Two whole days passed without any attempt on the enemy's
part to challenge our success. By Sunday last he had collected enough reinforcements to make two resolute attacks to the north of the Menlo road, round Reutel and Polygon Wood, but he made no impression on our defences. The weather was now bad, and heavy lain on Sunday and Monday filled the swamps and shell-craters and seemed to make further movementa impossible. Yet on Tuesday morning our indomitable infantry again moved to the attack. This tune the battle-front was shifted still further northward, from a p tint south-east of Broodseinde, across the main ridge, right up to the western verge of the Houthulst Forest, where our French Allies co-operated with us. How our men and their French comrades forced their way through the Slough of Despond, regardless of the
set shells, the machine-guns in the "pill-boxes," and the snipers, they Sat probably do not know any more than we do. Yet again, in spite of heavy rain and deep mud, and all that the enemy could do, they reached all the points that they had been ordered to capture. It was an astonishing and memorable victory.
