"No more underground work for me after this war," he said. "I've had enough of it."
The German ground hereabouts was taken by those troops of ours whose fighting across the Damstrasse and in Ravine Wood I described yesterday. Through them went another body of troops--the troops of the 24th Division--whose fortunes I have described in other battles, including some Leinster lads who have a padre for their hero, and English county troops who knew the look of Vimy Ridge before the Canadians reached the crest of it. They had to make the final assault to the farthest line of attack, passing through masses of men who had taken the first lines. All this was rehearsed in fields behind the battle-ground so thoroughly that the men could have gone forward blindfold. It all went like clockwork, and though the enemy fought hard on that last line beyond the Damstrasse by Rose Wood and Bug Wood, one post holding out with machine-guns, our men captured it with few casualties. They took 300 prisoners that day, with six field-guns, and their spirit is high after victory. Next morning the Irish padre was seen sitting outside a shell-hole with a clean white collar and white socks with his boots off. "Well done, boys!" he said, and they were glad to see him there.
All our men were wonderfully inspired by a belief in the guns, so that they walked close behind a frightful barrage. Each body of troops vied with other regiments in a friendly rivalry. There was a race between the South and North Irish as to whether a green flag or an orange should be planted first above the ruins of Wytschaete. I don't know which won, but both flags flew there when the crest had been gained.
"The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price."
This sentence stands out as an absolute command in the German order issued to their troops before the battle which they knew was coming. The words are peremptory, among promises of artillery support and immediate counter-attacks from divisions behind the first-line troops, which would be read now as a hollow mockery by those men who are our prisoners, captured in crowds from their welter of mined and cratered earth. While half-way through the battle their artillery tried to drag their field-guns back to something like safety in the wake of heavy guns, which even before the battle had been withdrawn to the farthest possible range of action, though forward observing officers tried to conceal this from the infantry by coming to their usual posts. The battle is over. Messines Ridge, which was not to be ours at any price, is ours at a price which our Army thinks very cheap--though many brave men paid for it with their lives--and our outposts are pushing forward towards Warneton, far beyond the farther slopes, after an enemy retiring upon that place. Only our men who have fought in the Ypres salient know the full meaning of that order. "The enemy must not get the Messines Ridge at any price."