Our men had lain out all night in the rain before the attack at something before six. They were wet through to the skin, but it is curious that some of them whom I saw to-day were surprised to hear it had been raining hard. They had other things to think about. But some of them did not think at all. Tired out in mind and body under the big nervous strain which is there, though they may be unconscious of it, they slept. "I was wakened by a friend just before we went over," said one of them. The anxiety of the officers was intense for the hours to pass before the enemy should get a hint of the movement. It seemed that in one part of the line he did guess that something was in the wind and in the mist. This was on the line facing Glencorse Wood. An hour or two before the attack he put over a heavy barrage, but most of it missed the heads of the battalions. There were many casualties, but the men stood firm, never budging, and making no sound. They all thought that some of their comrades must have been badly caught, but, as far as I can find, it did not do great damage.
All along the line the experience of the fighting was broadly the same. Apart from local details and difficulties, the ground was not quite so bad as had been expected, though bad enough, being greasy and boggy after the rain, but not impassable. The shell-holes were water-logged, and they were dangerously deep for badly wounded men who might fall in, but for the others there was generally a way round over ground which would hold, and our assaulting waves who led the advance were lightly clad, and could go at a fair pace after the barrage. "I saw wounded men fall in the shell-holes," said a Warwickshire lad to-day, "and God knows how they got out again, unless the stretcher-bearers came up quick, as most of them did; but as for me, I had lain in a shell-hole all night up to the waist in mud, and I was careful to keep out of them." The barrage ahead of them was terrific--the most appalling fence of shells that has ever been placed before advancing troops in this war. All our men describe it as wonderful. "Beautiful" is the word they use, because they know what it means in safety to them.
In the direction of Polygon Wood the plan of attack seems to have worked like clockwork. The Australians moved forward behind the barrage stage by stage, through Westhoek and Nonne Boschen, and across the Hanebeek stream on their left, with hardly a check, in spite of the German blockhouses scattered over this country. In those blockhouses the small garrisons of picked troops had been demoralized, as any human beings would be, by the enormous shell-fire which had been flung around them. Some, but not all, it seems, of the blockhouses had been smashed, and in those still standing the German machine-gunners got their weapons to work with a burst or two of fire, but then, seeing our troops upon them, were seized with fear, and made signs of surrender. At nine o'clock this morning the good news came back that the Australians were right through Glencorse Wood. Later messages showed that our troops were fighting their way into Polygon Wood. They swept over the strong points at Black Watch Corner, Northampton Farm, and Carlisle Farm. There was stiff fighting round a blockhouse called Anzac Corner, east of the Hanebeek stream, and it was necessary to organize two flank attacks and work round it before the enemy machine-gun fire could be silenced by bombs. In another case near here the enemy came out of a blockhouse ready to attack, but when they saw our men swarming up, they lost heart and held up their hands. It is difficult to know how many prisoners were taken here in these woods and strong points. The men's estimates vary enormously, some speaking of scores and others of hundreds.