Читать книгу The War History of the 1st/ 4th Battalion, 1914-1918. The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment онлайн

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It was about midnight when the Germans began to throw up flares in great numbers. They had been shelling L 10 and the (German) captured salient for some time before. Their counter-attack proper began by bombing at L 10 so severely that the machine gun there was damaged and put out of action, and the connection with the Cameronians broken. Almost at the same time, the Germans began to bomb down the right communication trench (X 7), and followed this by throwing bombs across the open. There was no means of replying, and no cover to be had anywhere in the ditch. To stay there would have meant the wiping out of those in the line; enfilade fire came from both flanks—on the right from the German main trench at K 7, and on the left from L 9; the Scottish Rifles in the German communication trench were enfiladed down the whole length by artillery and rifle fire. Orders were given, therefore, to retire from the position.

At the point Z (see map) a mixed body of men lined the shell craters and held up the Germans for about two hours, losing heavily. This point Z, which lay on the German side of their fire trench, was an absolute mass of wrecked dugouts. These men finally retired, in the mist of the morning, towards the sap south-west of L 8. In the retirement all the attacking Battalions were mixed up. The sap at L 8 was held by a composite company: 1/4th Loyal North Lancashires, 1/6th Scottish Rifles, 1/4th Royal Lancaster Regiment, Grenadier Guards, 1/8th Liverpool Irish, but the Germans, probably because of their check at Z, did not push their counter-attack on to the British lines.