This charge, made by men
who looked death indifferently in the face, (for no man who took part in
it could think that he was likely to live,) saved, and that was much,
the Canadian left. But it did more. Up to the point where the assailants
conquered, or died, it secured and maintained during the most critical
moment of all the integrity of the allied line. For the trench was not
only taken, it was held thereafter against all comers, and in the teeth
of every conceivable projectile, until the night of Sunday, the 25th,
when all that remained of the war-broken but victorious battalions was
relieved by fresh troops.
It is necessary now to return to the fortunes of the Third Brigade,
commanded by Brig. Gen. Turner, which, as we have seen, at 5 o'clock on
Thursday was holding the Canadian left, and after the first attack
assumed the defense of the new Canadian salient, at the same time
sparing all the men it could to form an extemporized line between the
wood and St. Julien. This brigade also was at the first moment of the
German offensive, made the object of an attack by the discharge of
poisonous gas. The discharge was followed by two enemy assaults.
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