Note.--Smoking allowed in all parts of the house.
Though the West Kents thus amused themselves and put many a shy comrade
who refused to sing "in the oven," there was a feeling that danger was
near. Instinct proved unerring.
The Tenth Division stood to all night, so that if the enemy came in
the morning they would not find their hosts unprepared. In the first
trenches were the Connaughts, the Munsters, the Dublin Fusiliers, the
Hampshires and the Inniskillings, the latter to a large extent Ulster
men holding the extreme right wing.
Dawn had scarcely broken when the enemy made his expected attack. The
conditions wholly favored him, for a fairly dense fog prevailed, and
under its cover the Bulgars were able to get within 300 yards of parts
of our line without being observed. The Inniskillings were the first to
be attacked; about 5 A. M. their outposts were driven in and then a
great mass of the enemy swooped down on the trenches, but were driven
back by the fire of our Maxim guns and by the steady magazine fire that
came from the trenches.
Scarcely had the attack on the extreme right of our line had time to
develop when the main body of Bulgars were seen running down a defile
leading to the center of our front. They were perceived as a long,
interminable stretch of men--a mass of shadowy figures revealed half
distinctly in the mist. As they reached the end of the defile they
spread out as from a bottle neck, and with wild cheers flung themselves
on our line. But before they had got so far our guns smashed and
battered the thick procession of men leaping out of the narrow gorge.
It was impossible to miss them. British artillery had never had such a
target since the first battle of Ypres, when the guns literally mowed
down the half-trained German troops who attacked on the Yser.
The slaughter of the guns was magnified by the slaughter of the rapid
magazine fire at short range. Wave after wave of the enemy came on,
each broken as it swept out of the defile, but the Bulgars were not
to be denied. Though their comrades fell thick and fast they came on,
and by sheer impetus of numbers reached our trenches, where awful work
was wrought. It was hand to hand fighting then--terrible to witness,
terrible to think of. The short bayonet of the Bulgar, however, was of
little use in these trench combats, and man for man the British won,
but the Bulgars had the numbers and temporarily the first line of the
Twelfth Division was overborne. The British were driven out.
The British artillery had been doing splendid work, but by now the
enemy artillery was in full blast, and they poured a devastating
and withering hail of fire on our positions, which through faulty
ranging put out of action more of the Bulgars than it did of us. The
Munsters and the Connaughts and the Dublins quickly rallied, and with a
wonderful bayonet charge drove the enemy out of their trenches again.
The enemy, massed in close formation, swarmed in once more, but against
the deadly fire poured into them they could make no headway for some
time. The brave Irish regiments were pouring lead into them as fast as
they could load their rifles. They poured into the oncoming masses as
much as 175 rounds at pointblank range. This will give an idea of the
slaughter that went on this December morning, as the dawn slowly beat
the mists away.