They fought stubbornly, grimly, in ground so ravaged with fire that
the earth was finely powdered. They stormed the Pozieres ridge yard by
yard, and held its crest under sweeping barrages which tore up their
trenches as soon as they were dug and buried and mangled their living
flesh. In six weeks they suffered twenty thousand casualties, and
Pozieres now is an Australian graveyard, and the memorial that stands
there is to the ghosts of that splendid youth which fell in heaps
about that plateau and the slopes below. Many English boys of the
Sussex, West Kents, Surrey, and Warwick regiments, in the 18th
Division, died at their side, not less patient in sacrifice, not
liking it better. Many Scots of the 15th and 9th Divisions, many New-
Zealanders, many London men of the 47th and 56th Divisions, fell,
killed or wounded, to the right of them, on the way to Martinpuich,
and Eaucourt l'Abbaye and Flers, from High Wood and Longueval, and
Bazentin. The 3d Division of Yorkshires and Northumberland Fusiliers,
Royal Scots and Gordons, were earning that name of the Iron Division,
and not by any easy heroism.
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