It seemed to me a place not to gain and not to hold. If I had
been a general (appalling thought!) I should have said: "Let the enemy
have that little hell of his. Let men live there among half-buried
bodies and crawling lice, and the stench of rotting flesh. There is no
good in it for us, and for him will be an abomination, dreaded by his
men."
But our generals desired it. They hated to think that the enemy should
have crawled back to it after our men had been there. They decided to
"bite it off," that blunt nose which was thrust forward to our line.
It was an operation that would be good to report in the official
communique. Its capture would, no doubt, increase the morale of our
men after their dead had been buried and their wounded patched up and
their losses forgotten.
It was to the 46th Midland Division that the order of assault was
given on October 13th, and into the trenches went the lace-makers of
Nottingham, and the potters of the Five Towns, and the boot-makers of
Leicester, North Staffordshires, and Robin Hoods and Sherwood
Foresters, on the night of the 12th.
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