of
Guillemont after it was taken. They were the granulation of bricks and
mortar and earth mixed by the blasts of shell fire which crushed solids
into dust and splintered splinters. Guillemont lay beyond Trones Wood
across an open space where the German guns had full play. There was a
stone quarry on the outskirts, and a quarry no less than a farm like
Waterlot, which was to the northward, and Falfemont, to the southward
and flanking the village, formed shelter. It was not much of a quarry,
but it was a hole which would be refuge for reserves and machine guns.
The two farms, clear targets for British guns, had their deep dugouts
whose roofs were reinforced by the ruins that fell upon them against
penetration even by shells of large caliber. How the Germans fought to
keep Falfemont! Once they sent out a charge with the bayonet to meet a
British charge between walls of shell fire and there through the mist
the steel was seen flashing and vague figures wrestling.

Guillemont and the farms won and Ginchy which lay beyond won and the
British had their flank on high ground. Twice they were in Guillemont
but could not remain, though as usual they kept some of their gains. It
was a battle from dugout to dugout, from shelter to shelter of any kind
burrowed in debris or in fields, with the British never ceasing here or
elsewhere to continue their pressure. And the debris of a village had
particular appeal; it yielded to the spade; its piles gave natural
cover.

A British soldier returning from one of the attacks as he hobbled
through Trones Wood expressed to me the essential generalship of the
battle. He was outwardly as unemotional as if he were coming home from
his day's work, respectful and good-humored, though he had a hole in
both arms from machine gun fire, a shrapnel wound in the heel, and
seemed a trifle resentful of the added tribute of another shrapnel wound
in his shoulder after he had left the firing-line and was on his way to
the casualty clearing station. Insisting that he could lift the
cigarette I offered him to his lips and light it, too, he said:

"We've only to keep at them, sir. They'll go."

So the British kept at them and so did the French at every point. Was
Delville Wood worse than High Wood? This is too nice a distinction in
torments to be drawn. Possess either of them completely and command of
the Ridge in that section was won. The edge of a wood on the side away
from your enemy was the easiest part