It looked like victory, in those days, as war correspondents, we were
not so expert in balancing the profit and loss as afterward we became.
When I went into Fricourt on the third day of battle, after the last
Germans, who had clung on to its ruins, had been cleared out by the
Yorkshires and Lincolns of the 21st Division, that division which had
been so humiliated at Loos and now was wonderful in courage, and when
the Manchesters and Gordons of the 30th Division had captured
Montauban and repulsed fierce counter-attacks.
It looked like victory, because of the German dead that lay there in
their battered trenches and the filth and stench of death over all
that mangled ground, and the enormous destruction wrought by our guns,
and the fury of fire which we were still pouring over the enemy's
lines from batteries which had moved forward.
I went down flights of steps into German dugouts, astonished by their
depth and strength. Our men did not build like this. This German
industry was a rebuke to us, yet we had captured their work and the
dead bodies of their laborers lay in those dark caverns, killed by our
bombers, who had flung down handgrenades.
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