IV
The Hohenzollern redoubt, near Fosse 8, captured by the 9th Scottish
Division in the battle of Loos, could not be held then under
concentrated gun-fire from German batteries, and the Scots, and the
Guards who followed them, after heavy losses, could only cling on to
part of a communication trench (on the southeast side of the
earthworks) nicknamed "Big Willie," near another trench called "Little
Willie." Our enemies forced their way back into some of their old
trenches in this outpost beyond their main lines, and in spite of the
chaos produced by our shell-fire built up new parapets and sand-bag
barricades, flung out barbed wire, and dug themselves into this
graveyard where their dead and ours were strewn.
Perhaps there was some reason why our generals should covet possession
of the Hohenzollern redoubt, some good military reason beyond the
spell of a high-sounding name. I went up there one day when it was
partly ours and stared at its rigid waves of mine-craters and trench
parapets and upheaved chalk, dazzling white under a blue sky, and
failed to see any beauty in the spot, or any value in it--so close to
the German lines that one could not cough for fear of losing one's
head.
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