Generals Mercer and Williams had
gone up to inspect the trenches at six o'clock in the morning.
It had been almost silent along the lines when the enemy's batteries
opened fire with one enormous thunderstroke, which was followed by
continuous salvos. The shells came from nearly every point of the
compass--north, east, and south. The evil spell of the salient was
over our men again.
In the trenches just south of Hooge were the Princess Patricia's Light
Infantry, with some battalions of the Royal Canadian Regiment south of
them, and some of the Canadian Mounted Rifles (who had long been
dismounted), and units from another Canadian division at says one of
his comrades--as he fired his revolver and then flung it into a
German's face.
Colonel Shaw of the 1st Battalion, C.M.R., rallied eighty men out of
the Cumberland dugouts, and died fighting. The Germans were kept at
bay for some time, but they flung their bombs into the square of men,
so that very few remained alive. When only eight were still fighting
among the bodies of their comrades these tattered and blood-splashed
men, standing there fiercely contemptuous of the enemy and death, were
ordered to retire by Major Palmer, the last officer among them.
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