In a brigade headquarters a group of officers waited more anxiously for this help, having more responsibility. They sat with wet towels about their heads and eyes, in poisonous fumes and dreadful stenches which crept down from above, where heavy shells burst incessantly, shaking all the earth and blowing out the candles. The concrete ceiling bulged in. Runners came in white-faced and shaking, after frightful journeys, and officers bent to the candlelight to read scribbled messages sent down by hard-pressed men. Outside were the groans of wounded men.
At dawn, Tanks went out to attack the strong points north of Inverness Copse, where the enemy had rallied again, and one of them approached Fitzclarence Farm and broke up a counter-attacking preparation there. Some Germans ran into the blockhouse there and shot down the steel doors and lay doggo. Others came out of a trench to attack the Tank, but fled before the fire. Later in the morning German aeroplanes came out and flew very low and played their machine-guns on to our men, but without doing much harm.
From 1 A.M. to 3.30 A.M. the enemy kept a terrific barrage over all our ground, and then flamed out all along the line the signal of a new counter-attack. It was the "flammenwerfer" attack against the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and the whole sky was red with the light of these advancing fire-jets. For a time, in spite of the enemy's heavy losses, the Cornwalls had to retire before these far-reaching flames, but they rallied and went forward again, driving the enemy part of the way back, where he was swept by our artillery-fire. The enemy kept up a steady barrage-fire over three wide belts, and an officer who went up to report the position had the worst hours of his life on that journey through bursting shells and over the fields of dead. But in spite of a message that had come down reporting a new withdrawal, it was found that the line was intact, and that the thin ranks of Light Infantry and King's Royal Rifles had beaten back all the enemy's assaults, and had destroyed their spirit for further attacks by most deadly losses. We could not hold Inverness Copse, but the fighting here was worthy of men who, during two years of war, have fought with steadfast courage and have many acts of heroism in their long record.