All that day the 7th Division struggled to carry Pietre Mill, while the rest of the line attacked the bridges over the river and the German trenches in the wood. Round about the mill the fighting was very fierce; ground was gained and lost again; houses were captured and recaptured; and friend and foe were mixed up in confused hand-to-hand fighting. Here it was that the 6th Gordons lost Lieutenant-Colonel Maclean. A subaltern found him lying in the open behind the trench with a bullet in his back, and sinking fast. The young officer brought him morphia to ease his pain, and when he had taken it he said, "And now, my boy, your place is not here. Go about your duty." So died a very gallant gentleman.
Victoria Crosses were won on this part of the front by Private Edward Barber and Lance-Corporal Wilfred Fuller of the Grenadiers for a brilliant bombing attack, of which we shall read later. Further south, the 2nd Rifle Brigade managed to carry a section of German trenches, and Sergeant-Major Daniels and Corporal Noble did deeds of outstanding valour which won them the proudest decoration that a soldier can wear. Unhappily, their unit, the Rifle Brigade, was enfiladed and forced to fall back on its old lines.
By the evening of the 12th Sir John French was convinced that nothing more could be won, and he ordered the attack to be suspended for the present. All the 13th was spent by our weary soldiers in digging themselves in on the banks of the little river which they had failed to cross. So worn out were many of the men that they fell asleep while standing at their loopholes. Counter-attacks were to be expected, and they soon began, but met with no success. Only at one point, north-east of the village, did the Germans manage to get into our trenches, and their stay was brief indeed. In one of their attacks they lost more than 600 prisoners, and the captured men seemed glad to be out of the terrible fighting.
The most severe counter-attack was made not at Neuve Chapelle, but at the tiny Belgian hamlet of St. Eloi, 15 miles to the north, and at the junction of two main roads. On the 14th, when mists lay thick on the flats, the Germans, following our example at Neuve Chapelle, began a fierce bombardment of our trenches, and at the same time exploded mines on our front and on a large mound which we held to the south-east of the village. The infantry attacks of the enemy were very determined; our men were driven from their trenches, and our whole line had to fall back. Under cover of the darkness we prepared for a counter-attack, and on the morning of the 15th managed to win back most of the lost ground. The mound, which our soldiers called "the Mound of Death," was not recovered; it lay in the No Man's Land between the rival trenches, exposed to the gun fire of friend and foe.