Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

116 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

doubt, were one nest of machine guns. The 137th

Brigade was directed to attack from the eastern end

of Big Willie against the Redoubt and the Fosse, while the 138th Brigade on their left moved against the west of the Fosse and the cluster of cottages. Both brigades, as soon as they left their parapets, came under a deadly cross-fire from the two Willies, the Redoubt itself, the Fosse and its adjoining buildings, and the German trenches running from the Redoubt to the Quarries.

The first rush gave us the main trench of the Hohenzollern. But swift progress was impossible under the machine-gun fire, and the attack resolved itself into a struggle of bombing parties. On the right the North and South Staffords fought their way along Big Willie, while on the left the Leicesters and the Lincolns wrestled for the possession of Little Willie. The Monmouths and the Sherwood Foresters were brought up in support, and far into the night this soldiers’ battle continued, for it had become an affair of individual gallantry and endurance rather than of any battle plan. Early on the morning of the 14th the Sherwoods had to face a dangerous counter-attack, and there it was that Captain C. G. Vickers, of the 1/7th Battalion, won the Victoria Cross for a deed of most conspicuous bravery. Nearly all his men had been killed or wounded, and only two remained to hand him bombs, but he held the barrier for hours against bomb attacks from front and flanks. “ Regardless of the fact,” says the official acceunt, “that his own retreat would be cut off, he had ordered a second barrier to be built behind him in order to ensure the safety of the trench. Finally

Oct. 14.