Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-04

from Leicester and lacemakers from Not
tingham and potters from Arnold Benefits
five towns, where life is rather drab and
its color is monotone. I met them several
years ago near Armentieres and afterward
at "tunky villas" as they call Fonquevillers,
near Hebuterne. and the Robin Hoods of
Sherwood foresters in their steel hats and
their muddy skhaki would have frightened
friar Tuck If he had met them en- a sum
mer's day all under the greenwood tree of
that orchard in Hebuterne. where every day
birds of death came bowling
Their look was little heroic rs that of
any of the muddy men who trudge along
the duck boards leading to shelfre, but the
spirit OF Engands old heroic soul was in
them.
Bootmakers and potters and lacemakers
and factory hands of the English Midlands
practtced for their passage of the canal. one
OF their brigadiers V. Che has the Eliz-
abeth touch of character-borrowed life
belts from a leave-boat and. putting one on
himself, went down to the Somme and led
MS men In wading and swimming the river,
which is cold these days, and taught them
how to keep their rifles dry and their heads
above water
1t was with these lfebets on and with
scaling ladders and hand grenades and haw-
sers that the Midland men went forward
to the canal in a thick fog last Saturday
morning and made their crossing. Shells
burst about them, machine-gun bullets whip
ped the water and the banks but some
swimming, some wadine. some hauling them
selves across ropes which they fixed by
throwing lead lines across, and then by
the first men over pulling the ropes to the
other side they gained the German banks
at Bellenglise and forming up in line went
ahead to Lehancourt and agny-la-Fossa.
ON both sides of the valley the Germans
had their guns The gunners were firing and
hard fighting ensued before the guns could
he captured Some of the tanks were she
first to advance upon these gun positions
aud. NtndA dtpAn fire ut oil
Before the Midland men closed in with
large numbers the Germans were in hiding
in the great tunnel by the canal Thousands
of them 'who were down there would not
come out, hoping to fight again.
The British waves passed and then en-
countered mines to blow up the troops. One
of the sappers. advancing almost alone and
cutting down two Germans who tried to XIII
him as he crossed the bridge, broke the leads
of the mines and saved the lives of many
of his comrades.
one. of the captured German howitzers
placedsat the mouth of the tunnel and fired
down. It made noise as If mines had been
blown up and the bowels of the earth were
rent and before it's echoes had died away the
Germans came rushing out of their tunnel in
a mad panic and We're captured by the Mid
land men above, who, by this days work-it
was all over by 10 O'Clock that morning
had seized the key of the Hindenburg line
above st. Quentin
Bassee neighborhood was preceded by a heavy
bombardment as a final salute from his guns
which had ravaged this mining country for
four years and then his troops stole away on
a wide front, leaving only a few machine-gun
crews here and there The British among
whom were Lancashire. Scottish and Irish
units followed up az soon as the withdrawal
was noticed and went into the empty
trenches round about Aubers ridge and
through old ruins such as those of Winges,
Salome and Illiese, into which the British
poured shells year after year and whose tow
ers they have seen, as have seen them from
the trenches about Sullies and the Hohen-
zollern redoubt. There are towers there
now for the enemy destroyed them before he
left by fire and explosives.
In Cite st. Auguste, that mining village
northeast of Lens. into which some Gordons
went on the first day of the battle of Loos In
September, 1915 and never came back again,
there were Wednesday some rear-guards OF
machine gunners, and fighting took place
there before the British rooted them out.
Elsewhere scarcely shot was fired. and the
enemy went away rapidly TO his new line OF
| defense which nray possibly run behind the
Houte Deule Canal at Pont-a-Vendin to the
| outskirts Of Lille or rather to the edge OF
those formidable defenses around Lille, wmcn
| make thaft a strong fortress.
| The abandonment Of cite st. Adguste
| means that Lens itself has been delivered
| into British hands with the neghboring coal
fields for which the English and Canadian
| troops have fought such long and fierce bat
| ties, and our men are now going through It's
/ ruins. The report comes to me that one
| of the British cavalry patrols met German
| patrol the road southwest of Fournes
! which is northeast OF Illiese. but am unable