It was just before dusk when the counterattacks began northward from
Wytschaete and southward from Meteren, and although before then there
had been a steady slogging of guns and howling of shells, at that time
this volume of dreadful noise increased tremendously, and drumfire broke
out in fury, so that the sky and earth trembled with it. It was like the
beating of all the drums of the world in muffled tattoo, above which and
through which there were enormous clangoring hammer strokes from the
British and German heavies.
It went on till evening, with a few pale gleams of sun through storm
clouds and the smoke of guns, and for miles all this panorama of battle
was boiling and seething with bursting shells and curling wreaths of
smoke from the batteries in action.
When darkness came each battery was revealed by its flashes, and all the
fields around were filled with red winkings and sharp stabs of flame.
There was no real darkness of night, for every second the sky was
crossed by rushes of light and burning beacons in many places, and gun
flashes etched outlines of trees and cottages.
The general situation today is in our favor for the time being by the
recapture of Wytschaete and Meteren and the repulse of many German
attacks, but it is with natural regret one hears of the withdrawal from
the heights east of Ypres in order to straighten the line and economize
men. There was one other regret today, though only sentimental. The
enemy knocked down the Albert church tower, the tower of the golden
Virgin, who had bent head downward over that ruined city with her babe
outstretched. It was a great landmark bound up with all our memories.