It was a heavy punch this time.  I cannot tell of all these fierce struggles here—­they shall be told in full some day.  In the earliest steps towards Mouquet British troops attacked on the Australian flank, and at least once the fighting which they met with was appallingly heavy.  Victorians, South Australians, New South Welshmen have each dealt their blow at it.  The Australians have been in heavy fighting, almost daily, for six solid weeks; they started with three of the most terrible battles that have ever been fought—­few people, even here, realise how heavy that fighting was.  Then the tension eased as they struck those first blows northwards.  As they neared Mouquet the resistance increased.  Each of the last five blows has been stiffer to drive.  On each occasion the wedge has been driven a little farther forward.  This time the blow was heavier and the wedge went farther.

The attack was made just as a summer night was reddening into dawn.  Away to the rear over Guillemont—­for the Australians were pushing almost in an opposite direction from the great British attack—­the first light of day glowed angrily on the lower edges of the leaden clouds.  You could faintly distinguish objects a hundred yards away.  Our field guns, from behind the hills, broke suddenly into a tempest of fire, which tore a curtain of dust from the red shell craters carpeting the ridge.  A few minutes later the bombardment lengthened, and the line of Queenslanders, Tasmanians and Western Australians rushed for the trenches ahead of them.

On the left, well down the shoulder of the hill towards Thiepval, was the dust-heap of craters and ashes, with odd ends of some shattered timber sticking out of it, which goes by the name of Mouquet Farm.  It was a big, important homestead some months ago.  To-day it is the wreckage of a log roof, waterlogged in a boundless tawny sea of craters.  There is no sign of a trench left in it—­the entrances of the dug-outs may be found here and there like rat-holes, about half a dozen of them, behind dishevelled heaps of rubbish.  They open into craters now—­no doubt each opening has been scratched clear of debris a dozen times.  You have to get into some of them by crawling on hands and knees.

The first charge took the Western Australians far beyond the farm.  They reached a position two hundred yards farther and started to dig in there.  Within an hour or two they had a fairly good trench out amongst the craters well in front of the farm.  The farm behind them ought to be solidly ours with such a line in front of it.  A separate body of men, some of them Tasmanians, came like a whirlwind on their heels into the farm.  The part of the garrison which was lying out in front in a rough line of shell craters found them on top of the craters before they knew that there were British troops anywhere about.  They were captured and sent back.  The Australians tumbled over the debris into the farm itself.