ld
justify it.

Half a tactical eye could see that the woods of Mametz, Bernafay and
Trones must be held in order to allow of elbow room for a mass movement
over a broad front. The German realized this and after he had lost
Mametz and Bernafay he held all the more desperately to Trones, which,
for the time being, was the superlative horror in woods fighting, though
we were yet to know that it could be surpassed by Delville and High
Woods.

In Trones the Germans met attack with counter-attack again and again.
The British got through to the east side of the woods, and in reply the
Germans sent in a wave forcing the British back to the west, but no
farther. Then the British, reinforced again, reached the east side.
Showers of leaves and splinters descended from shell-bursts and machine
guns were always rattling. The artillery of both sides hammered the
approaches of the woods to prevent reinforcements from coming up.

In the cellars of Guillemont village beyond Trones the Germans had
refuges for concentrating their reserves to feed in more troops, whose
orders, as all the prisoners taken said, were to hold to the last man.
Trones Wood was never to be yielded to the British. Its importance was
too vital. Grim national and racial pride and battalion pride and
soldierly pride grappled in unyielding effort and enmity. The middle of
the woods became a neutral ground where the wounded of the different
sallies lay groaning from pain and thirst. Small groups of British had
dug themselves in among the Germans and, waterless, foodless, held out,
conserving their ammunition or, when it was gone, waiting for the last
effort with the bayonet.

For several days the spare British artillery had been cutting the barbed
wire of the second line and smashing in the trenches; and the big guns
which had been advanced since July 1st were sending their shells far
beyond the Ridge into villages and crossroads and other vital points, in
order to interfere with German communications.

The Thiepval-Gommecourt line where the British had been repulsed on
July 1st had reverted to something approaching stalemate conditions,
with the usual exchange of artillery fire, and it was along the broader
front where the old German first line had been broken through that the
main concentrations of men and guns were being made in order to continue
the advance for the present through the opening won on July 1st. The
price paid for the taking of the woods and fo