Sleeping quietly,
Far out through the tides of darkness73
Those who remained of the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshires later that same day buried their fallen comrades in the same trench from which they had gone over the top. They erected a wooden memorial in Mansell Copse with the words: ‘The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still.’
Maj.-Gen. Ivor Maxse’s 18th (Eastern) Division made the deepest territorial gains of the day, partly due to the training regime imposed by him on this New Army unit.74 Although it was the division’s first battle it behaved like an elite force, and by 3 p.m. had captured all its objectives, albeit at a cost of 3,115 men. There was a good deal of hand-to-hand fighting; the 7th Buffs were given the task of clearing the old mine warfare Carnoy craters of men of the 6th Bavarian Regiment, for example, which took ninety minutes of brutal, exhausting bayonet fighting. ‘Dead British and Boche, in couples, were found afterwards, each man transfixed by the other’s bayonet’, recalled an eyewitness.75 The diminutive but fierce Sgt. P. G. Upton killed ten men in this crater-fighting.*10
Seeing the danger of a British breakthrough, the German High Command gave orders for all available men—including clerks, cooks, batmen and 200 raw recruits—to occupy the second position to prevent it falling. The 109th Reserve Regiment had lost 42 officers and 2,105 other ranks, while the 6th Bavarian Reserve Regiment had lost 35 officers and 1,775 men.76 Yet the British High Command did not move the 9th (Scottish) Division forward to take advantage of this momentary opportunity.
There were plenty of stories of devotion to duty in the division, such as that of LCpl. G. Bilson, a runner, who was sent off to the 55th Brigade HQ with the historic message that the East Surreys had captured their final objective at 12.30 p.m. The corporal did not return till the next morning. ‘I noticed’, said Col. Irwin of the East Surreys later, ‘that his clothes and equipment were in tatters, and that his eyes were crossed in an extraordinary way. “Where have you been,” I asked. He said he had delivered the message, and coming back was blown up. He had only come to himself half an hour before but his first thought, you see, was to report himself.’77