The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too
soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as those
with which his comrades had said farewell to Captain McCuaig. The
German tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several
hours after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and
persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet
master of the Canadian rearguard. If they died, they died worthily of
Canada.
The enforced retirement of the Third Brigade (and to have stayed longer
would have been madness) reproduced for the Second Brigade, commanded by
Brig. Gen. Curry, in a singularly exact fashion, the position of the
Third Brigade itself at the moment of the withdrawal of the French. The
Second Brigade, it must be remembered, had retained the whole line of
trenches, roughly 2,500 yards, which it was holding at 5 o'clock on
Thursday afternoon, supported by the incomparable exertions of the Third
Brigade, and by the highly hazardous deployment in which necessity had
involved that brigade. The Second Brigade had maintained its lines.
It now devolved upon General Curry, commanding this brigade, to
reproduce the tactical maneuvres with which, earlier in the fight, the
Third Brigade had adapted itself to the flank movement of overwhelming
numerical superiority.
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