XVI
At the beginning of March there was a little affair--costing a lot of
lives--in the neighborhood of St.-Eloi, up in the Ypres salient. It
was a struggle for a dirty hillock called the Bluff, which had been
held for a long time by the 3d Division under General Haldane, whose
men were at last relieved, after weary months in the salient, by the
17th Division commanded by General Pilcher. The Germans took advantage
of the change in defense by a sudden attack after the explosion of a
mine, and the men of the 17th Division, new to this ground, abandoned
a position of some local importance.
General Haldane was annoyed. It was ground of which he knew every
inch. It was ground which men of his had died to hold. It was very
annoying--using a feeble word--to battalion officers and men of the 3d
Division--Suffolks and King's Own Liverpools, Gordons and Royal Scots-
-who had first come out of the salient, out of its mud and snow and
slush and shell-fire, to a pretty village far behind the lines, on the
road to Calais, where they were getting back to a sense of normal life
again.
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