Therefore it was decided that the only thing to do was to re-sort the battalions and to dig in where they were. A point of junction was arranged, and the much mixed battalions were reorganised; digging started, and the men, tired out as they were, set to work with a will, and soon produced a trench. Thus was the beginning made of that long line of trenches which was eventually to stretch from the Argonne to the Belgian coast, and which formed the battleground of the two armies for years to come.
Converted into a dressing-station, the farm of La Cour de Soupir was filled with wounded, British and German. The ground in front of our trench was covered with dead and wounded Germans, but though as many stretcher-bearers as possible were sent out and worked all night long, it was not easy to find them in the darkness. It was a striking point of difference that while our wounded hardly made a sound, the Germans never stopped groaning and crying out: there was a continuous chorus all through the night of "Kamerad, Kamerad," and "Wasser, Wasser." A regular pile of Germans was discovered round two haystacks, while in a stubble-field close by was an almost complete firing line, laid out in a row, and all dead. Shelling began again at dawn before all the German wounded could be brought in.
Soon the farm was crowded, and the men for whom there was no room were put in the out-buildings. The removal of the wounded from the farm to the rear proved a great difficulty. The pontoon bridge at Pont-Arcy had been smashed, and on that side of the river, unfortunately, there were only four horse ambulance-wagons; these, with their fagged-out horses, had to plod throughout the night up and down the steep hill which led to the farm, taking only a few wounded at a time.
Behind the farm was a deep quarry with several caves in it; here the men not actually required for the firing line were stationed--comparatively safe except for an occasional shell from a German howitzer. The three or four hundred prisoners the Battalion had taken were herded together in the quarry under a guard and sent downhill next day. They made no attempt to hide their pleasure at escaping from the battle.
While Major Jeffreys was superintending the digging, a man of the Irish Guards arrived and said that as he was searching for the wounded, a German officer had come up to him and expressed a wish to surrender, but added that he would only give himself up to an officer. Thereupon Major Jeffreys told the man to find the German, if possible, and bring him in. When the man came back he reported that the original officer had refused to come so far, but that he had met another, who as willingly accompanied him. Out of the darkness stepped a tall, smart-looking Ober-Leutnant, who clicked his heels, saluted, and said in perfect English, "I wish to surrender." Major Jeffreys was at no pains to conceal his contempt for this poor specimen of an officer, and handed him over to one of the junior officers of the Grenadiers to take to the quarries.