the most miserable and trying days ever experienced. In the middle of the morning we arrived at our position, where we stayed during the whole of the day in a bitterly cold rain with no possibility of shelter. When it was ascertained that the enemy had been dislodged we made a few fires and tried to restore life to our numbed bodies. The divisional commander, having seen our condition, and realising that very few in the brigade would be fit for fighting after two such days, ordered up the 125th brigade, who had had an opportunity of getting dry and warm. We marched joyfully back in the middle of the night to Le Carnoy and there spent two days in billets.