ured. A dressing
station filled with R.A.M.C. and wounded was taken, but Frit acted
honourably, placed a sentry over the entrance and allowed the Red Cross
men to carry on with their work.

From Marcoing the 88th Brigade formed a line running towards Masnieres,
and with the dull, wicked bayonet went out to meet the grey forces. Here
and there bayonet met bayonet. Again it was the 29th. Blood poured into
pools on the grass, Hun after Hun clasped his weakening grip upon the
British bayonet rasping through his chest. He fell and with a foot on
the body for leverage a red, dipping blade was withdrawn. On again,
crack! crack!! Lunge, until the ribs snapped like dry sticks beneath
each thrust. Stoic British, unmoved, unexcited ... well might you
Germans call the 29th the Iron Division. Aye, the Cult of the Bayonet!

The enemy sickened ... ran.

Lining the roads above and below the broken Masnieres bridges, with its
half sunk tank, the Ten Hundred pumped an annhilating shower or lead
into the lines of enemy creeping along the canal bank. He turned and
retreated, but a swarm of grey figures had taken Rues Vertes and were
consolidating their positions in what constituted a direct menace to
both the 88th Brigade at Marcoing and the other two (89th and 87th)
holding on against the onslaught on a line stretching from Masnieres to
Nine Wood. In this village the enemy held a pivot from which a turning
movement, if supported with sufficient troops and guns, could be
enforced. He had both these essentials and his aeroplanes grasped in a
moment that an advance from here would, if successful, bring the Hun
infantry into the direct REAR of those British lines still intact, cut
the only line of retreat and force the capitulation of the Divisions at
the apex of the salient.

Fritz 'planes were up in scores flying in formation, and, having no
opposition, were frequently at an altitude of a mere sixty or eighty
feet. The scouts, peering down on the situation at Masnieres, took in at
a glance the wide area that had to be covered by the solitary Norman
Battalion without support of any kind. This information was communicated
to the German Command. Inroad from Rues Vertes was prepared with certain
confidence; but they had not calculated with the Normans and before the
Command could move a finger THEY HAD LOST RUES VERTES!

There was not in that first storming of the village the desperate
hand-to-hand fighting that would inevitably have ensue